Up Front: Do My Homework For Me
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3410,
The photo spread on the front of the sports section in today's SST was closer to snuff imagery than I was prepared for, and I'd rage against it becoming the norm. It made my darling cry and me feel sick...
I'm guessing you missed 3news last night, then. I didn't, unfortunately.
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The photo spread on the front of the sports section in today's SST
Now you have made me go and dig the SST out of the recycling bin (I hadn't read the sporting section as there would have been no news of the Chiefs Super 14 game in Durban).
Still, it is an interesting question. Do still images such as these have a greater potency (or 'effect') than moving images, in that they can be clipped, stored, revisited, poured over? I have occasionally visited this proposition, when exploring the hoary old 'media effects' debate, using similar press/still images--such as the photo of Kurt Cobain, holding a gun to his chin, which appeared on the front page of the DomPost years ago. All of the attention, in the research literature, is on the moving image (eg counts of 'violent instances'') , with practically nil attention paid to photographs (except in the case of the 'effects' of pornography).
Be interested on other thoughts on this. -
The photo spread on the front of the sports section in today's SST was closer to snuff imagery than I was prepared for, and I'd rage against it becoming the norm.
Word. I was ambushed by the photos on the Herald site. I don't want to see photos of somebody dying and I don't think they should be made available for those that do.
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So: only the human ape is important?
Aue.
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Islander - I'm with you. I'm completely traumatised by anything involving cruelty to animals. I can't watch it, can't listen to reports about it, can't even read about it because it gives me nightmares.
The recent dog massacre upset me so much I couldn't bear to read anything more than the headline - I just didn't want to know the details because I knew they'd do my head in. Then I accidentally did read a bit and it freaked me out for days. Horrible, horrible.
I was mad as hell at one of the TV news progs because (unlike the other one) they showed photos post-massacre without a warning. Luckily it was on MySky and I was able to fast-forward, but really - is it necessary? I don't believe so.
It confuses and deeply saddens me that we live in such a wonderful country (I feel honoured to have been allowed to become a Kiwi) and yet some of us can behave with such wanton cruelty towards both animals and children. Why? Why do we have such a terrible track record when it comes to cruelty towards those least able to protect themselves? It boggles my mind.
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This is a different story though. No children (or animals) were injured, because there were none there to start with. It's animation. Would this be illegal here?
I think it would, even though it's manga, because the books were "depicting illustrations of child sex and bestiality."
The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 says:
A publication is automatically banned if it promotes or supports, or tends to promote or support:
* The sexual exploitation of children
* Sexual violence or coercion
* Torture or extreme violence
* Bestiality
* Sexual conduct involving a dead person
* The use of urine or excrement in sexual activitySo I'm guessing that includes manga cartoons of said activities.
More info here: Censorship law in New Zealand - from the new Office of Film and Literature Classification - Information for students website - which I may have had a hand in designing and building :)
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Woah there! I think it's extremely important to remember that all pornography involving photographic images and/or video involves a real live person at its heart. Those arrested for possession of child porn in the form of photos or videos are viewing a real live child being abused. It doesn't matter whether or not they would ever "think of engaging in such an act".
The act of downloading/buying/viewing child porn makes them complicit in the act of abuse, whether or not they actually did it themselves. By continuing to add to their collections, they ensure that the child porn industry remains a viable way of making money for those who abuse children - and seeing as children inevitably grow up and stop being children, this means that a ready supply of new victims is always required.
I've been thinking this over webweaver. To make a comparison; I saw the execution of Saddam Hussein. I would argue I was not complicit in the execution of Saddam Hussein regardless of the fact that I willingly clicked on the link.
Banning me from watching this kind of footage would not make the lives of evil dictators safer, because there is more to it than just money. They are acts of cruelty. Were this kind of violence banned, I don't see myself going out, lynching trying and executing people, and to arrest try, imprison and parole (which I will get as I'm hardly likely to reoffend after that shock to the system) me as someone complicit in executing people is a diversion of energy and manpower away from apprehending those guilty of administering the acts. Not a perfect example, but there are many more on the news weekly. Does it stand up to scrutiny?
I'm hesitant to agree that money is a much of a motive here. As with many societal problems and I think the taboo aspect is a primary cause, and this could be better addressed with more considered legislation.
Child pornography where teenagers (played by actors over 18) are depicted having sex is all about the thrill of watching teenagers having sex. Nothing else. That's why I find it morally unacceptable
Why morally unacceptable? Furthermore why morally unacceptable if they were under 18?
Sorry, I was intending to make a distinction between morally unacceptable and socially/politically unacceptable.
So: only the human ape is important?
Word aunty. You gave me flashbacks of contestants eating live creatures on 'The Amazing Race'.
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To make a comparison; I saw the execution of Saddam Hussein. I would argue I was not complicit in the execution of Saddam Hussein regardless of the fact that I willingly clicked on the link.
The comparison isn't valid. Saddam Hussien wasn't stolen from his home or sold by his indebted parents and then sexually abused so that people could sell the images for profit.
Child porn is a market. People who contribute to that market are helping feed the other end which is the abuse of children.
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Saddam was stolen from his home, filmed being hung so footage of the execution could be distributed to media organizations to make profit.
Child porn is a market, and yet in both instances the profit is peripheral to the atrocity. As I understand it Kyle, a lot of child porn is in fact just freely shared. like most porn there is profit to be made, but most people just freeload (see piracy). There are a billion easier ways to make money, so I feel focusing on money neglects the atrocities and more so the central motives of the protagonists.
Does conveniently bundling viewers and producers into the same handy basket in any way elucidate our understanding of the underlying issues here?
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Chris: the comparison would be valid if you were talking about a never-ending supply of Saddams to watch being executed. You're talking about watching a single (albeit shocking) event, as opposed to watching and collecting many such events and selling them to/swapping them with your friends.
A valid comparison would be if you were a collector/watcher of snuff videos. As an afficionado of such things, you would likely eventually hook up with other afficionados, in order to discuss/share/swap/sell your snuff videos. As a group you would be complicit in the creation of these videos (and therefore the killing of those featured) because you have become the market for them.
Money needn't come into it - I know many child pornographers swap and share their stuff - but the group's insatiable desire for more more more, and their need to continually be sourcing new material is what creates the demand, and therefore at least partly fuels the ongoing sexual abuse of the children featured. Therefore, to my mind anyway, those who view/collect/share the material are complicit in the act of abuse.
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Seems pretty hard to argue with that frankly.
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webweaver - maybe offhread, maybe not but -long time ago I realised that where there is a brain, there will be consiousness to a greater or lesser extent. It wont necessarily be our kind of consiousness - even in other homonims (I'd love to timetravel and study H. sapiens neanderthalis)- but there will a consiousness, given a functioning brain. Which is why I respect fish brains* - bird brains- you name the brain! And I wont eat animals that have been through an abbattoir (anything I shoot, family/friends shoot, is fair game) and I do find fishkill-porn offensive.
And I agree with your comments about child pornography. One of the relatively unknown facets about abused children** is that they relatively often (sorry about the reiterated 'relatively's - actual figures are hard to obtain - mine come through a privileged source in DSAC) are targeted by paedophiles.
*Even whitebait brains? Yep. Which is why I keep my catch without water: killing individuals is pretty well impossible, but keeping the catch in water prolongs the agony.
**Physically or sexually abused children, who come to the attention of teh authorities
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Money needn't come into it - I know many child pornographers swap and share their stuff - but the group's insatiable desire for more more more, and their need to continually be sourcing new material is what creates the demand, and therefore at least partly fuels the ongoing sexual abuse of the children featured.
I can agree with that. You cleared that up nicely.
Having seen a couple of pirated Wayan's brother movies i hate to dwell on my complicity in their making.
Sure we could hypothetically dry up the market, but will Van Goph stop painting?
How can we best focus our resources to protect children? How much of the child abuse data confiscated in New Zealand is New Zealand made?
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Awful though it is to think about, I believe many child abusers photograph and film their victims, in order to have something to trade. So the problem is not going to go away easily.
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Viewing child abuse imagery makes you complicit in the crime in the same way being in posession of stolen goods is a crime, even if you didn't steal them, or purchase them from the thief. A friend of mine has a permanent black mark on her record for receiving because a police officer visiting her flat on other business noticed a street sign on the flat wall that some aquaintance of hers had brought over one drunken night. Obviously not the same type of offence etc, but perhaps a closer analogy than watching Saddam do the Tyburn jig.
Then we come back to drawings, animations, CGI, written fiction, etc. The stuff that does not in any way involve the abuse of an actual child. Is a crudely drawn cartoon of Lisa Simpson engaged in a sexual act comparable to an image of an actual child in the same activity?
This is where the evidence needs to exist that viewing any kind of child-related porn can demonstrably lead to emulating the acts in the porn in real life. The equivalent here is if my friend got a piece of paper & crayons and drew a picture of a stop sign, then got done for receiving for having it on her wall. -
Viewing child abuse imagery makes you complicit in the crime in the same way being in posession of stolen goods is a crime, even if you didn't steal them, or purchase them from the thief. A friend of mine has a permanent black mark on her record for receiving because a police officer visiting her flat on other business noticed a street sign on the flat wall that some aquaintance of hers had brought over one drunken night. Obviously not the same type of offence etc, but perhaps a closer analogy than watching Saddam do the Tyburn jig.
tyburn jig is one way of putting it...eww. I think webweaver put it more delicately Jeremy, I don't think as a viewer you were complicit in the bombing of Hiroshima, 911, the assassination of Kennedy, the bombing of Dunkirk, the Holocaust. I don't think the schools that seeked out these videos to show us were complicit in these acts.
Having at one point actively sourced a large number of videos of nuclear detonations I don't see myself as complicit in the development, testing or use of nuclear technology. I think it really comes down to what lengths one goes to and for what purpose.
I can't bring myself to try to answer your other abstraction Jeremy, i see it as much of a muchness.
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"We don't even have a literacy test to be eligible vote"
Heh. Classic.
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Thanks for keeping that Gio, thought I'd better cull the rest...
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The analogy with the Holocaust and other historical events that you didn't cause just by watching reconstructions or documentaries or whatever is way off the mark, by the way. The point is not that you produce those events by watching their representation, is that you encourage the production of more representations. Hence the Hitler Channel on your telly and so forth. The big difference is that nobody is hurt in the making of documentaries about Hitler or about Hiroshima, whereas in the case of child porn... be a dear and finish the sentence for me, eh?
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It does sound like you'd enjoy Howard Buten's book When I Was Five I killed Myself, chris, if you haven't come across it already.
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"...children are hurt in the making of child porn"
Cool, I'll try to find it, I'm reminded of a childhood experience, when I was seven, my second best friend (who shall remain nameless), was lying on his bed, and started rubbing himself against it, he said try this , it's great, jaded as I was I declined. If I'd wanted to do that with him I would have, if we'd filmed it, it would have constituted child porn. but at that age we were in a legislative nowhere land.
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It does sound like you'd enjoy Howard Buten's book When I Was Five I killed Myself, Chris, if you haven't come across it already.
I hope it has a cover like David Haywood's book,
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if we'd filmed it, it would have constituted child porn. but at that age we were in a legislative nowhere land.
You know perfectly well that it's not how child porn is produced, come on.
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You know perfectly well that it's not how child porn is produced, come on.
In my defence your honour, actually I don't. My point wasn't so much about childporn, it was along the lines of my 'brave new world' spiel about education in the culled post. In that I had the wherewithal to know I didn't want to do it, I declined, but I didn't know I'd be breaking the law had i accepted. And had I accepted, why should that be any business of the state?
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Are you saying we're curbing the entreprenurial spirit of seven year olds? I'm not sure I understand. If you're saying that we're excessively infantilising children, for instance by pretending that prepubescent boys and girls don't have a sexuality, I'm right with you, and it's why I brought up the Buten book. Not sure if that extends to encouraging children to record themselves and share. But even if it did, I'm pretty sure that a child so minded wouldn't be prosecuted for child porn, no?
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