Pedophilia isn't a choice but what do you do when you need help and don't want to engage in it?

https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb

what do you do when you need help and don't want to engage in it?

Society is built on self control. Without it, we are lessor than we could be.

I had a former high school classmate who got nailed for this.
Naturally it ruined his career as a doctor.

Most the people who are convicted got caught up in these computer child porn picture rings.

I have reservations about a justice system, that can put you away for ten years in the federal pen, without any evidence that you actually molested a real live child.

My former acquaintance had never touched a real child but was banned from even being in contact with his own children, until they were adults.

These are essentially thought crimes.

It is like being convicted of being an arsonist because you enjoy watching fires that some other person started, and you keep pictures of them on your computer.
Scary.

http://theothermccain.com/2014/08/28/emma-jackson-victim-of-rotherham-rape-gangs-they-like-us-naive/

And then actual child rape gets ignored for 17 years, and the rapists protected,

I know, another country, but clearly a double standard.

Self-control? How well can you control your sexual thoughts that flash in your head when you see an attractive woman? If you see some nice tits can you 100% refrain yourself from desiring them?

Imagine never being allowed to fuck any woman, never being to look at porn, hardly ever interacting with them, no affection from any woman.

You need help but if you ask for help how to stop yourself from desiring women you get put in jail.

Therapists are reluctant to help non-offending pedophiles. Legally as Isab said it's a thought crime that lands you in jail even if you don't offend including even if you never watch child porn.

Ppen, what charges are filed against people who do not abuse children or watch/ possess child pornography?

Regrading thought crimes, in the case Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court distinguished between pornography made without the involvement of children (legal), from pornography made using children (illegal). It pointedly did not criminalize thinking about or viewing images that depict having sex with children.

You can own all the images you want, so long as are not made using children. No thought crime there.

The prosecutor has the burden of proving that images were made using real children.

From Ashcroft (deeply edited - see link for the whole opinion):

"We consider in this case whether the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA), abridges the freedom of speech. The CPPA extends the federal prohibition against child pornography to sexually explicit images that appear to depict minors but were produced without using any real children. [...]

Before 1996, Congress defined child pornography as the type of depictions at issue in Ferber, images made using actual minors. The CPPA retains that prohibition at 18 U. S. C. § 2256(8)(A) and adds three other prohibited categories of speech [including] "any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture," that "is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." The prohibition on "any visual depiction" does not depend at all on how the image is produced. The section captures a range of depictions, sometimes called "virtual child pornography," which include computer-generated images, as well as images produced by more traditional means. [...]

These images do not involve, let alone harm, any children in the production process; but Congress decided the materials threaten children in other, less direct, ways. Pedophiles might use the materials to encourage children to participate in sexual activity. "[A] child who is reluctant to engage in sexual activity with an adult, or to pose for sexually explicit photographs, can sometimes be convinced by viewing depictions of other children `having fun' participating in such activity." Furthermore, pedophiles might "whet their own sexual appetites" with the pornographic images, "thereby increasing the creation and distribution of child pornography and the sexual abuse and exploitation of actual children." Under these rationales, harm flows from the content of the images, not from the means of their production. In addition, Congress identified another problem created by computer-generated images: Their existence can make it harder to prosecute pornographers who do use real minors. As imaging technology improves, Congress found, it becomes more difficult to prove that a particular picture was produced using actual children. To ensure that defendants possessing child pornography using real minors cannot evade prosecution, Congress extended the ban to virtual child pornography.

The sexual abuse of a child is a most serious crime and an act repugnant to the moral instincts of a decent people. In its legislative findings, Congress recognized that there are subcultures of persons who harbor illicit desires for children and commit criminal acts to gratify the impulses. See [...] U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Child Maltreatment 1999 (estimating that 93,000 children were victims of sexual abuse in 1999). Congress also found that surrounding the serious offenders are those who flirt with these impulses and trade pictures and written accounts of sexual activity with young children. [...]

Congress may pass valid laws to protect children from abuse, and it has. The prospect of crime, however, by itself does not justify laws suppressing protected speech. [...]

As a general principle, the First Amendment bars the government from dictating what we see or read or speak or hear. The freedom of speech has its limits; it does not embrace certain categories of speech, including defamation, incitement, obscenity, and pornography produced with real children. While these categories may be prohibited without violating the First Amendment, none of them includes the speech prohibited by the CPPA. In his dissent from the opinion of the Court of Appeals, Judge Ferguson recognized this to be the law and proposed that virtual child pornography should be regarded as an additional category of unprotected speech. It would be necessary for us to take this step to uphold the statute. [...]

The CPPA prohibits speech despite its serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The statute proscribes the visual depiction of an idea—that of teenagers engaging in sexual activity—that is a fact of modern society and has been a theme in art and literature throughout the ages. [...]

Both themes—teenage sexual activity and the sexual abuse of children—have inspired countless literary works. [...]

Where the images are themselves the product of child sexual abuse, Ferber recognized that the State had an interest in stamping it out without regard to any judgment about its content. [...] The production of the work, not its content, was the target of the statute. The fact that a work contained serious literary, artistic, or other value did not excuse the harm it caused to its child participants. It was simply "unrealistic to equate a community's toleration for sexually oriented materials with the permissible scope of legislation aimed at protecting children from sexual exploitation."

Ferber upheld a prohibition on the distribution and sale of child pornography, as well as its production, because these acts were "intrinsically related" to the sexual abuse of children in two ways. First, as a permanent record of a child's abuse, the continued circulation itself would harm the child who had participated. Like a defamatory statement, each new publication of the speech would cause new injury to the child's reputation and emotional well-being. Second, because the traffic in child pornography was an economic motive for its production, the State had an interest in closing the distribution network. "The most expeditious if not the only practical method of law enforcement may be to dry up the market for this material by imposing severe criminal penalties on persons selling, advertising, or otherwise promoting the product." Under either rationale, the speech had what the Court in effect held was a proximate link to the crime from which it came. [...]

In contrast to the speech in Ferber, speech that itself is the record of sexual abuse, the CPPA prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production. Virtual child pornography is not "intrinsically related" to the sexual abuse of children, as were the materials in Ferber. While the Government asserts that the images can lead to actual instances of child abuse, the causal link is contingent and indirect. The harm does not necessarily follow from the speech, but depends upon some unquantified potential for subsequent criminal acts. [...]

...and with that the Court struck down the provisions of the CPPA that had outlawed pornographic images that depicted children but were not made using children.

The opinion is well written and available in full here:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4016009721484982910&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

...and with that the Court struck down the provisions of the CPPA that had outlawed pornographic images that depicted children but were not made using children.

The opinion is well written and available in full here:

And therein lies the problem. The person in possession of the images has no way of knowing.

Also those pictures we took in the 70,s and eighties of naked two year olds playing in the swimming pool?

Those meet even the court's tortured definition of child porn.

If you film yourself having sex with a 17 year 11 month old it is still child porn, even when those imagines come from Japan where the age of consent is 13.

Worse than that, the US routinly prosecuted citizens for things that are crimes HERE, but not the country where the citizen did it

"And therein lies the problem. The person in possession of the images has no way of knowing."

Posted by: Isab at August 30, 2014 3:47 PM

Buyer beware. I'm not losing sleep over it.

Worse than that, the US routinly prosecuted citizens for things that are crimes HERE, but not the country where the citizen did it

Posted by: lujlp at August 30, 2014 4:21 PM

Feel free to use your rights to change the law, or to swap out your citizenship.

"Buyer beware. I'm not losing sleep over it."

Of course you aren't, until you are the one being selectively prosecuted because a vindictive neighbor turns you in for something minor, and you find yourself strong armed into pleading to a felony.

This is something people who make their living splitting very fine legal hairs, never understand.

Merely getting caught up in the legal system, innocent or guilty, is enough to ruin anyone middle class or below.

"Feel free to use your rights to change the law, or to swap out your citizenship."
-----------------------------------------------
Did you hear that the State Dept. just raised the fee to renounce US citizenship from $450 to $2,250?

"Admin. Costs" they call it.

From what I understand, before 2010, it was free.

I wonder what the fedgov is acknowledging on this.

Feel all cuddly and safe because government is protecting you and your children?

Child abuse/child pornography is not an exclusive behavior of people employed at gov't agencies.

And yes, in this case, the FBI discovered the crime, and gov't lawyers successfully prosecuted the guy instead of trying to cover it up. Maybe the gov't earn a good mark here.

I wouldn't feel warm and cuddly if my kid was at a private day care house, either, unless I knew the person well. Last year a local woman's husband was sentenced to many years in prison for molesting 8 kids at her child care house.

I have reservations about a justice system, that can put you away for ten years in the federal pen, without any evidence that you actually molested a real live child.

I have reservations about mandatory minimums, but if someone is feeding the abuse by watching videos of someone abusing real live children, that is serious, heavy stuff.

I have reservations about mandatory minimums, but if someone is feeding the abuse by watching videos of someone abusing real live children, that is serious, heavy stuff.
Posted by: Jason S. at August 30, 2014 8:41 PM

So just out of curiosity Jason, if you are feeding the cause of ISIS by watching videos of them beheading Western journalists do you think ten years in a federal pen is an appropriate penalty?

I know you are going to claim, that it is somehow different but the same legal principle would apply to both activities.

The one I can think of off the top of my head is regarding porn star Little Lupe. She talked about how she didn't have to appear in court because she was a Spanish citizen and was going to leave the US for a bit but heard in time about the man.

" He had a DVD called "Little Lupe the Innocent"[6] in his possession and was arrested because federal agents thought that Lupe was underage. His case went to trial and a pediatrician testifying for the prosecution claimed that Lupe had to be underage because of her appearance. Lawyers for the defense, however, found Lupe's website and contacted her, and sent her a subpoena so she could testify. She showed her passport in court and proved that she was 19 years old when the movie was made, and the man was cleared of all charges.[7][8]

Before she totally revamped her image she looked exactly like my 13 year old Hispanic niece. Very off putting to me and I would have assumed child porno as well.

You need help but if you ask for help how to stop yourself from desiring women you get put in jail.

The big distinction here is between thoughts and actions. We expect people to control their actions.

Asking for help in these issues is a canard. Efficacy is slight. Most people going for therapy are looking for some kind of validation/permission.

The thing PPen didnt mention in her story is the reason the defense subpoenaed the porn star is because the prosecuting attorney refused to drop the charges after the defense showed her proof that the porn star was over 18

"Merely getting caught up in the legal system, innocent or guilty, is enough to ruin anyone middle class or below."

Posted by: Isab at August 30, 2014 6:34 PM

Understood. And beside the point, because the phenomenon is not particular to child-pornography charges.

Also problematic is the potential to remotely, covertly plant the materials in someone's computer.

These issues are distinct from the assertion that outlawing child pornography is thought crime.

Lujlp, perhaps a one way ticket to a country without a U.S. extradition treaty would be cheaper:

http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2013/06/5-countries-with-no-us-extradition-treaty.html

Funny how you assume I'm guilty of a crime for criticizing government attempt to micromanage every aspect of our lives

Not at all - I just hate paying full price if there's a legit workaround.

"if you are feeding the cause of ISIS by watching videos of them beheading Western journalists do you think ten years in a federal pen is an appropriate penalty?"

I think the difference is intent to sell and buy and distribution.

Like I said, I don't like mandatory minimums because of different circumstances.