Utterly Fascinating

The NY Times has a long article about webcam child pornography.

There are several levels on which I find this fascinating. My first instinct is horror. 1,500 people out there watching this 13 year old kid taking his shirt off and paying him for it. Where do we get all these perverts? I say this as I stare at my new isight on my imac and say to myself, gee, just take off my shirt right here and someone will pay me? Then I read this kid has netted in the "hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years." Too bad I'm too old for the perverts.

Film students are prone to having exceptionally puerile conversations about what they would do to get their first movie made. These conversations usually end up involving sex with someone undesirable, and film students eagerly admit to being willing prostitutes. Anyone who resists or holds out is seen as some sort of film pariah, unwilling to do what it takes to make it in this business, or worse, someone who is moralistic.

Anyhow, given that child molestation and pornography, is the worst crime imaginable in the eyes of society (rumor has it even prisoners hate child molesters), my outrage is hard to overcome. But if you think about it, who is being harmed by a teenager masturbating in their bedroom? Let's be honest, this behaviour is probably happening anyway, the only difference is the camera is on them and the world can be watching. I suppose this is wrong, but come on, is it that wrong or just sort of sick?

Now I've freely admitted that if I were a dictator, I would punish gross crimes like cannibalism and serial killing, etc, way worse than more understandable crimes like bank robbery and regular ole murder out of jealousy or rage. In this land, kiddie's dancing in front of their isight cameras would be illegal and those watching would be forced to live in Saudi Arabia. But alas, there is no widespread political movement trying to instate me as dictator of the United States. Given that, I assume the masses prefer our rule of law to my form of punishing annoying and disgusting people severely. And our rule of law, rightly, shies away from punishing crimes because we find them gross or disgusting. So what do we do about 13 year old boys dancing around in their rooms, naked, to Madonna, and are getting paid more than mommy and daddy?

Is this really wrong? They are consenting to having their images published across the web and if you ask me, amply compensated. We can always argue that "they are kids." But if that's the case, why are willing in some states to put kids on death row?

And since there are so many perverts watching live kiddie porn webcams, I wonder what is preferable: these perverts watching kiddie porn or out on the playground molesting people?

Naomi Wolf argues that regular-ole pornography causes men to be less aggressive towards regular ole women, because "why would men risk rejection for a normal looking girl when they can get a super hot porno-chick telling them how mighty their sexual performance is?"

Early opponents of pornography argued porno cause men to get all hot and bothered and want to go around raping woman and cause extra violence in society. These studies, like a lot of early sexuality studies, were performed on prisoners who were probably not the best sample group because a) they are more predisposed to violence already and b) the conditions in which they live do not mimic normal society. A similar study argued that half of all men were gay or disposed to gay sexual acts because they did the study on prisoners, who of course, are only around other men. In any case, there is no evidence of increased sexual violence based upon pornography, so those early reactionary premonitions by man-hating feminists like Catherine MacKinnon never proved true.

So the question is: will the proliferation of child pornography lead to more sexual molestation?

If you believe in what Wolf argues, the incentives for a pederast to go home and watch boys on the internet far outweigh the risks of hanging around the playground trying to pick up kids on the monkey bars, which carries not only the risk of rejection, but an additional risk of arrest and future maltreatment by your peers in prison.

Parents, of course, are probably red with rage about the possibility of their kids naked images out on the internet. Parents also fear their teenage daughters slutting themselves out at parties, yet we all know this happens - not all girls, but certainly some of them. The point is, parents are deeply biased when it comes to discussing matters of their own children's sexuality.

So where does that leave us? Nowhere I guess. But the second aspect of this set up I find fascinating is that these kids are getting paid directly by the perverts. I find it much nicer that the kiddies are making money from their own pornography and that they are cutting out the middle men because a) middle men in general are lame and b) I imagine the middle men in child pornography are particularly awful individuals who deserve to not only be arrested if caugh performing their job, but also to be squeezed out of their profession by newer technology.

Anyhow, this seems to be a possible economic model for music and film distribution, directing for the creator to the consumer.