This has already been stated by others, and answered by me, but I'll summarize it to save you the time looking it up.
How in the world are people expected to obtain and possess child pornography if there is no production or distribution of the material?
You're making a false assumption that banning production will stop production. It obviously doesn't work that way. It will continue to get made, and we should punish those who make it. Even if somehow you could prevent it's production entirely (impossible) that wouldn't cause the existing content to suddenly dissapear.
You might think of it kind of like marijuana. It's legal
[1] (in some places) to possess a small amount, as the police consider it's for personal use and you're not hurting anyone. But producing it or selling it will land you in jail.
It's supply and demand. As long as there is a demand for child pornography there will be someone willing to supply that product. By legalizing the possession of child pornography you effectively increase demand.
In order for that to be true, you must demonstrate how anonymous download without payment increases production. If you have a good argument for this please take it to the RIAA and Hollywood to get them to shut the fuck up about piracy.
Even if it's legalization did lead to more demand, you must explain how increased demand taxes the supply. Normal supply and demand rules do not apply when the product is infinitely copyable.
Nam called me an idiot for making this argument and pointed out that porn companies are always making more porn. Of course he failed to take into account that porn is profitable because it is sold, produced, and distributed legally, and porn companies don't seem too happy about the anonymous download without payment of their product.
As long as there is demand for child pornography sex, children are at risk.
Fixed that for you. You know rape was around long before the internet right? Like,
long before.
Simple possession of child pornography can never be decriminalized in a society that values and respects its children.
So you're saying that most countries in the world don't value and respect their children? Japan doesn't? Denmark doesn't?
Even if you are saying that what's good enough for most of the world isn't good enough for you, I can respect that position. We should aspire to be better than the others. Just because they allow it doesn't mean we should. I understand that.
However that doesn't take into consideration the studies that conclude that sex crime worldwide has gone down since the advent of the internet and the proliferation of freely accessible pornography. Many many studies on both general pornography and specifically child pornography have demonstrated that increased access to porn gives an outlet to sexual energy and leads to fewer incidents of rape.
Very few studies have reached the opposite conclusion, I've read them, and I find their methods to be highly flawed. Even the authors of the studies preface their conclusion with a warning that it's impossible to determine how accurate they are. They emphasize the point that the vast majority of rapists use porn but don't seem to consider the fact that the vast majority of porn users are not rapists.
The vast majority of rapists probably also watch TV, eat ice cream, and like long walks on the beach. Of course nobody blames those things for rape because society doesn't feel the need to demonize those behaviors like they do sex. Just because porn is related to sex does not mean there is a causal link between porn and rape, and indeed no causal link is proven in the studies, but merely suggested.
I want you to answer this question for me. If the studies were correct and availability of child porn was conclusively proven to lead to fewer abuse victims, would you still oppose it's legalization
[2]?
