Fuck the Children

Because his girlfriend had breasts, pubic hair, and a few months to go before becoming a legal adult. And who, if charged with committing a serious crime, likely would be treated as a legal adult.

Mature enough to know right from wrong when dealing drugs, too immature to know right from wrong when dealing with her own body -- although by law, she was old enough to consent to sex, but not old enough to consent to being photographed during the act Corp ultimately was convicted of a lesser charge, "interstate distribution of child pornography" (because the film stock used was manufactured out of state), and spent five months in prison and six in a halfway house.

In Pittsburgh recently, a 15-year-old girl was arrested for taking nude pictures of herself and sending them to people she met online. Likely, this was not done under duress, but under a Christina Alguilera haze, in which she assumed the only way to get attention was to take off her clothes. But it was voluntary, and teenagers are savvy enough to know the consequences of such actions.

Somehow, police were made aware of the pictures, and after seizing her computer and finding dozens of naked photographs, they arrested her and charged her with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography, and dissemination of child pornography.

While details are sketchy, one assumes that she's charged with sexually abusing herself and possessing and disseminating pornographic images of herself, which creates a number of questions. How can someone be charged with exploiting herself (anti-prostitution laws aside), and how can someone be charged with possessing images of herself, regardless of the content?

Fifteen isn't five. Fifteen means puberty, and it means a lifetime of exposure to graphic images and messages that encourage girls to embrace their inner skank. You can blame advertising agencies, you can blame the media, and you can blame the teenage girls who know how to play the system, but you can't blame men and women for finding images of sexually mature individuals appealing.

When we think of child pornography, we think of kiddie porn dungeons in Denmark or Sweden or one of those other perverse Scandinavian countries, where kiddie kink is churned out like an assembly line. Or maybe that's just me. We tend to think of defenseless toddlers or pre-pubescent children being used and abused by sicko Vikings or creepy guys with bad comb-overs and thick glasses.

What we often fail to acknowledge is that in our frenzy to prevent such a rare crime, we cast a net so wide that people who aren't thrusting and thrusting and thrusting themselves upon a child are caught in it -- usually at the expense of catching those who truly are turning a kid's life into a nightmare.

Any mention of children possibly being abused, even if it's just a rumor about a kid who heard about a kid who got his arms cut off by a guy dressed as a clown, sends people into a tizzy. Rational thinking flies out of the window, and mob mentality rules. "Crucify! Crucify! Crucify!" becomes the rallying cry.

It's the same mentality behind much-hyped placebo legislation such as Megan's Law, which does absolutely nothing to protect children but does provide parents with a false sense of security. Megan's parents knew what kind of men lived across the street -- the entire neighborhood knew -- but that knowledge didn't save her and it couldn't have saved her because kids aren't saved by laws, they're saved by attentive parents.

And the constant focus on the Internet Boogeyman, the man who'll make your innocent young thing get her kit off on her Web cam, causes society to freak out about such a small threat of sex abuse initiated by strangers while much more realistic threats are lurking in the garage loft being rented out to a second cousin twice removed.

If Pete Pedophile diddles his dangly part in private to child porn, prosecuting him amounts to punishing him for his unpopular thoughts -- but he's an easy target. Child pornography has been illegal in the US since 1978, and there are few people willing to leave the house wearing a "Let's Hear It for Baby Buttfucking" t-shirt because few people find it appealing.

But the federal government has been tracking it down and stamping it out with a vengeance, while ignoring more tried and true examples of child sex abuse. Congress passed the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996, which extended to the online medium, so that those creating doctored child porn photos faced the same fate as possessing "Young And Tender XII." ("No actual children were harmed in these photos.")

The Supreme Court, showing more wisdom than usual, declared the CPPA unconstitutional, but any legislation related to children that is struck down eventually returns with even more Draconian implications, and the media show no signs of giving parents a break. YOUR ... CHILDREN ... ARE ... AT ... RISK. NEWS ... AT ... ELEVEN.

In July 1998, veteran radio reporter Larry Matthews pleaded guilty to two counts of receiving and trafficking child pornography on the Internet. Matthews was well-known for his undercover work, and in 1995, while working as an editor for National Public Radio, he produced a three-part series on the explosion of Internet-based child porn.

The following year, he continued his investigation and tipped the FBI off to one woman he said was peddling her kids online, according to court briefs. In 1997, he obtained child porn during an investigation about the online trade of the illegal material. His ultimate goal, he claimed, was to sell a magazine article about children being prostituted online and law enforcement's track record for dealing with the problem, his attorneys said.

Matthews apparently stepped in the middle of an FBI "Innocent Images" sting and was indicted on 15 counts of possessing and transmitting child pornography. Regardless of Matthews' true interest -- one does have to question his intense interest in the subject -- the government's stance is that the mere glance at child porn makes one susceptible to prosecution.

The American government argues that simply viewing child porn, even if one can legitimately argues that it wasn't for prurient interests, warrants 18 months in prison -- the sentence handed down to Matthews after his guilty plea. There is no grey area, there is no middle ground, there is no justification or mitigating circumstance, unless you're a rich, aging rock star.

But even those trafficking in child porn rarely face a sentence as harsh as Mike Diana, who caught the full brunt of the crusade to save America's children.

In 1994, Mike Diana, the creator of the comic book "Boiled Angel," found himself tangled in a long legal battle because of his artwork. "Boiled Angel" graphically depicted such subjects as child abuse, date rape and violence stemming from religious intolerance -- the kind of material that keeps the Lifetime Network afloat.

Several months after authorities contacted him in regard to the Gainesville murders, Diana got a subscription order to "Boiled Angel" that had a Largo, Florida area return address. He had never gotten orders from that community before because his comic book had a small circulation among friends, and as far as he knew, no one else was aware of it.

At the time, he didn't realize that it was local authorities subscribing to his comic book in order to prosecute him for distributing obscene material. "Boiled Angel #7" was Diana's cannibalism issue, which featured an interview with "Cannibal Killer" Otis O'Toole. He talked about making BBQ sauce from little boys and rambled on about other absurd topics. The state attorney's office took it seriously and issued a summons for publishing, advertising and distributing lewd and obscene material.

The prosecutor told reporters that "Boiled Angel" contributed "to the breakdown of the moral fiber of the country." He said Diana should seek help and stay away from children. Because reading a convicted killer's sick thoughts would cause untold numbers of Floridians to attempt to make Little Dylan Mesquite BBQ Sauce.

Convicted of "distribution of obscenity," Diana's sentence included a $3,000 fine, mandatory psychological testing, enrollment in a journalism ethics course, and three years of probation, during which time his residence could be inspected without warning to determine if he was in possession of, or was creating, "obscene material."

And while his comic book wasn't labeled child porn because it wasn't, another part of his sentence ordered that he have no contact with children under 18 years of age. He didn't hurt children. He didn't encourage anyone to hurt children. But he depicted images of children being hurt, therefore he was a threat.

Said Pultizer-Prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman: "I think the Florida decision is barbaric. It seems like backwoods, Faulknerian thinking." He added that the court was confused "between the dreams and hallucinations put on paper -- which requires discipline and self-control -- and acting out those inner demons."

Are the acts of those who possess child porn, whether it's a graphic story or images from a chat room, so heinous that it requires considerable law enforcement resources to target those who might not be acting on inner demons, at the expense of those who are? Or those who, for all intents and purposes, do not possess child porn as the average American envisions it to be? Or those who are caught up in the hysteria of protecting children at all costs?

Granted, if a small segment of the population did not crave naked images of young kids, there wouldn't be a market for them (although it wouldn't stop actual abusers from creating their own private collection), but treating these people as awful criminals who need to be stigmatized forever certainly isn't going to help them overcome whatever problems they might have.

Prosecute those who directly exploit and harm the children -- sweatshop workers get better wages, after all -- but provide assistance or monitoring to those who seek out the fruits of the exploitation to ensure that they aren't acting on their fantasies. Millions of people visit Rotten.com and other sites each year without recreating the scenes (some of which depict illegal acts), and there's no reason to assume everyone who views child porn wants to work at a bike shop and ply kids with liquor in an attempt to molest them.

While nervously looking under the bed for pedophiles -- because, if one believes the media, molested children are always the victims of strangers, usually ones they met on the AOL chat room DaddyAndDaughterLove -- society overlooks the real threats. Around 80 percent of sexually abused children are molested by family members or friends of the family.

While parents are crusading to prosecute and castrate wackos salivating over photos of 10-year-old Mary J. Youngsnatch, they're not keeping an eye on Gramps or "Uncle" Mikey.

And if Mommy does find out that Daddy has been shtuping Brianna, more than likely, Daddy won't go to jail. He'll receive extensive counseling or Mommy will sweep it under the carpet and hope Brianna never mentions it again.

Unless he tapes it, in which case, he'll receive counseling, and whoever buys it will receive hard time.

That's the heart of the problem. Parents and other crusaders don't want to look in their own backyards. It's easier to lynch the pock-faced creep spending hours on IRC downloading naughty, vile photos because he's not your brother, husband, or cousin.

It would be a better use of resources to stop and prosecute the overwhelming majority of child sex abuse cases that don't have the same "Fox Undercover" appeal as Internet sex rings or lonely losers who exhange photos created by others.

Before tackling as minor a problem as child pornography -- where actual children and not pubescent teenagers are featured -- the government and parents should focus on the true abusers of children.

If they don't, we'll continue to see legislation and sham trials impeding our freedoms in order to protect the children. Well, fuck the children.

But fuck 'em and don't take pictures.

Providing jack-off material for white misogynists since 1997.

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