Someone asks you to watch a video of the Daniel Pearl
beheading. The video makes you sick, makes you turn away because it is so
violent, so ugly, so wrong to watch a man die that way. Your friend, though,
doesn’t turn away and you can tell that he is excited by the video. He leans
into the computer to watch, to be closer. When the video finishes, you breathe
more easily, even though you can already tell that the images are not something
you can forget. Then your friend says, “Now let’s find the Nick Berg video!”
Does
this make you think differently about your friend? Would you want him dating
your daughter? Surely you recognize that there is something twisted in him that
lets him enjoy such horrific images. Something sick. You know that his reaction
to the video is wrong and not something you want to be around. His enjoyment of
that violence is perverted. The images are extremely disturbing but the videos
are not illegal. That is about the only difference between the beheading videos
and child porn. Both kinds of images are photos/videos of horrible crimes, both
make people sick because they recognize how wrong the actions depicted are.
When someone enjoys either the beheadings or child porn, we recognize that
something in that person is sick, twisted.
Why
is one illegal and the other is not? Are we punishing people for their thoughts
when they view child porn? Thought crimes are a little too 1984 for my tastes.
If the person is sick, they need help. It should be possible for a sick person
to get help without having to face imprisonment.
The
crime is the act of victimizing/molesting a child. Should it really be a crime
to look at images of a crime? It isn’t a crime to look at videos of a robbery
or photos of a murder scene. I worry that someone will think I am excusing
child porn. I am not. I read parts of a stranger’s sentencing memo in which the
images found on his computer were detailed. I read the description of one image
and part of another before I had to stop. Even the descriptions are horrifying.
Child porn images should be illegal, as they are. The crime of looking at them,
though… Can we punish people for owning the images and not for what they think
when they view them? And not for fear that the offender will do something
worse? We don’t throw a robber in prison for life because we fear that he will
go on to commit murders.
Child porn exists because there is a market for it. The consumers of child porn and the demand for it make it possible for it to continue to exists. The victim of child porn is continually victimized by people viewing the image. Imagine having had naked pictures taken of yourself and then having them sold by the thousands on the internet. You would never again go anywhere without wondering if you were meeting the eyes of a complete stranger who had seen you naked or performing an intimate sexual act. The victims of child porn are victimized so long as their images are there for strangers to see and feast on. Can they/will they ever recover? Some will. Some won't. Is their pain worth some guy's momentary sexual satisfaction from the pictures? Absolutely not.
ReplyDeleteIt is the possession he would be in trouble for. He had to possess it, much like a drug user must possess the drugs in order to use them, in order to view the images. He also probably had to pay for some of it as people are often into hurting children in such a way for profit. That brings in a whole other set of legal issues.
ReplyDeleteSo, yes, viewing child porn should be illegal. He possessed child porn.