Quote from: RPGPunditI can't help but ask where Anglo-German [...] Jewish oedipal complex? [...] Australians get off on?!

I wasn't aware I was required to submit a doctoral thesis on every issue brought up in a forum. It's just a casual conversation, for fuck's sakes.

Oh, and another point is that if possession of child pornography is legal, that will encourage people to produce it. Legal possession encourages an illegal market.

And some of it will be live action.

Viewing child pornography is not a victimless crime. Sure, in principle cartoons are victimless, but you're not going to be into the cartoons but be repelled by the live action. If you like one, you'll want the other.

And if owning it is legal, people will produce more for money. It happens already. Why make it easy for 'em?

I don't know why we're even arguing this. I feel like I got unbanned and am back on Tangency where people defend all sorts of indefensible and stupid things.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI think we have to look at the source of things, rather than fussing about the particular way they happen to come out. When one man's alcoholism loses him his job and another's loses him his wife matters a lot to each man, but the source of each man's problems is his drinking. While dealing with their rejection by woman or employer is important, more important is dealing with their drinking.

Correct.  But I think it does matter how their culture views drinking and drunken behavior.  For example, when the United States started taking drunken driving more seriously, the percentage of car accidents due to drunk driving went from about 60% down to about 40%.  Sexual harassment was more widespread when society and the law accepted it.  The first step toward change is often not accepting the problem as normal any more.

Quote from: Kyle AaronCertainly. Just as the particular expression of misogyny will be unique to the culture, so will be the steps you have to take to fix things up. However, we should not mistake symptom for cause; when a doctor deals with an illness, they certainly give medicine to alleviate the symptoms, but they also look at the underlying causes of the illness. That's why just banning vile porn isn't enough. We have to look at the kinds of societies we have.

Sure, but the symptoms can support the cause.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThis does not mean that all societies are equal in their vileness. Plainly it is better to be a child in the United States than in the Congo with a civil war going on, and better to be a woman in rural China than rural Pakistan, and so on. Nonetheless oppression of women and children and the poor is pretty much universal, and there are common causes to these and other problems.

So what causes the cause and how to you stop the cycle?

Quote from: RPGPunditLikewise, if some stupid fucker goes off and rapes a schoolgirl, he's going to have done it whether or not he saw a bunch of little coloured squiggles depicting japanese schoolgirls in perverted situations. And again, he was drawn to the latter because of his nature, the nature was not created by the drawings he saw.

So your argument is that sex crimes are entirely the product of nature and that the environment and information a person is exposed to has nothing to do with it?

Quote from: Kyle AaronOh, and another point is that if possession of child pornography is legal, that will encourage people to produce it. Legal possession encourages an illegal market.

And some of it will be live action.

Viewing child pornography is not a victimless crime. Sure, in principle cartoons are victimless, but you're not going to be into the cartoons but be repelled by the live action. If you like one, you'll want the other.

And if owning it is legal, people will produce more for money. It happens already. Why make it easy for 'em?

I don't know why we're even arguing this. I feel like I got unbanned and am back on Tangency where people defend all sorts of indefensible and stupid things.

Again, its a question of basic human rights.

Children have a right not to be abused. So obviously, any production of pornography involving real children would be a crime.
Ok; that issue is settled, no one is arguing against it.

Meanwhile, people have a right to think or express whatever the fuck they want so long as they do not actually commit any criminal act toward another human being, or directly and implicitly advocate such an act.

How this affects me is in that if you start criminalizing either thought or expression, its only a matter of time before someone decides to criminalize something I'm thinking or expressing. You too.

Again, your sentimentality aside, there's NOTHING different from the argument of criminalizing non-real drawings or fiction, and the argument of banning video games or RPGs because some dude might start hacking his friends & family to death with a knife.
I'm not saying you can't think that the dude who's whacking off to schoolgirl-anime is disgusting, nor am I saying you should think of him as an ideal candidate for babysitting.
Likewise, if I found out some guy spent hours watching extremely violent movies and had a bunch of soldier of fortune stuff along with a bunch of fiction about rising up and overthrowing the government, I probably wouldn't want him to be my postal worker. Or my kids' teacher.

Both of the examples above are of potentially dangerous wankers. Great. But they're not criminals, not until they attempt to DO something.  Thinking perverse thoughts cannot be a crime anymore than thinking violent thoughts can be a crime.  Because the second you criminalize it you will have people who have a very different definition of what they consider "perverse" than you wanting to persecute other people.

RPGPundit

Quote from: John MorrowSo your argument is that sex crimes are entirely the product of nature and that the environment and information a person is exposed to has nothing to do with it?

You consider yourself a libertarian, and you'd really want to put someone behind bars for something that in and of itself harms no one, essentially imprisoning them for their thoughts?

RPGPundit

PS: and while some kinds of environment might affect sex crimes, I think it'd be far more likely that someone would end up abusing a child because they were abused as a child, or because of some kind of fucked up psychological incident in their life, rather than because they saw some kind of tentacle-rape schoolgirl thingy on 4chan.
I mean jesus fuck, if everyone who's ever looked at those images is going to commit child abuse, we're all pretty well doomed anyways.
You guys were talking about symptoms and underlying causes earlier; well, this is pretty fucking clearly a symptom to me, if it leads to actual crime.   A normal person would not become a child rapist because of anime any more than a normal person would become a mass murderer because he watched a TV show about Jack the Ripper.

Quote from: John MorrowMy own culture certainly suffers from failings when it comes to the sexualization of children but being reluctant to ban child pornography is not among those failings, which is why UNICEF is singling Japan out and not the United States.  

Japan did not ban the production and sale of child pornography in 1999 because of internal pressure to do so.  They banned it because of international pressure from Interpol and others to do so because they were one of the chief sources of child pornography on the Internet.  And they are showing a similar reluctance to ban the possession of child pornography, again doing so only in the face of international pressure.  Again, not a problem the United States has.  Nor any other Western nation, to my knowledge.  Which is, again, why UNICEF is singling Japan out.

Yes and if you bothered reading any of my posts you would realize that I agreed that child pornography should be banned everywhere. (Point in the OP discussed and resolved) As far as the cartoon shit is concerned, I don't think so.

Quote.... but this idea that that one must acknowledge that their own side may suffer from the same vaguely defined failings even though nobody can think of one that's comparable is a bit odd.

I would say that these little girl beauty pageants are worse than anime porn. In the flesh for all to see. No imagination required. These objects (little girls) seem more accessible to these predators. Who knows, if they can't get these girls, others may suffice.

QuoteYeah, little girl "beauty pageants" are creepy and probably should be illegal (for reasons that extend beyond the sexualization of children) but I get the feeling that pedophilia isn't the goal there.  If it was, why would they dress the little girls to look like adults?  If someone is attracted to little girls, wouldn't they want them looking like a little girl, which is exactly what you'll see in the Japanese material?

Oh I don't think pedophilia is the goal maybe just the logical consequence. I'm sure there are tapes of these girls being passed around. From what I've read pedophiles don't consider what they are doing wrong because they believe that children welcome their advances. Sexualizing them further acts as an enticement , don't you think? I mean, I can't think of any reason to sexualize kids.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: RPGPunditThat's also contrary to Islamic tradition: The Hijab is supposed to be worn by women, which according to Islamic tradition is when a girl begins to menstruate, and not before.

But its obviously a case of your society becoming increasingly extremist in its overreaction and fervour toward puritanism; not unlike similar things going on in western society.

Exactly. And I know I've said this before, but Wahhabism is the culprit here. Shit like this started happening in the late 70's ....

Regards,
David R

Let's calibrate our comparisons here.

The counterpoint to "fantasizing over child porn" is not "pretending to liberate video game France from video game Nazis." The acts depicted in child porn are the absolute worse thing imaginable within the sexual realm, so whatever we compare child porn to something different in RPGs or any other medium, the crime must have a coresponding gravitas or it's just equivocation.

Pretending to save Hamlat from elemental evil =/= Pretending to rape kids.

DOES NOT EQUAL!

Pretending to murder everyone in the villiage of Hamlat? That's a little closer. You might ask: should free speach protect hypothetical videogames like "Final Solution: Hitler's wetdream?"

Or hell! Why not equivicate like you got balls! Compare Child Porn to Child Porn. What child porn RPG deserves free speach? What pok'e-child-rape cartoon, videogame or CCG deserves to be protected from the mean UNICEF? And just for the sake of argument, lets say that the jackbooted police destroy all the child porn, why would you or any of us be entitled, (in the same sense that we are entitled to free speach) in what way are any of us entitled to re-introduce child porn into such a hypothetical utopia?

So what if everyone who sees child porn doesn't rape a child? Child porn in and of itself is wrong. I don't want my kids in child porn. I don't want kids who look like my kids in child porn. I don't want pictures of my children with sex and rape drawn over their modest clothing. I don't want cartoon versions of my children in child porn. I don't want people writing fictional stories about my children in child porn. I don't want them carving statues, or sculpting giant parade balloons of raped children. No! No child porn!

Quote from: Malleus ArianorumPretending to murder everyone in the villiage of Hamlat? That's a little closer. You might ask: should free speach protect hypothetical videogames like "Final Solution: Hitler's wetdream?"

Or hell! Why not equivicate like you got balls! Compare Child Porn to Child Porn. What child porn RPG deserves free speach? What pok'e-child-rape cartoon, videogame or CCG deserves to be protected from the mean UNICEF? And just for the sake of argument, lets say that the jackbooted police destroy all the child porn, why would you or any of us be entitled, (in the same sense that we are entitled to free speach) in what way are any of us entitled to re-introduce child porn into such a hypothetical utopia?

We are entitled by the principle of free speech.  That means I support others' right to write or draw works that are offensive to people including myself.  And yes, this includes real neo-nazis writing, drawing, or programming works in defense of Hitler; or Klu Klux Klan members making their own works; or NAMBLA making works advocating reducing the age of consent for that matter.  

I think the view is expressed fairly well in Justice Douglas' dissent of the 1973 "Miller vs. California" ruling, where the censorship of offensive pornographic materials was upheld.  

QuoteThe idea that the First Amendment permits government to ban publications that are "offensive" to some people puts an ominous gloss on freedom of the press. That test would make it possible to ban any paper or any journal or magazine in some benighted place. The First Amendment was designed "to invite dispute," to induce "a condition of unrest," to "create dissatisfaction with conditions as they are," and even to stir "people to anger." The idea that the First Amendment permits punishment for ideas that are "offensive" to the particular judge or jury sitting in judgment is astounding. No greater leveler of speech or literature has ever been designed. To give the power to the censor, as we do today, is to make a sharp and radical break with the traditions of a free society. The First Amendment was not fashioned as a vehicle for dispensing tranquilizers to the people. Its prime function was to keep debate open to "offensive" as well as to "staid" people. The tendency throughout history has been to subdue the individual and to exalt the power of government. The use of the standard "offensive" gives authority to government that cuts the very vitals out of the First Amendment. As is intimated by the Court's opinion, the materials before us may be garbage. But so is much of what is said in political campaigns, in the daily press, on TV, or over the radio. By reason of the First Amendment - and solely because of it - speakers and publishers have not been threatened or subdued because their thoughts and ideas may be "offensive" to some.

Apropos of tabletop RPGs, I think a good case is "Racial Holy War" by Rev. Kenneth Molyneaux, which is an utterly represensible work.  Yet I do not think that the government should be allowed to ban it.  The conclusion of the game goes:

QuoteThe primary purpose of Racial Holy War is to provide entertainment to those loyal to the White Race. It as an experience where our dedicated White Warriors can do like many of us want to--slaughter the foul enemies of our people who are destroying our race. I therefore hope that it does allow our comrades to crush our enemies.

The world created in Racial Holy War is one of strife and mayhem where the White Warriors fight to bring about a glorious White Empire. If the laws of this realm do not conform to the tastes of some, then they can obviously change them. Someone might not like this or that rule, so change or get rid of this or that rule. The important aspect is to have fun.

Input is very welcome and changes to the game are very possible. Any improvements to the game would also be optional and up to the players playing. Of course for those who play strictly by the rules, then this is fine as that is what the rules are there for. In conclusion, have fun building a Whiter, Brighter World! RAHOWA!

Quote from: John Morrow:rolleyes:

What hypocrisy?  And what does it mean to "spread the love around"?

For crying out loud, John.  You're a smart fellow.  You should know what I'm talking about.  Much as you want to believe otherwise, no one here is trying to subvert the conversation with the dreaded Liberal Cultural Relativism.  No one is squeamish about pointing out some messed up things about contemporary Japanese culture, and no one is making excuses for them. The phenomenon you're seeing is that people are finding the more general topic of the sexualisation of children, regardless of where it occurs, much more compelling and relevant.

Is that so hard to see?

!i!

Really children over 12 have always been sexual and thus can't actually be sexualized.

The human hormonal and reproductive system has never read the law nor can it on the whole be brought to account under the law.

People might not be able to chose what they're attracted to but they can focus and direct it.  Pornography is one way of doing it.

What society is trying to do is impose responsibility on the actions of adults and older children.  Sadly responsible and adult don't go together nearly as much as they appear next to each other.  Else we wouldn't need half of the rules our societies run on.

Quote from: RPGPunditYou consider yourself a libertarian, and you'd really want to put someone behind bars for something that in and of itself harms no one, essentially imprisoning them for their thoughts?

Actually, I've repeatedly said that I'm not a libertarian.  One of my main complaints about libertarianism is the idea that we can put neat lines around what harms others.

Let me put it this way...

Do you support laws against drunk driving that fine, imprison, and/or take driving rights away from a person who has not actually gotten into an accident or hurt anyone else yet (thus putting them behind bars "for something that in and of itself harms no one") or should the law wait until they actually get into an accident and hurt someone before they act?

Pedophiles, sexual predators, and serial killers often don't seem to spring forth into the world as full-blown menaces to others.  And for someone who rants about how the toleration of lawn-crappers can ruin a hobby, what's the benefit of tolerating this sort of material?

Quote from: RPGPunditPS: and while some kinds of environment might affect sex crimes, I think it'd be far more likely that someone would end up abusing a child because they were abused as a child, or because of some kind of fucked up psychological incident in their life, rather than because they saw some kind of tentacle-rape schoolgirl thingy on 4chan.

Sure, but seeing that sort of pornography can tip a person who has been an abused into becoming an abuser, just as cruelty toward animals can lead to a person becoming a serial killer.  

Does it drive most people who don't already have problems to do horrible things?  Probably not.  But let's go back to the drunken driving example.

I suspect that plenty of people frequently drive while legally drunk without getting into accidents or hurting anyone.  in fact, I know of quite a few people who have and never got into an accident.  Quite a few people also probably do so innocently because they don't feel drunk and don't realize that they are legally drunk.  So why do they ban drunken driving?  Because the people who have problems with repeated drunken driving are often those with alcohol problems and when they do get into accidents, they kill people.  And being arrested and losing their driving privileges before they actually hurt someone can encourage a person with alcohol problems to seek help.

Quote from: RPGPunditI mean jesus fuck, if everyone who's ever looked at those images is going to commit child abuse, we're all pretty well doomed anyways.

The Internet: Home of the Excluded Middle Argument

Quote from: RPGPunditYou guys were talking about symptoms and underlying causes earlier; well, this is pretty fucking clearly a symptom to me, if it leads to actual crime.   A normal person would not become a child rapist because of anime any more than a normal person would become a mass murderer because he watched a TV show about Jack the Ripper.

No, but a person with an unhealthy sexual interest in children might be encouraged by such material (see Kyle's point about the physical aspect), much as the potential serial killer can get encouraged by the thrill they get from killing animals.  

And let me ask you this.  Do you know of any well-adjusted adults that don't have an unhealthy sexual attraction toward children eager to buy and watch such material beyond, perhaps, a "yeah I saw that once" act of transgression, or is the major market for this material the people with an unhealthy sexual attraction toward children?

Quote from: Malleus ArianorumLet's calibrate our comparisons here.

The counterpoint to "fantasizing over child porn" is not "pretending to liberate video game France from video game Nazis." The acts depicted in child porn are the absolute worse thing imaginable within the sexual realm, so whatever we compare child porn to something different in RPGs or any other medium, the crime must have a coresponding gravitas or it's just equivocation.

That's fairly disingenuous of you, and a tactical blunder on your part, you should have known that I would point out that there are plenty of violent video games about running over old ladies in the street or mindless slaughter that have no such noble goals as "freeing france from the nazis".

QuotePretending to save Hamlat from elemental evil =/= Pretending to rape kids.

DOES NOT EQUAL!

Clearly. Now what's your fucking point?

Because if its that we should publically chastize those human losers who fantasize about raping kids, or say, those game designers who design RPGs that fantasize about neck-raping cabin boys, as you'll recall I DID publically chastize, then I'm all on board with you.

If you think that Vince Baker is a fucking idiot for designing an RPG about raping cabin boys, I'm with you, 100%.
If you think Vince Baker should not be allowed the right to design an RPG about raping cabin boys; then you and I no longer agree.
If you think Vince Baker should be put in prison for writing an RPG about raping cabin boys, which is indeed what you appear to be suggesting here, then I think you're a fucking idiot.

QuoteOr hell! Why not equivicate like you got balls! Compare Child Porn to Child Porn. What child porn RPG deserves free speach?

Unfortunately, because its uncomfortable for us, every single fucking one of them, so long as they do not directly incite to real life rape; and even in that case I would think that would be more of a civil issue than a criminal one.

QuoteAnd just for the sake of argument, lets say that the jackbooted police destroy all the child porn, why would you or any of us be entitled, (in the same sense that we are entitled to free speach[/B]) in what way are any of us entitled to re-introduce child porn into such a hypothetical utopia?

Ah, now here's where we see the fundamental issue: you don't really believe we have an inalienable right to free speech do you? You're a fanatical catholic, and one of Catholicism's fundamental principles is that human beings do NOT have a right to say or express anything they want to; that's why they spent a good 500 years fighting against the rise of democracy tooth and fucking nail, seeing the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason as the worst disaster to befall mankind (or really, them) since the dawn of christendom.  Because Catholic dogma is all about the control of ideas, isn't it? You can't really be a Catholic and believe in absolute freedom of speech. You aren't free to speak heresy, after all.

QuoteSo what if everyone who sees child porn doesn't rape a child? Child porn in and of itself is wrong. I don't want my kids in child porn. I don't want kids who look like my kids in child porn. I don't want pictures of my children with sex and rape drawn over their modest clothing. I don't want cartoon versions of my children in child porn. I don't want people writing fictional stories about my children in child porn. I don't want them carving statues, or sculpting giant parade balloons of raped children. No! No child porn!

Yes, I can see that you've got some very strong emotionally-driven opinions about the subject. Now, do you also want people to be able to put you in prison for writing catholic tracts? Because this is fundamentally the exact same liberty we're talking about: the freedom of expression. You can't take it away in certain cases and not weaken it as a whole.

Its an fucking INALIENABLE right; I may despise what some people choose to do with it, but for the sake of society as a whole, we have to defend everyone's right to do it. Or we all end up back in the days of the motherfucking "Holy" Inquisition.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaFor crying out loud, John.  You're a smart fellow.  You should know what I'm talking about.

No, actually I don't, so why didn't you answer the question.  What did you mean by "spreading the love around"?  That seems to be a pretty odd turn of phrase to me in this context.  

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaThe phenomenon you're seeing is that people are finding the more general topic of the sexualisation of children, regardless of where it occurs, much more compelling and relevant.

Is that so hard to see?

When they speak clearly about what they mean and explain the relevance like Kyle has (and like David R did when he originally raised the hajib), not at all.  But I do think you should also recognize skipping to the assumption that this is a broader problem and that the distinctly Japanese elements are largely irrelevant and that specific cultures have little or no influence on it is, itself, a multiculturalist assumption.