Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Images of children: there's no harm in looking

By Bob Ryan - posted Tuesday, 25 July 2017


As part of the research for a doctoral thesis, I tested among my friends and acquaintances the proposition that there should be no censorship of arts and media. Most often, supposing there were to be no censorship, responders asked what would be done about child pornography. At that time, the Henson affair (see below) and the image of a naked six-year-old girl on the cover of an art magazine were hot topics; any talk of inappropriate images of children gave rise to overly defensive and accusatory remarks.

The air has cooled a bit now so it might be worthwhile to re-introduce what is unquestionably a delicate and controversial subject in the hope that some useful debate will ensue from the arguments put forward.

From my studies, I concluded that the laws relating to proscribed images are a mess; they have not achieved their aims and their enforcement has resulted in some serious injustices.

Advertisement

The observations here are confined to a broad-brush look at two aspects of what the laws call child pornography: (1) making and distributing: (2) looking and free downloading.

Child pornography and child sexual abuse include depictions of torture, cruelty, sexual acts, nudity, child representations, manipulated illustrations and descriptive text. (Let it be a given that references to child pornography include child sexual abuse.)

But exactly what is child pornography?

If we separate the two components that make up the term, the answer should become immediately clear; child pornography is images of children involved in overtly sexual acts. I say should because that is likely what most of us understand but according to the law we are wrong. Thus, there is some confusion between what is generally understood and what the law states.

The following three examples illustrate some of the confusion.

(1) In May 2008, a troop of police raided a Sydney art gallery and seized a number of large photographs, the work of artist photographer Bill Henson. The images were not of sexual acts. Many considered the pictures high quality art, but Ms Hetty Johnston, founder of the child protection group, Bravehearts, declared them child pornography, thus instigating the police raid. The images were judged not pornographic.

Advertisement

(2) A man was found to have sexually explicit images of The Simpsons' children on his computer. In the magistrate's court the man was found guilty of possessing child pornography; he appealed to the NSW Supreme Court that the images were not of real people, therefore no offence against a person was committed. The judge upheld the magistrate's decision with a 6,000-word explanation of why The Simpsons images were representations of persons within the meaning ofthe law.

(3) In August 2016 the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) ran a story about child-like sex dolls. At that time, border force officials had seized 18 consignments of child-like sex dolls sent from overseas since 2013. The life-size dolls, which resemble children as young as five are sold wearing lingerie, have movable joints and come with heating instructions. The dolls were described as being "anatomically correct". These would most certainly be judged representations of persons within the meaning ofthe law.

The inclusion of non-sexual images and representations of persons would appear to be unrelated to the purpose of anti-child pornography law which, in short, is to protect real persons aged under 18 (children) from sexual harm. (Incidentally, my researches so far have found no evidence of a trade in non-person sexualised images. I'd be grateful for any leads readers can provide here.)

Not only are non-person images defined as child pornography but also non-pornographic images are so defined. The highly respected Max Taylor and Ethel Quayle who published a 10-degree typology of child pornography started with: "Non-erotic and non-sexualised pictures showing children in their underwear, swimming costumes, etc. from either commercial sources or family albums; pictures of children playing in normal settings, in which the context or organisation of pictures by the collector indicates inappropriateness" (Child Pornography: An Internet Crime, 2006). What they're saying here is, the collector is likely a child molester.

*****

This brings me to the second part of my argument: i.e. there's no harm in looking.

Towards the end of 2015, a South Australian MP was found guilty of one count of accessing pornographic images of little teens.In this case, the prosecutor claimed the accused deliberately looked for pornographic images by typing in a term that "was specific and unambiguously to do with child sex".

I was particularly interested that the matter was concluded some four years after the MP's arrest. It seems a long time for such a relatively minor matter (as will be shown) to be resolved.

The prosecution conceded that the accused spent only "about three minutes" looking at the accessed images but that was "plenty of time to see and realise what was on the screen". The defence countered that the "websites were open only for seconds not minutes". (The evidence supports both sides, thus: the "seconds" of viewing per site aggregated to about three minutes of viewing.)

The accused did not download and save images for future viewing. "There is no physical or reconstructive evidence that any images, videos, documents or files of any description from any of the websites . . . were saved, enlarged, downloaded manually, copied, printed in any other way manipulated."

So what did the accused do that warranted four years of investigation and several trials? According to the evidence given against him, he looked, briefly, at a small number of images.

The irony in this is that concurrently with those trials an enquiry into the institutionalised sexual abuse of children had been hearing evidence about persons who were in a position of trust and authority over children. Of those who were shown to be perpetrators of sex crimes against children in their care, relatively few made images of their victims.

*****

The crime of child sexual abuse is not in the image, nor is it in the looking; it is in the abusive act itself. The fact is, two classes of people abuse the great majority of children: (1) persons who make it their business to make and sell images of their crimes, (2) family and persons known to the victims, some also make images. Stranger-danger runs a distant third to these groups.

However, no matter how repugnant an image, the distant viewer cannot have had any part in the crime. To argue otherwise, one must demonstrate how those who look at images contribute to the sexual harm done to the subject (or any) children.

One argument for criminalising proscribed images is that while ever there is a demand for child pornography, children will be sexually abused in the making and distribution of images. However, linking the one to the other in that way is misleading. Despite the many thousands worldwide who have been found guilty of looking at proscribed images, there is no substantive evidence that child sexual abuse has been proportionately reduced. To the contrary, The Guardian (UK) of April 09 2015 reported that: "child sexual abuse has risen by 60% in last four years". This rise includes only those cases reported to police.

Among several other reasons given for making looking at proscribed images a criminal offence, it is claimed: (a) the child is harmed by the viewer simply by the act of looking and (b) a contact offence may occur against a child at some point in the near, or distant, future (vide Encyclopedia of Forensic Science, 2013).

As to (a)-this is fatuous; it simply doesn't make sense. Let's take as an example some images of a young girl who lives in an Eastern European country (apparently many illegal images are produced in that part of the world). A man in Australia looks, lustfully, at the images. For the looking-is-harmful argument to hold, we are required to believe that the subject girl knows he is looking at her images lustfully: not judicially, as do judge and jury, nor forensically, as do the computer experts who unearth child images.

Then what are we to make of (b)? Imagine the same man looking at all the young beauties on the beach and fantasises about having sex with them. Let's say he takes some photos and adds them to his collection. But he does not act out his fantasies, even though "at some point in the near, or distant, future" he might succumb to the temptation. (A research paper published in 2006 called viewers "offenders-in-waiting".)

Psychologist Christiane Sanderson (2005) suggests that paedophiles look at innocent pictures of children and imagine gratifying their sexual desires. She writes: "In their mind they are just building up a collection and there is nothing illegal in that". Sanderson separates looking at images from acting out the fantasies.

Broadly speaking, looking at children and their images as sexual objects offends against the Christian belief that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery in his heart (see Matthew 5:27-28). Furthermore, as Janet Marstine observes (Wiley, 2008): "In some traditions [indigenes of North America and Australia among them], photography is thought to capture the subject's soul".

It is not drawing too long a bow, I think, to suggest that those two concepts form the basis of anti-child pornography law in respect of looking at images.

I do not challenge laws that protect real children from real harm. But I am at one with Criminologist Tony Krone (2005) who questions whether thinking makes it so. He writes: "However, while the sexualisation [of children] by the viewer may be objectionable and repugnant to many, caution should be exercised before criminalising the possession of such images based on simply what the viewer thinks."

So! Exactly why is viewing and possessing freely available but proscribed images of children a criminal offence?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

21 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Bob Ryan is a PhD candidate at Macquarie University; his thesis is on Censorship.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Bob Ryan

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Article Tools
Comment 21 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy