"Aircore" pornography - Good, bad, or indifferent?

Please note that the following link contains material which May offend some.
http://blog.wired.com/sex/2007/01/aircore_porn_ra.html

This blog and its' related posts bring up an interesting point in the increasingly popular field of "aircore" with fully clothed models in semi-suggestive poses and situations and how it is commonly used to legally display underaged models in a semi-sexual way.

My initial reaction is disgust, as it always is with cases of child pornography and exploitation, but one of the responses was as follows:

David Nesting said:

I thought the reason child porn was illegal was because the act of creating the porn represented child abuse, and anybody trafficking in the resulting imagery was effectively promoting it. When you create a demand for something, people are encouraged to produce more, which then leads to more child abuse.


But if the original imagery was never intended to be pornographic, and no child was abused to produce it, what exactly is the point of even attempting to classify it as child porn?

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My impression of this was to consider that while he said demand, he meant to say supply which hobbled his logic and thus created my query: Are pedophiles curable, and if not, does child pornography help reduce the incidents of actual child abuse? If that's the case, can this be a better outlet for these individuals than something more decidedly exploitative?

krashlocke said:

Are pedophiles curable,

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unknown, but i personally suspect that they are not. it is after all a sexual orientation, an orintation that many people see as sick, but a sexual orientation non the less. as a homosexual, i speak from experience when i say sexual orientation can't be changed by force, so i doubt anyone can "cure" paedophilia.

and if not, does child pornography help reduce the incidents of actual child abuse? If that's the case, can this be a better outlet for these individuals than something more decidedly exploitative?

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the effects of child pornography are of no concern to me, what concerns me is making a porn film with a child in it - regardless of the potential "greater good" that could be achieved, it is sexually abusing a child which i will not support. in this case, the ends do not justify the means.



do you wish to also debate the ethic of child comercials that are sexualised, but the child is not involved in any sexual indecency?

Mike182 said:

do you wish to also debate the ethic of child comercials that are sexualised, but the child is not involved in any sexual indecency?

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I agree that child pornography is strictly incorrect, regardless of the potential for the reduction in acts.

Hence the query regarding so-called "aircore"; these are publications devoted to showing children in sexualizing ways but marketing them as one would standard pornography without doing anything indecent or abusive (arguable). Is this a 'better' or even 'acceptable' outlet or still taboo?

Krashlocke said:

Are pedophiles curable, and if not, does child pornography help reduce the incidents of actual child abuse? If that's the case, can this be a better outlet for these individuals than something more decidedly exploitative?

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According to Wiki, non-medical therapies have a very low success rate. According to this article, chemical castration can be highly effective in preventing recidivism in sexually motivated pedophiles... but it is not a cure for it. A variety of treatments from 12-step programs, to reparative therapy, to chemical and surgical castration have all attempted to address this problem, but all have failed to 'cure' it. Thus, I would find it hard to believe that 'Aircore' would cure it.

Once again, according to Wiki:

A lower per capita crime rate and historically high availability of pornography in many developed European countries (e.g. Netherlands, Sweden) has led a growing majority to conclude that there is an inverse relationship between the two, such that an increased availability of pornography in a society equates to a decrease in sexual crime.

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There is a possibility that the availability of pornography will prevent these disturbed individuals from acting on their fantasies. Supplying child pornography is wrong because a child was harmed in its production. So the question becomes whether "Aircore" is harmful to the child and whether it is sufficient to keep predators from offending.

Aircore uses underaged girls in suggestive clothing and poses, but to what degree is it worse than the behavior of children at beauty pagents? There are already suggestive outfits worn by underage girls in a variety of magazines geared towards children and yet there are still quite a few pedophiles despite access to distasteful, but largely accepted, photos. Thus I do not believe that Aircore will fix this problem.

Now we come down to whether Aircore is harmful to the child. Is it more or less harmful than Dakota Fanning being filmed in a staged rape scene at 12? Is it more or less harmful than Jon Benet Ramsey's performances at beauty pagents? Is it more or less harmful than little girls wearing revealing clothing or with sexual messages on them? I have not seen any of this Aircore, so I really cannot say whether it is better or worse than any of these, but I am quite confident it is not going to fix the ongoing problem of predators victimizing children.

Since at this time there is no cure to pedophilia, we need to address what we should do with them. Chemical castration is highly effective in preventing recidivism in a subgroup of pedophiles who are sexually motivated, but is not effective for pedophiles with other motivations, like violence. More research needs to be done to determine how to prevent reoffending in the other subgroups, if society wants an alternative to indefinite incarceration for offenders. We need to educate parents (and everyone else) on how to protect their children from being victimized and ensure children understand what is and is not appropriate and what they should do if they find themselves in a bad situation. We should ensure that the victims are identified quickly, removed from harm and given appropriate therapy to work through the trauma (which also would help prevent the abused growing up to be abusers).

Chemical castration for preventing issues of recidivism could be understandable, but those who fall under the category of having urges but never having acted upon them, I feel it would set a dangerous precedent. It is certainly a possibility that the statistic (which Wiki lacks a citation for) on the success of non-medical therapies is skewed - how many pedophiles that have not acted receive treatment of any kind? It is this population that I submit that may be treated with such publications.

I think Mike182 makes a good point in categorizing it as a sort of sexual preference, especially in light of a fact brought up in the same Wiki article:

"Criticisms of therapies for pedophiles as well as theoretical models of no potential for their therapy mostly stem from the finding of some studies that pedophiles exhibit no clinically pathological traits other than the direction of their sexual preference, a fact that is very rare among all other classified paraphilias and mental illnesses[60] where the pathological aetiological characteristics causing deviant behavior are commonly subject to therapy. As these pathological aetiological characteristics cannot be evidenced in pedophiles, common therapy models fail on them."

Is it then possible that somewhere there is a "silent majority" that has sexual feelings towards children but never displays them or makes them public (hence never being treated)?

Again, I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this taboo, but I think understanding is important.

I think simply more research needs to be done on the subject to find out what it is that seperates the group with the urges who act on them and the group that doesn't. It certainly would be helpful for prevention's sake... and I would much rather prevent than punish. Others have suggested completely fake images for that purpose, which is a position I do not defend, but I do feel has more validity than Aircore which does use minors to create.

I'm not sure there's much of a way to regulate this kind of thing. People view different things as pornography. I'm reminded of Marilyn Manson wanting to put a naked picture of himself sitting on his livingroom couch as a child in the sleeve of his first album. He wasn't allowed to because it would pass as child pornography. But that was his point - to him it was just an innocent picture of himself as a child. But others who view it as something different are the ones who should be dealt with. But how could something like that be regulated?

I've always thought that peadophilia was a mental illness, not a sexual orientation. But more research needs to be done before we can figure out what to do with these people.

A) I do believe that pedophilia is a sexual "orientation"
b) I don't believe that anything short of chemical castration would "cure"it.
c) I don't approve of the exploitation of youths in this way.

There are so many pedophiles, who, I am sure will be stimulated by such pictures that it is not worth the risk of their feeling aroused, and needful of acting on those pent up feelings........

Michel said:

b) I don't believe that anything short of chemical castration would "cure"it.

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Actually, you should really read the article I linked above on chemical castration. It was really interesting because apparently chemical castration is only an effective prevention of recidivism in the sexually motivated predators... and not all fall into that catagory. The proceedure will not lower recidivism in those with other motivations, so it isn't a cure all and using it on let's say violently motivated offenders is dangerous. It cited several studies in Europe involving surgical castration and what surprised me the most was the level of satisfaction the castrates had with the proceedure because they felt 'liberated'.

krashlocke said:

Please note that the following link contains material which May offend some.
http://blog.wired.com/sex/2007/01/aircore_porn_ra.html

This blog and its' related posts bring up an interesting point in the increasingly popular field of "aircore" with fully clothed models in semi-suggestive poses and situations and how it is commonly used to legally display underaged models in a semi-sexual way.

My initial reaction is disgust, as it always is with cases of child pornography and exploitation, but one of the responses was as follows:





My impression of this was to consider that while he said demand, he meant to say supply which hobbled his logic and thus created my query: Are pedophiles curable, and if not, does child pornography help reduce the incidents of actual child abuse? If that's the case, can this be a better outlet for these individuals than something more decidedly exploitative?

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Curing pedophilia is the same as trying to cure someone of Homosexuality, Heterosexuality, liking roses, or being fond of clear skies. Its a preferance and nothing more, and I have to admit that the fact that people dont find this "curing" of pedophila appaling a bit unerving.