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the intentionality of any photographer doing this kind of stuff creeps me the fuck out. maybe not jailtime without a crime creeped-out, but my gut sez these people are a lot closer to predation than your average bear.



I'd be more worried about the subscribers than the photographers and webmasters... who are probably more interested in just making a buck. But I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of taking preemptive action against people based on their supposed likelihood to commit a crime. Someone once made the point that most pedophiles don't act on their desires. They simply live their whole lives repressing them, and play out whatever fantasies they have through sites like these. The bottom line is... creepy or not, you know these people already. They're your friends and neighbors... and you have no clue what's going on in their heads.


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i know hyde's going to hate the idea on principle, but this is EXACTLY the kind of thing where names need to be on lists for monitoring by big brother.



You're right, I do. Fuck that.


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fine. you're not committing a criminal act, but you're kinda calling in a bomb-threat by seeing how close to the real, pretty vile thing you can get without doing it.

you get in trouble for non-crimes like pointing a gun at someone or phoning in the aforementioned bomb scare-if the models end up with the same mild-trauma as holly did, it's not far off from pointing a blank gun at a stranger on the street and squeezing a few rounds off. you didn't kill anyone but i'd kinda like someone paying attention to you if you make it a regular hobby-the fact you're not using bullets doesn't reassure me that the thought of using a live round isn't a lot more ingrained as a possibility than someone without a history of doing it.




Bomb threats aren't protected speech... and neither is threatening someone with a weapon. Both those examples represent clear cases of violating another person's fundamental rights. The question here is... does taking photos of semi-nude children in some way violate the rights of those children? If someone like Mapplethorpe can take "artistic nudes" of children with no ill-effects to the subject... why should we assume that these photographers are causing any "mild trauma" to their models? People take pictures of their kids in swimsuits and half-naked all the time. There's nothing disgusting or traumatizing about it. Again, the real issue that the general public and the DOJ have with these sites, is the distasteful knowledge that these photos are intended to appeal primarily to the sexual interest of grown men. And by trying to shut down these sites, they're really hoping to cut off the means by which pedophiles indulge their fantasies... and thereby punish THOUGHT , not behavior.
And that's my problem with it. Yes, it's creepy and we'd all like to pretend that it doesn't exist and that there aren't men that are turned on by children. But we need to grow the fuck up. Self-conscious displays of feigned shock and outrage don't lead to realistic strategies for dealing with these issues. They just give us all a chance to feel self-righteous... but who can pass on that!
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"We had part of a Slinky - but I straightened it."