Child Ponorgraphy (Essay Sample)

Child Pornography
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Abstract
Child pornography has become a major concern lately with approximately ¾ of all Interpol member states having laws addressing it. Issues arising from the depiction of adults are the central point to which academic discussion of pornography is tied. I argue and maintain that moral judgments concerning pornography have to be revised when children are involved since it’s a more complex matter. In this analysis, I will focus on the question of harm to the consumers, children involved and the society in general as well as the question of blame and the possibility of it being legally and morally acceptable. My approach involves ethics, taking in account the moral issues involved.
Introduction
Child pornography can simply be described as any sexually explicit activities involving a child in various forms of media such as magazines, photos, writings, drawings, sculptures, animation or films. There are mainly two forms of child pornography which include simulated child pornography and pornography produced with direct involvement of the child (Tate, 1990). It also a form of child abuse and hence sometimes referred to us "child abuse images" since many acts of child abuse occurs during the recording and production of the film or pictures. Prepubescent, pubescent and post pubescent sexual images as well as computer generated images are also categorized under child pornography by most legal definitions.
This form of pornography is illegal and censored in most jurisdictions in the world and most possessors of child pornography arrested are sued and sentenced to jail. Most pornography is corrected and viewed by pedophiles for various purposes ranging from private sexual uses to child grooming (preparing children for sexual purposes). According to a research done by the United States Department of Justice, pornographers have recorded the abuse of more than one million children in the U.S alone (Donnell, 2012). According to the United Kingdom’s Children Charity, the increase in number of children abused in the production process has led to an increase in sex abuses. My aim in this paper is to help to correct that situation by examining the moral status of child pornography.
Ethical Basis in Child Pornography
Back in 2002, the United States Supreme court found the child pornography prevention act unconstitutional ruling that there is no compelling reason to prohibit the manufacture or exhibition of pictures which merely appear to be of children. Currently, two categories of pornography which were previously prohibited are now permitted in the United States. This includes sexually explicit pictures of models perceived to be younger than they are and sexually explicit computer generated pictures of children (Wortley, 2012). The court argued that no children were actually involved in any form of pornography in their production. However, this has spurred a lot of criticism from scholars and raised a lot of questions in the ethical domain. Despite the fact that no children are harmed, it remains harmful and ought to have to be prohibited.
The ethical critics have advanced several arguments to show that children are harmed by any form of pornography, whether virtual or real. According to them, child pornography causes child abuse. Just like the question on whether ordinary pornography encourages rape, this question has been debated for over ten years now. Despite the presence of some conflicting evidences regarding to this question, it is basically clear that it causes child abuse especially when people lack outlets for dangerous sexual urges (Tate, 1990). Critics have also argued that virtual or any form of pornography may be used to seduce actual children, a concept that I totally agree with them. Shirley O’ Brien, a specialist in child abuse owns the idea that pornography might be put to use. He argues that pedophiles use pictures of children engaging in sexual acts to lower the defenses of real children making them think that it’s acceptable since its being done by others.
Another issue that has been brought up by scholars is whether it will be possible to enforce laws prohibiting actual child pornography while virtue pornography is permitted. According to them, if the prosecution had to prove every time that apparent child pornography actually represented real children, it would become intolerably convictions and child pornographers would be allowed to operate with impunity (Wortley, 2012). Despite conflicting arguments from virtual child pornography supporters that it would play a major role in discouraging actual child pornography, it is still clear that it would do great harm to children and society’s moral behaviors. Critics’ last argument is based on isolated pedophiles where they claim that whether actual or virtual, any pornography in the internet allows pedophiles to contact each other and reinforce their desires thus increasing probability of offences.
Preliminary Analyses and Distinction
While discussing child pornography it is important to make some distinctions and some analysis. Fineness and the degree of detail are essential and by analyzing this paper will be trying to achieve a level that will make matters clear without either covering up issues that are difficult. First will of course be to distinguish between different types of pornography and show how well this typology fits the specific case of child pornography.
The first category is that of Rape type material where there may be a record of an actual incident of rape or other non-consensual activity (Brien, 1992). With regards to moral considerations, certain sorts of consensual sexual activity for example marital rape remain unaffected in the child pornography typology. This clearly brings out the second category which is that of consensual type material where there is a record of actual consensual sexual activity. The third category of pornography is that of fake type material where it is mostly inform of a presentation of sexual activity by actors or actresses whether professional or amateur. Nudity material ranks at the fourth category and it includes images of naked people whereas pin up type material is the fifth and it mainly consists of suggestive images of scantily clad people.
Moreover, pornography can be divided into two types with the involvement of two factors which are the way in which the material is produced and way in which it’s consumed. At one point material might be produced for innocent and non pornographic purposes but later misused. To some extent this goes a long way to show that there is more than just pornographic material produced with sexual content for sexual purposes or distributed and misappropriated for sexual purposes (Donnell, 2012). Taking moral ethics into consideration, it is important to distinguish between the four foci involved in pornography which are the subjects, producers, consumers and the product. The consumers are the people in which the pornographic content is targeted to with the producers being the people responsible for its creation. Subjects are the actors or models involved in creation of pornography while the product is the pornography content itself.
Pornography that involves actual juveniles has a different status than general pornography. Although it’s regarded as child pornography, it applies to all underage including teenagers. There are two types of pornography involving juveniles where as described the first is that of juvenile victims pornography incidents where child victimization falls under this category. The second is that of child exploitation pornography incidents and encompasses incidents of production, distribution and sale of child pornographic content.
Effects of Child Pornography
Unlike in most discussions about pornography where most focus tends to be on the harm to the society in general, this text will however also place emphasis squarely on the subjects who in this case are the children themselves. It is important to take into account that the nature and the degree of harm caused by pornographic material is different for different types of materials where for some types the chief harm could actually be caused elsewhere. The text shall start by highlighting the major effects of child pornography to the children who are the main subject matter of discussion.
i) Harm to the Children
A variety of reasons makes the impact of pornography relevant to prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation. One of the major effects of child abuse and exploitation to children is the violent media impact it has to them. Apart from that child pornography tends to portray a child as a form of sexual object for others to use in satisfying their sexual needs. This greatly impact on the mental and physical health of both young girls and boys. When watched by children, it contributes to an earlier onset of sexual behavior among the youth the youth since they tend to view it as a legally and morally acceptable act (Brien, 1992). Child pornography has also been linked with attitudes supporting violence against women in a recent Meta analysis where it’s argued that it may translate to social and practical significance when considered across larger populations. Lastly, the porn environment under which children exposed to child pornography grow greatly affects their vulnerability to victimization, effective bystander action and perpetration.
ii) Harm to the consumers
The consumers are those who use, read, view or watch child pornography. Child pornography will doubtlessly produce a variety of reactions and effects especially to the non pedophile. One of the effects of watching child pornography is that it influences one to seek children as part of his or her pattern of sexual gra...