Balancing rights like adult freedom of expression against a child’s right to a safe and secure childhood can be a difficult task, and the debate surrounding virtual child pornography is complex and by its very nature, controversial.
Initially outlawed in America, the ban on virtual child porn was overturned in 2002, but ‘real’ video footage of child porn remains illegal in the States. In the UK, real child pornography is also legislated against, as is possessing indecent photos of children, which can include cartoons or simulated images. One of the first cases involving virtual child porn images in the UK was reported in 2011.
A recent article in South Africa’s Times Live talks about the potential benefits of virtual child pornography, animation which features sexual activities with children but which don’t involve the use of actual children to make, as a way of providing a ‘safe’ outlet for paedophiles. Virtual child porn is currently illegal in South Africa, so the article argues that legalising this kind of material could prevent ‘real world’ attacks on children.
However, the research doesn’t fully support this view.
Reports and investigations into the correlation between watching child pornography, of all kinds, and committing child sexual offences in the real world, offer three broad conclusions:
- Viewing child pornography increases the likelihood of a person committing child sexual abuse. Reasons given are that the pornography normalizes and/or legitimizes sexual interest in children, and that pornography may also eventually cease to satisfy the user.
- Viewing child pornography decreases the likelihood of an individual committing child sexual abuse. It is suggested that the pornography acts as a substitute for committing actual offences. Simulated child pornography is then seen as an alternative so that real children are not harmed.
- There is no correlation between viewing child pornography and acts of child sexual abuse, or available evidence is insufficient to allow us to draw any conclusions.
The same confusion surrounds the correlation between watching adult porn and instances of rape. The reality must surely be that much of the relationship between seeing virtual or online material and acting on it comes down to individual personality, environment and opportunity – not an easy combination to simplify into broader generalisations.
In Japan, Rinko, a virtual teenage girl who features on a dating simulator app called LovePlus also blurs the lines between what is real and what is acceptable. She has become a mobile app sensation, and has begun to attract attention from adult men all over the world, despite the app being geared towards teenagers – the player has to assume the role of a teen in order to interact with Rinko. And whilst you can’t have sex with Rinko, you can stroke her chest, for which she may kiss you in return.
So where do you think we should draw the line when it comes to virtual animation of child pornography and should we make all child pornography illegal around the world?
Researching Reform 
Reblogged this on World Peace Forum.
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Reasons as to why some people (and it’s usually men) are ‘turned on’ by looking at babies and young children, as well as girls and boys in their early teens – as it usually is – need to be looked into and studied and attempts made to understand them. There must be some, even if abhorrent to the rest of us. I certainly don’t understand it and would never condone it even if I did because there is no excuse for such vile actions.
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Yea, I would love to know why I get turned on by little girls.
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It is impossible for a mother to understand or accept such a vile behaviour but clearly it is going on in some families.
Normally it is about “generational abuse” passed on from one generation to another and often there are women involved.
From, many studies on this subject it is generally accepted that this vile / sick behaviour agains vulnerable children can sometimes go on for 3 generations. It is also accepted that often women involved have themselves been victims of abuse in their families.
Some of these women / mothers are also sadistic in their attitude to their own children and life.
We need to look at this subject and study it in a same way as we study any kind of a criminal mind and a pattern of behaviour which has already been done over the past 25 years…
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I think the line should be drawn between indistinguishable, and “high quality, but clearly CGI”. I think that child porn could help for those who have the fetish and who also don’t want to harm children. (Like myself.) And real child pornography should be illegal because it harms children. Obviously. But virtual, I think should pass. As long as it’s clearly virtual.
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