The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. – H.L. Mencken
Oppressions always start with those nobody is willing to defend. Historically, that usually meant some unpopular ethnic or religious minority, or else whores or some other group who upset the prevailing mores of the time and place. But since all law is built on precedent, it is only a matter of time before the same maltreatment is extended to successively larger and more broadly-defined groups. As I expressed it in “Give Them an Inch”:
…if we don’t speak up for the rights of minorities, even small and unpopular minorities, the precedent set by their maltreatment will be expanded by slow stages until it encompasses everyone but the rulers themselves. But it’s clear that most don’t grasp that truth fully enough to actually do anything about it; instead they say, “Oh, but surely that doesn’t apply to sex offenders, or terrorists, or illegal aliens,” or whatever other unpopular group they consider beneath basic human decency. And then the number of groups so treated, and the scope of each group, expands…
Three examples of the principle came to my attention in November; each involves a violation of the rights of some odious character, and as a result few were willing to point out that horrible precedents were being set; in fact, in each case there were those who cheered and celebrated the infringement, completely oblivious to how the precedent might eventually affect them. We’ll start with the mildest example:
Singapore’s government has blocked access to the popular adultery website Ashley Madison…ahead of the company’s planned launch of a portal for the city-state. The Media Development Authority, which regulates the Internet, said…it has blocked access to the Canada-based website because it is in “flagrant disregard of our family values and public morality”…Thousands of Singaporeans, including a Cabinet minister, have expressed outrage and urged the government to block the website…
Long-time readers know that I have no love for Ashley Madison; its marketing is repulsive, its business ethics are nonexistent and its fake “press releases” are infuriating. But Singapore did not censor it because it’s a massive fraud designed to bilk men out of their money, but because a lot of noisy prudes demanded it. In Singapore, as in the UK and US, the moralistic minority often attempts to impose its views on the rest of society, and politicians listen; but while internet censorship may start with loathsome online businesses like Ashley Madison or “revenge porn” sites, it isn’t long before it extends to anything some politician dislikes. And the only way to stop it is before the camel gets more than a nose under the tent.
The next example is in a way less serious, because the company voluntarily withdrew the controversial product due to the bad publicity:
A Chinese website is under fire for selling disturbingly life-like child-size, sex dolls…an advocacy group…called Dining for Dignity…[pressured] DHgate…into removing the item…[with a petition reading] “This…is fueling human sex trafficking, pedophilia, violent rape, and more.”
Yes, it’s creepy…and it’s a piece of plastic. It is not a human being, or any kind of living creature; it is an inanimate object without any feelings. Apparently, Dining for Dignity believes in sympathetic magic and imagines that if a man uses one of these nasty things for gratification, somehow a real child elsewhere in the world will be magically raped. Furthermore, the notion that such an object can “fuel” a sexual kink implies that adult people’s kinks are malleable and can be created or amplified by a sexual stimulus of the applicable type; this is exactly the same as the fallacy that having gay friends will cause a man to “turn gay”. A man who is not sexually attracted to prepubescent girls cannot be “turned into” a pedophile by a doll, child porn or anything else; the idea that he could is deeply misandrous. Furthermore, the belief that pedophiles’ desires can be made to vanish by repressing them is based in the same view of “voluntary sexuality” that leads to religious-based “pray the gay away” brainwashing programs: once the precedent is established that people with a kink can simply be ordered not to feel that way, the fallacious principle can be applied to everyone. The last case is similar, but has more far-reaching implications:
A phenomena [sic] known as Webcam Child Sex Tourism–adults logging into sex-chat rooms with minors in developing countries–is on the rise. It is estimated that tens of thousands of adults currently prey on children this way each day, and the number keeps growing according to international researchers…a team of coders, animators, and researchers announced they had created a…computer-generated 10-year-old girl named Sweetie, intended to catch predators in the act. In just 10 weeks this bit of CGI wizardry and software caught 1,000 predators. But…Sweetie is not a 10-year-old girl–no matter what she looks like. She’s not even a “she.” Sweetie is an “it.” And it’s code…
Though the author of this article uncritically accepts the typical moral panic claims (the panic-object is always “on the rise”, involves “tens of thousands” or more, and must be “fought” with extraordinary – and often extralegal – means), he at least recognizes the deep ethical problems with luring a person into doing something and then arresting him for it (a situation that used to be called “entrapment”). “Sweetie” is even less capable of being a “victim” than a piece of plastic, since it has no physical existence; it is merely a set of algorithms, instructions to a computer. Furthermore, if these men can be considered guilty of “exploiting” an imaginary child, by that same token the entrapment team is equally guilty of “pimping” that same imaginary child, and of making imaginary child porn. Now, do I believe that these men were blameless angels who were talked into doing something extremely nasty they would never have done otherwise? Hell, no; I think they’re scoundrels who were caught doing something that they had done before and will again. But when we allow the cops (or in this case, privately-funded vigilantes) to make accusations based entirely on what a person might have done, with no actual victim, we open the door to the entire panoply of abuses which have accompanied the various “wars” on consensual behavior for which modern society will be as harshly judged by our descendants as we judge our ancestors for allowing slavery. And the wholesale erosion of civil rights deriving from those “wars” affects not only the unpopular folks they target, but every citizen living under the governments which conduct them.
(This essay previously appeared in Cliterati on January 5th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.)
I understand what you are saying, but matter of fact is that we have no idea w:at the 1000 men, that was caught inviting “Sweetie”, actualy said to her. I can’t see why they would arrest someone just for saying hi, how are you, but if it went under the belt with a 10 year old, no matter what it is, a girl or an IT, that’s just wrong.
Disgusting is not illegal or even physically or mentally harmful if the intended “victim” does not exist.
Conspiring to steal the “Heart of the Elephant” with Conan the Barbarian is not a crime, even if the person really believes that Conan exists and is sending him emails.
Interesting post. If we have come to a point where our thoughts are policed, then what are? Certainly not individuals or even human ? This reminds me of the book “Fahrenheit 451.” There are ugly people in this world. We cannot prevent that. And we should not try through coercion and force.
I understand the phenomenon you are alluding to well. I call it “mission creep.” It’s why gun advocates are suspicious of any attempt to restrict the availability of guns, even just registries. They fear (and probably rightly so) that any regulation of guns will be expanded gradually. If the insane and felons can’t be allowed to have guns, well, wouldn’t it be a good idea to include those with a history of domestic violence? And insanity, why confine ourselves who have been diagnosed with severe schizophrenia and/or paranoia? Depressed people kill, too, we should probably put anybody who has ever taken an anti-depressant on the list — it would save lives, you bet!
First Amendment defenders know from long, sad experience that any attempt to restrict speech, if allowed, can readily be amplified to include all or most speech. If hard core porn destroys minds and blights sexuality (as some believe) then soft core porn must do the same thing, albeit to a lesser degree, so it must be banned, too. As should all sexual imagery and almost all sexual speech, the harm it does it by degree, but it still does harm and should be banned.
Mission creep like this is exactly how sex offender registries, initially intended only for repeat offender sexual predators (rapists and child molesters) were expanded to include anyone who has ever been convicted of any sexual offense, including streaking and urinating in public. The insanity of putting someone caught streaking on a sex offender registry is obvious to most, but not to everyone, and it’s so EASY to expand it to silence noisy wheels bothered by streaking, once you have the legal framework in place.
So you’ve got that part right, but I’m not sure what sort of mission creep you fear with “Sweetie.” Stings have been in use for a very long time to catch prostitutes as you well know. So it’s not that kind of mission creep. I’m sure the people who created “Sweetie” did it so they could avoid using a human child to entrap predators, since that would involve pimping out an actual kid to predators. So it’s unlikely to be expanded to include adults.
Is your concern in this case that it might be used to expand or create a principle that any sort of online sexual interaction is the same as doing that same thing in real life, or what?
It’s only one step from “fantasy in which one party is unaware it’s fantasy” to “fantasy in which both parties are aware it’s fantasy”. The precedent already exists that agency for women can be denied under circumstances defined by the state, and men are tried all the time all over the world for completely consensual sex acts (and even conversations) the government does not like. If you can’t see the danger in criminalizing a conversation, no matter who with or what about, I can’t explain it to you any better.
For two examples of Mission Creep; one would look no further than Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the little peckers who bitch about Illegal Immigration. MADD started out with a legitimate concern about drunk driving, but quickly spiraled out of control. I could explain how futile and counter-productive sealing the US-Mexico border would be, but that would be redundant.
The problem with serving the people who want the border closed is that it is readily apparent that closing that border, and enforcing the (largely stupid) immigration laws we have now is the only way to get real immigration law reform. Much as the most effective way to get a Dry law repealed is to actually enforce it.
Ah, that’s interesting. Yes, do seal the border and yes, do vigorously enforce immigration laws. Then when the price of vegetables, tiling roofs, cleaning hotels, and home child care all skyrocket, maybe we’ll rethink this whole idea.
I suspect that you’re right. But if we’re going to do it that way, we need to get on with it, before somebody invents a machine that can tile roofs or pick vegetables faster and cheaper than a Mexican can.
It is easy to defend those who, in our eyes, are good and righteous. Defending the evil and perverse…Oy vey iz mir!
And yet Justice says that we must.
I can fix illegal immigration tomorrow: start arresting, charging and fining the cheap-labor employers who like having workers who can’t complain about pay below minimum wage, no overtime pay, no sick days, no vacation, and unsafe working conditions. The employers are the problem, not the illegal immigrants.
Not so fast; Westerners like cheap food, which means farmers can’t pay much to harvest it. When Georgia banned “illegal” workers, millions of dollars of crops rotted unpicked. I can fix illegal immigration tomorrow without using the carceral state as you propose: stop harassing people for travelling, even if they cross some imaginary line overgrown children have drawn in the sand.
And, as I observed above, it seems likely that the only way to get people to back such a reform is to enforce the laws we have, and inconvenience enough people to raise a stink. As matters stand, we don’t enforce the laws, but since they exist the people who come here without following their Byzantine structure are trapped in a legal limbo and can be exploited. This is grossly immoral.
And doing it your way doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is individuals who do not want to pay their workers a living wage. Eliminating borders does not solve that problem, it simply puts it off until a group of individuals who believe that their rights as citizens of a nation-state take precedence over those of a group of foreign-born individuals. They then become angry enough to take matters into their own hands, and attack the handiest targets—financially exploited foreign workers—who are taking jobs that the now pissed off mob can and want to do (carpentry, electrical, plumbing, masonry, etc.for example), but refuse to do sub-standard work, under dangerous conditions, for a sub-standard wage. This has happened over and over again in the anti—(pick your favorite ethnic group or race) riots, going all the way back to the Irish in the mid-Nineteenth Century.
Individualism doesn’t do crap against the exploitation of employees by employers: the Pullman, Homestead, and other strikes of the Nineteenth Century prove that. As Teddy Roosevelt so eloquently put it, “Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.” (Speech, 14 Oct. 1912, Milwaukee, Wisconsin) My solution is practical Maggie, your solution is Utopian.
Use of the police state to inflict violence on people isn’t “practical”, it’s dystopian. As long as there are immigration controls, the situation will continue no matter how many people the state brutalizes and cages.
Furthermore, it seems to have escaped you that what you just proposed is the Swedish model, and we all know how well that works.
‘… start arresting, charging and fining the cheap-labor employers who like having workers who can’t complain about pay below minimum wage, no overtime pay, no sick days, no vacation, and unsafe working conditions.’
The only reason those workers can’t complain about the low pay and horrible conditions is because they’d be arrested if they go to the authorities. Rather than go to all the trouble and expense of investigating and prosecuting the employers (and believe me, it would be difficult and very expensive to find enough evidence to prosecute enough of them to make a serious dent in the problem, and would certainly involve a lot of mistakes and violation of rights of the employers on the borderline of legality), it would be much easier and cheaper to simply ‘legalise’ the workers. Then they could report any abuses themselves.
Labour is just like any other business. If people are desperate to do the work, and employers are desperate to hire people under the best terms they can get, they WILL find a way to do it, no matter what the law says. It’s no different from the ‘War On Drugs’ or all the abuse of prostitutes that Maggie writes about that occur under Prohibition. And just as the Swedish Model results in greater oppression of whores, even though it’s supposedly aimed entirely at their ‘abusers’, prosecution of employers tends to make things even worse for the illegal workers.
Someone should show these moral guardians Japanese loli tentacle rape hentai, and then watch their heads explode. Just for giggles.
I recall a story from back in the days when LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND (which is monumentally revolting) was a significant part of all the Anime imported. The mainstream media had just discovered it, and some talking head learned that a second tier Feminist was returning from Japan and went to interview her. The Feminist was exhausted from her (largely futile) efforts to jump-start a Feminist movement in Japan, and rocky from the trans-Pacific flight, and just grouchy enough to tell the truth (or so the story goes). She told the talking head that when she had first arrived in Japan she had been appalled by the Anime and Mange that featured images of teen and pre-teen girls being raped and dismembered. Then she got long term exposure to the “Idol” performers (who either are or try to appear to be teens, and are often talent-proof). She still didn’t approve of the (revolting) fantasies in the Hentai she saw … but she had come to understand the impulse.
I have very carefully NEVER tried to verify this tale. It’s just too good to check.
I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that the tentacle trope became widespread due to indecency laws in Japan…it wasn’t legal to draw a penis or people having sex, and in efforts to work around the law artists ended up depicting tentacular violation instead. So attempts to enforce moral codes resulted in the production of material that was technically legal but considerably nastier.
(not that I have a problem with tentacle hentai. Bring it.)
I don’t know the details. I don’t even know if it’s true. Might be food for a column if Maggie sees this and wants to look into it, though.
That’s the same thing I’ve read about the origins of tentacle hentai. And no, I don’t have a problem with it either.
Some of those idol groups are actually pretty good. Heck, Babymetal is now my favorite metal band.
About the child sex doll: yes! Keep it legal and, if it isn’t legal, MAKE it legal. Make sure everybody knows it’s there and absolutely do nothing to discourage use of it. If anything, governments should offer a subsidy so that more pedophiles can afford it. I know people who were molested as children and I guaran-fucking-tee you that they’d rather of had their perpetrator banging some piece of plastic and leaving them alone.
I’m surprised Ashley Madison hasn’t been accused of child pimping. After all, they’re suggesting that you can have sex in {dramatic pause} Singapore! And to hear the trafficking fanatics talk, nobody in all of the Asian Continent has sex with adults.
Soon after 9/11, objections to some parts of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act were answered with the argument that many of these techniques are already being used against drug dealers, so how can we object to them being used against terrorists? Of course, later we heard that if certain techniques are already legal to use against terrorists, how can we object to them being used against the drug dealers who would prey on our innocent children? (children so innocent that they’re buying drugs)
I just watched this, and thought that you might get some kick out of it. It features science fiction, Victorian stuff, music, dancing, and some fallen ladies.
Ah. Urotsukidoji. The destruction of Tokyo by a three story demon that uses his fifty tentacular… appendages to laser the capital of Japan to shreds.
It’s so ridiculous, it’s funny.
I blame the Japanese Octopus myself. Pervy little beggars, invading land and probing the 18th century Samurai Ladies. Shouldn’t be allowed, Masamune-san!
LOL. 😎😁
Professor Tromovitch and the psychologist Bruce Rind (of Temple University) in 1998 published an article based on a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of 59 studies which used the self-reported experiences of child sexual contact with adults by 35,703 college students. A substantial majority of the people in this study did not report any harmful effects of (non-coercive) sexual experiences (as opposed to victims of coercion), and a substantial number even stated these intergenerational sexual contacts and relationships had a positive effect on their life. This article was published in the Psychological Bulletin, the prestigious, official journal of the American Psychological Association (APA).
Predictably, this caused a storm in the mass media and in the political elite. Apparently for the first time in US history, both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate condemned this scientific paper and threatened to withdraw funding from the APA, so the APA apologised for publishing it. 12 past and present presidents of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex sharply protested against the APA’s response to the public and political pressure surrounding the study, stating that it “cast a chill on all such research”. The American Association for the Advancement of Science refused APA’s request to review the study, stating they saw “no reason to second-guess the process of peer review used by the APA journal in its decision to publish” and that they “saw no clear evidence of improper application of methodology or other questionable practices on the part of the article’s authors”.
More recently, the Harvard lecturer Susan Clancy came to the similar conclusions in her book “The Trauma Myth”. In the 1970s and 1980s, Donald West, Professor of Criminology from the University of Cambridge, advocated the abolition of the age of consent in scholarly books. See also Professor Richard Green’s article (he is a psychiatrist from Cambridge University and UCL) “Is Paedophilia a Mental Disorder”.
In the words of Karin Freimond (“Navigating the Stigma of Pedophilia:
The Experiences of
Nine Minor-Attracted Men in Canada”, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Frasier University, 2013): “Many adults who are attracted to minors experience intense suffering as a result of contemporary attitudes about them and current methods of relating to them. Even when no crimes have taken place and no sexual interaction with people below the age of consent has occurred, people who are sexually interested in children and adolescents encounter incredible stigma. They experience fear about the possibility of their desires becoming known to others, and they cope with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. These individuals are often completely alone in dealing with their feelings, as they may be too worried about the negative consequences that could arise from talking to loved ones. Further, they may feel restricted in seeking help from therapists, as mandatory reporting laws in many jurisdictions require counsellors to report their clients to the police if they express sexual interest in children. If the nature of their sexuality is revealed, these people are at risk of experiencing physical violence, losing relationships with their friends and families, being fired from their jobs, and encountering financial destitution. The situation facing this population is troubling, and researchers argue that a new, more compassionate approach is needed in order to help people who are attracted to children lead more positive lives (see Cantor, 2012; Goode, 2010).”
Much more pleasurable to dehumanize all the pedos regardless of their behaviour, to cage them or drive them to suicide.
We have to be careful of our terms, of course. A “minor-attracted adult” could be a twenty year old man who occasionally finds himself lusting after a seventeen year old woman, though he never touches one. Or it could be a forty-six year old man who works as a pediatrician and molests drugged-up five-year-olds.
Unfortunately, many of the pedo-hunters don’t bother to learn which one their prey is.