Porn Again Hypocrisy: What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Two burglars broke into a man’s barn in Delhi, California, on Sept. 12 and stole 50 CD-Rom’s thinking they were blanks, but when they took their loot home to burn some music, discovered some of them contained child pornography. Later, a family member convinced the burglars to report the contents of the computer discs to the sheriff’s department and turn the man in.

Investigators served a search warrant on the man’s property finding three desktop computers and three laptops. They believe he has been downloading the images and movies since 2004. He was arrested, booked into jail for felony possession of child pornography, and required to post $25,000 bail.

The two burglars went free. "We did not actually go out and arrest the suspects for the burglary. They were obviously the lesser of two evils," explained a sherriff’s deputy.

Obviously? What’s wrong with this picture?

How is it that burglary – breaking and entering another’s house or building for the purpose of stealing property – a lesser evil than privately downloading from the Internet child porn images on a computer? What right do the police have to rely on burglars to gather evidence for them by committing serious crimes?

Make no mistake, I am in no way attempting to minimize the social and individual harm involved to the well being of children by the production and distribution of child pornography. The prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse of children is a matter of serious importance. While pornography is generally regarded by the courts as protected speech under the First Amendment, child pornography is not, and for good reasons.

The use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is often harmful to their physiological, emotional, and mental health. Children are not competent to consent to such conduct. Indeed, such exploitation amounts to rape for which severe criminal penalties are justified to the producers of child porn. Likewise, it is proper for law enforcement to eliminate the market for such materials by imposing appropriate criminal penalties on persons selling, advertising, or otherwise promoting the product.

That being said, the man in this case – the victim of the burglary -- was not a producer or distributor of child pornography. This man was not raping or otherwise sexually exploiting kids. In all probability, he is not even a pedophile. In all likelihood, he does not present any danger whatsoever to children. His crime, if you can call it that, was looking at pictures of the victims of crimes. There is no evidence that he’s a dangerous societal pervert or monster.

Like it or not, pornography is a global multi-billion dollar industry. There are literally millions of porn sites on the Internet. Millions, if not, billions of human beings display an enormous and seemingly insatiable appetite for viewing images depicting sex and sexual activities. Every kind of conventional and unconventional sex imaginable is avidly sought out for viewing by normal human beings.

Normal human beings by the millions enjoy watching erotic, titillating and even downright disgusting sexual activities involving other human beings – interracial sex; sadistic sex; humiliation sex; bondage sex; midget sex; animal sex; cuckold sex; old & young sex; anal sex; oral sex; gay sex; lesbian sex; bisexual sex; scatological sex; cartoon sex; femdom sex; group sex; swinger sex; up-skirt sex; voyeur sex; just to name a few of the categories, and the lists go on and on.

Normal human beings can watch a movie depicting gay porn, yet not be gay; sadistic sex, yet not be sadistic; sex between young men and very old women, yet not desire old women; femdom sex, yet have no desire to be dominated by a woman; and yes, even child porn, yet not be a pedophile. It’s disgusting, yes, but normal people are fascinated with disgusting and that is a well known fact.

Ironically, if this man was in possession of images of children being strangled, stabbed to death, or otherwise physically abused in ways having nothing to do with sex, there would be no crime. Which is worse, a picture of a child being physically abused, or a picture of a child’s genitals? Surely, most people are capable of viewing pictures of crime victims without being tempted to commit the same crime. Movies and TV shows depicting crimes are some of the most popular entertainment around. 

Equally ironic is the fact that the police, prosecutor, judge, and jury dispensing “justice” for the “crime” of possessing and viewing child porn, must by necessity commit exactly the same act – the same “crime” -- as the accused. They must possess and view the offensive material just like the “criminal.” How many other “crime’s” can you think of in which that is the case? No one, for example, must by necessity commit rape in order to bring a rapist to justice.

Producing and distributing child porn is wrong, a serious crime, and should be punished accordingly. But merely possessing and viewing the disgusting images is another matter entirely. Yes, perhaps it should be a crime, but not a felony, and it certainly is not a greater evil than the crime of burglary.