Man who wrote child-sex stories gets 15 months

There are a lot of people who have to register for life as sex criminals for even less than this.

Clipped to Writing is not a crime.

One could argue that by posting these stories he was able to defer his feelings,
and by writing them felt less compelled to go out and act on these impulses.

On the other hand, stories like these may compell the individual, or spur them on to commit a crime.
It's a prickly subject, thanks for bringing it to light.

-Dave

The way I see this debate being couched is similar to that of "virtual" child pornography, which includes computer generated content depicting children engaging in sex acts or adults engaged in sex acts that are selected for their youthful appearance and made through costume, makeup, dialogue, etc., to seem as young as possible. Both of these are VERY tricky subjects and I'm not sure I have a good answer.

On the one hand, I can see this sort of material fueling the fire of desire within these sick individuals and I understand the logic of prohibition. On the other hand, a responsible pedophile (I know that seems like an odd term) can use this sort of stuff as an outlet for desires they may recognize as abnormal and wrong (and may even be unwanted).

As Celestina pointed out, nobody was injured during the production of this material, although it may lead to subsequent injury. That being said, I have a hard time stomaching someone going to prison for writing a story of fiction. The movement in the U.S. legal system is to, generally, avoid prosecuting this type of behavior, and, as Justice Kennedy said, "The mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it."

We'll start burning copies of Lolita, next.

Where does that leave Nabakov?

What I mean is, even if you want to prohibit stories which have an pornographic purpose, how do you distinguish them from writing designed to try to understand and explore the subject? And how can we combat something we refuse to understand? That alone should be a good reason not to go down this path - I think if you start censoring free speech it's a slippery slope.

Snap, Holysandal, my thinking exactly (yours posted while I was writing mine)

I guess the canadians are just as wacked out as the americans these days.

I don't really disagree with the general sentiment here .... as a general rule

But, I would guess that this guy was probably a pretty sick fella - and his brother has been previously charged with possessing child pornography .... So while the precedent could lead to some strange future decisions, in this case not so sure.

But agreed it is a tricky situation.

You know, this reminded me of a brouhaha at Livejournal a while back. There are a lot of fanfic communities there. There's a subgenre of fanfic called "slash" . . . Kirk/Spock fanfic started it with fans writing homoerotic and homosexual porn about Kirk and Spock . . . and there are several very active Harry Potter groups. I have a friend who is involved with it and she writes some freaking awesome stuff. Here's an excerpt of an article:

Starting yesterday, Six Apart began mass deletions of user and community journals from high-profile property LiveJournal based on hot-button keywords. Bullied by a snooper group calling themselves "Warriors For Innocence," Six Apart caved to pressure and deleted journals featuring the interests "rape," "incest" and terms that involve child molestation. While this move apparently did shut down a handful of communities geared towards pedophiles, most of the terms were found in (and became cause for permanent suspension of), unrelated others.

Included:

- Rape survivor support groups.
- Incest Survivor support groups.
- Rape, incest, and pedophilia survivors' personal journals.
- Character-based RPG journals.
- A discussion group for the novel Lolita.

This also affects Buffy fans, Teen Titans fans, "Narnia" fans, Trek fans, Firefly fans, and any number of other fandoms where at least one character is under 18 years of age and adult-rated material has been or could be written about them.

I'm guessing we better get our Bibles ready for burning, since there are numerous cases of child rape and sex, from the seduction of Lot by his daughters to the kidnapping of the virgin daughters of invading peoples as sex slaves. ::sigh:: Then there's the ultimate act of pedophilia, the Jewish god getting a 14 engaged woman pregnant.

Well, he did post it on a Web site that encourages this behavior, which is different than, say, writing it in your journal.

Also, another reason child porn is bad, even possessing it, is that it creates a market for those who do the harm to the children.

I don't know. I'm all, "First Amendment, yay!" but by U.S. standards, speech that incites crime is not protected.

I am inclined to agree with the majority of comments here, but I, too, am worried about posting this stuff on the internet. Is this a site that would be visited by children? That would not be good, I'd think. I guess I'd need more info before I can be sure how I would fall on this issue.

Hi Celestina! I would like to start by thanking you for your comment on my little essay on the election of yours. Now to the issue at hand. I have to state that fiction could never be handled this way. because if that is the case, then what about all that participated in the productions of films such as Stanley Kubricks "lolita" of 1962 which was first written by the novelist Vladimir Nabokov?
.....or.... * Deliver Us from Evil, 2006, directed by Amy Berg

The true story of Catholic priest Father Oliver O'Grady who abused both boys and girls ....or.... * The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, 1976, directed by Nicolas Gessner
....or.... * Pretty Baby, 1978 directed by Louis Malle and starring Brooke Shields

and the list goes on and on and on....

What I am trying to say is that if this is the new directives on how authors of fiction should be "taken care of", well then there are a whole bunch of some very famous authors & script writers, actors, directors and so on that must be gathered and thrown into the slammer..right?

or is this guy some sort of individual target for some reason?

Anyhow, I my self am a father and I would hate for anyone out there to become a victim of pertverted minds. Still, there are people who write about cannibalism and other sick things. My question in the end is, why have something that protects the freedom to write, express and voice ones ideas if someone who writes something and do not hurt anyone in real life must pay by going to jail for something that has been done by so many up to some who now turned into respected entertainers?

But when it comes to any real life perverted pedophile predators I say, throw them in a deep dark hole, lock it good and away with the keys. But that is my own opinion as a father.

Very interesting comments!

I would like to comment on what unbekannt1137 said: "I can see this sort of material fueling the fire of desire within these sick individuals ..."

unbekannt1137 comments appear to reflect a generally held societal view. This is not suprising since police often use this argument when attempting to press for more severe penalities for the possession and distribution of child pornography. This argument assumes that if any person responds sexually to pornography that details certain acts, that person is likely to commit those same acts. That is absurd since we are all reactive to stimuli of many sorts, but irt doesn't indicate that we are doing the acts that arouse us in the form of pictures or sounds or words.

For instance, many women are encouraged by sex therapists to use rape fantasies to become and remain aroused sexually. While women don't want to be raped, many will find themselves aroused by a fantasy of being raped. Force is frightening, but the fantasy of being forced can be translated into sexual arousal. If the assumption is made that a person's response to sexual stimuli indicates the kind of sex they are likely to engage in, then many women would be seeking rape. in this caes we can see that the assumption of a connection between arousal to porn and choice of sexual activity doesn't make sense

In reality, no studies have been done that establish a relationship between arousal in response to particular pornographic stimuli and the possibility of acting in ways demonstrated in the porn scenes.

NOTE: I'd like to take credit for the above information but I cannot. Almost all of the above statements were taken almost word for word (and I hope that I'm citing the correct source) from a book written by Gerald P. Jones, PHD