I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while now. I've had this on my notes for a few days now and I've now got the courage to share it.
It was three years ago now when my daughter who was 19 at the time was arrested.
At first none of us knew why she was arrested but then after a few days the charges became public. We found out she was charged with CP. As you can imagine all of us were shocked to say the least. Our daughter is the most kindest and caring person you could get. We couldn't imagine her being capable of doing something this horrific. It wasn't in her nature.
At first we thought there was a misunderstanding and the charges must have been trumped up. None of us thought for a minute that she could be guilty of these crimes. We had her back from the moment she was arrested and we were all convinced she was innocent even though none of us had heard her side of the story.
In the weeks leading up to the trial we spoke to her a handful of times via the phone and through visits. We told her we would get the best lawyer money could buy and we would help her clear her name but anytime we tried to talk about the charges or the trial she would change the subject. It was very infuriating but in hindsight I know this was because she was planning to plead guilty.
I still remember when she only used a court appointed attorney and pleaded guilty. We were all shocked. All we could think was why she would plead guilty and not try to fight the charges like an innocent person would. Was she doing it to get a shorter sentence? Could she actually be guilty guilty? There has to be a misunderstanding here. I remember being there in person with my son during the trial. We had never been so shocked in our lives. It was like a punch to the stomach.
The trial was short as she pleaded guilty but to us it went on forever. The judge told us the details of what was found and they were horrific. Apparently, she had lewd pictures both real and drawn of little girls being abused. Some were as young as three or four. She ended up getting about a year in jail and was given a SOPO (Sexual Offences Prevention Order) and made to register as a SO for 10 years.
I tried asking her in prison why she pleaded guilty but none of us have received an answer.
It was so embarrassing for all of us. Her name and face were all over the papers and the Internet and we all have to live life being known as the family whose sister/daughter is a convicted "nonce"/"wrong'un".
All of us were in shock. At first some of us were in denial about her guilt but over time we came to terms with the fact that our daughter/sister was a SO but some of my family are still in denial. For those of us who had come to terms with the truth the only question remaining was why? Why would she have those photos? Did she get them by accident or something? This isn't the type of thing you can imagine someone you know doing/getting in trouble for. This is something that only happens to strangers you read about on the news. I hated the thought of my daughter being one of them. I know she's done bad things but the thought of her being in prison still breaks my heart.
She was released last Spring and now lives with me. She pretty much has no future and has destroyed her life. I let her live rent free as she's pretty much unemployable and has no chance of getting a secondary education unless she moves back to Spain but even then her convection is going to follow her like a shadow.
I still love my daughter as any mother would but I see her in a completely different light now. She still spends a lot of time on the internet and I can't help but worry about what she's doing there. I just don't want her to get in trouble again.
She has goodness in her but she needs the right help and the guidance to rise above all of this. I know she's got problems but I see the best in her. She isn't a cruel person and she loves people, especially children. I know she didn't do any of this for sadistic reasons.
Okay so:
Your daughter has a medical condition, because ultimately that's what pedophilia is. It's not a nice one, certainly not the kind you'd talk about to others, but the goal here should be for you and your daughter to get through this thing without any children being raped, not pass judgement on her for a crime that is frankly no more morally wrong than buying clothes made with slave labor. Less (but still some) moral judgement, more understanding and more thinking about how to get her into a better situation will probably do both of you a lot of good.
I might agree with you if all she had were drawings or AI images of CSAM, but she had pictures of real little girls being abused. That's very knowingly incentivizing the people who post such things to do it more. Not like unknowingly buying clothes that were made with slave labor at all.
That's exactly the point of the comparison. Drawings and AI images don't harm anyone, so frankly they're non-issues. And if anyone wants to disagree, please explain why they're issues. CP encourages child abusers to abuse more children, just as buying chocolate with slave labor cocoa encourages slavers to enslave more children.
I think many people know that their chocolate, clothes and almost everything is made with slave labor. You certainly seem to, so pretty much any bar of chocolate (or anything with chocolate in it) you buy is knowingly supporting child slavery. The point being: Watching child porn is certainly bad for the reasons you stated, but it's also not the end of the world. It's not like she was out there raping kids. This is a place the OP's daughter can turn back from, so the focus should be on doing that and getting her life back on track. OP can live with this thing without diddling kids and without living in her mother's basement for the rest of her life, so the doom and gloom of the OP's post struck me as immensely counterproductive.
It's a poor comparison.
Many people do avoid knowingly buying products made with slave labor. Buying products from a company does encourage them to continue their practices.
A better comparison would be if you had to go out of your way to find a secret back alley shirt maker, and on that shirt were a picture of chuldren getting abused while making it, on it written "little girls were hurt in the making of this shirt."
Pedophilia is a symptom of a disorder that needs treatment, but if your morals include "Children should not be sexually abused," enjoying pictures of it would be wrong under that moral framework. Some people compulsively lie and steal and as well, it doesn't make those actions any less wrong. A reason isn't an excuse.
And looking at fake images, while they don't encourage abuse to create, still play into neuroplasticity. Looking at them isn't helping anyone become any less of a pedophile and may lead to seeking out more extreme and realistic images in the future.
But I do agree this is a place someone should come back from. It's a disorder, not a curse.
Yes, many do, but many don't. My point isn't that it's okay because many people do it, but that we accept the same sin when we do it, but when a certain group of people does it it's suddenly the end of the world. Just putting things into perspective.
That would imply that doing bad things in video games or watching bad things happen in movies is wrong. It doesn't follow logically.
If someone can find a safe outlet for their compulsive lying or stealing without lying to or stealing from people, I'm going to actively encourage that for the same reason.
Is there something such as becoming less of a pedophile? This is one area where research is necessary before statements can be made either way, but I find it hard to believe that out of all sexual preferences pedophilia would be the one you can abstain out of existence.
It might, or it might be the one thing they can do to keep their urges under control. This is going to come down to individual difference, and since there's basically no research on the subject we're forced to resort to blind speculation, and while I get your caution given the stakes, I want to note that the stakes are high either way. If you're right, then virtual child porn is a gateway drug to child rape and should be treated similarly, but if you're wrong then you're denying sick people a way of protecting children from themselves. There's no side of caution to err on here.
I explained why your camparison wasn't adequate for the situation. Child porn isn't as necessary as a shirt, and the abuse is the product, rather than the result of it. There's plenty of ways we all unknowingly contribute to suffering, I'm not going to grade them all on a curve to justify the others.
I don't follow your logic equating child porn to violence in games and movies. Even in situations where violence is gratitous and in poor taste, it's still fake. No real person is actually getting hurt.
I stand by what I said, enjoying pictures that can only be made by hurting someone is wrong, if you believe hurting people is wrong. This is directed at OP's mentioning their kid had real images of children in abusive situations.
Having a disorder doesn't make someone's actions less bad, but I didn't say having a disorder is wrong in itself. Nor did I imply pedophilia can be abstained out of existence, either, rather that it doesn't need to be acted on. I like BDSM but I don't need it so much I would compromise my ideals to get it.
My statement about neuroplasticity was based on the science around porn addiction, and I'm not too happy with your oversimplification, suggesting I think "virtual child porn is a gateway drug to child rape." There've been some ups and downs on that front, but there's a fair amount of research from the last fifty years about it. Weird, sex-needing animals that we are, behaviours associated with a dopamine release can become addictive. So yes, I would err on the side of caution because addiction is a real, chemical dependency.
To go back to the violence in games comparison, research hasn't found a link between enjoying violent media and being violent. Best guess is because the violence itself isn't causing the dopamine release, like porn does. In movies and games the violence is usually part of a narrative instead of being the focus.
I don't have any problem with research on whether or not people with paraphelias can manage urges using generated images, but only if there was a precedent to support that. So far the information we have points in the other direction.