Person charged under BDSM part of nasty new law (96)

I do sort of understand the point that I think you are trying to make.

If (and that is quite a big if) there were reliable evidence that the use of child pornography in a therapeutic way could reduce the incidence of actual child abuse then it might be possible to support it. However I don't think simply decriminalising possession would have that affect. I think it would have to be something that was only allowed in connection with therapy and treatment under properly controlled conditions, and of images that were selected by the therapists.

An even bigger 'but' is that as far as I am aware there is no good evidence that use of images is actually of much use in therapy of this nature, and there may never be. There has been some quite successful work done in helping people deal with paedophile desires, but I don't believe any of it has involved use of porn, and there are probably good reasons for that. Although it may be difficult to get rid of these desires completely the fact that they can never be legally acted out means that the therapy has to be aimed at suppressing them as far as possible and reducing the control they have over people's lives. Pornography and masturbation clearly don't do that, so are not really helpful therapies.

(For those who don't think this discussion is relevant to BDSM activism I would say that understanding the arguments and motivations around making images illegal is always relevant, because we have to be able to show the differences between these two types of porn to be able to understand and argue the case for not making adult BDSM porn illegal.)

Consent. (C....O....N....S....E....N....T)

Adult. (A...D...U....L...T)

Non-Consenting....

Child....

The difference is as clear as hot and cold, or fire and water.

I say again, discussions about the 'pros and cons' of child pornography should take place on off topic, or nowhere - they certainly do not have a place on an Activism board on a BDSM discussion forum; there IS NO collective 'Activism' from the BDSM Community about child pornography - apart from the condemnation of it.

Our activism centres around challenging the newly introduced law making possession of images of Consenting Adults a criminal offence.

Edited 29 Oct 09, 7:38 PM by Semblance

Its a neat distinction if you can make it...but unfortunately the Law in this area is not so helpful. mq is spot on in suggesting that to understand the arguments around making certain images illegal, you need to have some understanding of the arguments around the issues of indecent imagery of children.

Maybe not all the way back to 1857 (the first Obscene Publications Act). But certainly to 1978 - the Protection of Children Act. That brought a number of new-ish concepts on to the law books: "indecency", for one, which the legal scholars are still arguing over; "making" of an image, for another.

Subsequent amendments in respect of pseudo-photographs are likely to be of great relevance to campaigners in respect of extreme porn: also the section of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 that inserted into statute the idea that you could be sent to prison for possession of an image depicting a perfectly legal act - albeit that the act included 16 and 17 year olds who, in law, are still children.

Surprised also that activism is here limited to the legislation of extreme porn which may in the end turn out to be something of a red herring. The real damage to civil liberties is to be found in the Safeguarding and Vetting Act 2006, which was put in place in large part to protect children.

That includes explicit measures to prevent those with an s&m interest from working with children: its implementation goes far further, putting in place a scoring system that could well exclude anyone with any interests deemed to be sexually "perverse" from working with the vulnerable; and the knock-on social effects seem to be doing further damage through professional codes of conduct.

To discuss the role of children in legislation of this sort is in no way to condone any activity whatsoever in respect of the under-age. But failing to recognise that child protection has played a major part in development of social policy and legislation over the past three decades seems to be a serious rejection of history.

Back in the days when Gay Rights were just getting off the ground, one argument that held much appeal to the anti brigade was "would you want one teaching your child?". The implication, of course, was that all homosexuals were perverts of the worst kind and not to be trusted near children.

Fast forward to a NoTW editorial last year, in the wake of the Mosley case: "What would your response be if your child's teacher enjoyed inflicting pain on others and took part in S&M orgies with prostitutes?"

"Wouldn't you want to know?"

"Don't you have a right to know?"

Adult bdsm may have nothing at all to do with under-age sex: but those opposed to sexual diversity will not make quite the same distinction.

Regards,

John

I think it's a hard enough battle on our hands already to counter the government propaganda that's out there, and to even establish a way to get our views across without being misrepresented, if we don't make a CLEAR distinction between our views/standpoint about images of consenting adults and our views/standpoint about images of children.

I know where this thread began - but it moved significantly south of that starting point, and seemed to be just centering on a discussion about ACTUAL child pornography, it no longer seemed to be about psuedo-child pornography - a distinction which is still relatively unknown by the wider vanilla community we are trying to education.

Educate, not alienate!

WE understand the difference, between an image of an under aged person and an image of a 36 year old dressed in a school uniform, but we have to win the minds of others who do not live our lives and do not understand the subtle 'shades' of this subject - its an emotive subject, and we would, I think, be wise not to appear to 'even remotely' condone child abuse.

Careless talk, and all that.

The latter discussion I read was, as I've said, wandering very far south of safe ground.

And we are hardly occupying safe ground to begin with.

Thin Ice...Skating on...

Edited 29 Oct 09, 11:33 PM by Semblance

This - above - and what went before it - this is not talking about psuedo anything, this is discussing child pornogrpahy; this is not something I think our community can afford to be seen to be 'academically' discussing, when we have a huge and complex battle on our hands already to change wider society's perceptions about us.

Its bad strategy - its fuel for our detractors.

Actually, I am going to add to this, because its very possible that what I'm trying to say I'm not saying very well...

The issues around images of consenting adults are being painted in very black and white terms by the government, and the general public is being fed this very black and white perspective. The collective activism coming from our community is an attempt to counter this black and white perspective and show that it is far more of a grey area than the general public is being made to believe. Thats hard hard work. Thats a big battle on our hands to win over minds and overturn presumtions - and we have engaged upon this in response to feeling threatened - to feel safe.

To also imply that we think child pornography may be 'a bit of a grey area too' is just shooting ourselves in the foot. I don't think we can afford to be anything other than black and white on THAT subject.

Edited 30 Oct 09, 12:36 AM by Semblance

It is Defined as 'Common Sense from a jury of 12 of your peers' (bdsm peers).