The Slippery Legal Slope of Cartoon Porn

[Fausty]

^^ call me old-fashioned, but I still have this quaint attraction to making an effort to connect "crimes" with actual victims. The victims in child porn are very clearly the underage participants in the filming itself - no matter what other arguments or considerations there may be, they are harmed by participating in the creation of the footage. Every criminal categorization of that footage from there forward rests on that original wrong that was done to make it.

Who are the victims in virtual pornography? The virtual children who don't exist? Is it also child abuse or neglect if Bugs Bunny has an episode where a crying baby isn't fed? If we can have "virtual" child porn prosecutions, then logically we should have virtual child neglect, virtual truancy, and virtual rape (oh wait, as Trixie said we have already seen virtual rape prosecutions). Does this make us virtually safer, to protect these virtual people from virtual crimes?

An argument can be made that allowing people to wallow in the "prurient" images of virtual child porn is likely to cause them to eventually act out on those images and harm actual, real, physical children. First, I don't know of any hard evidence backing that claim. Second, and more fundamentally, that rush to embrace thoughtcrime leaves us wondering why OTHER images that have been shown to lead to higher rates of crime aren't also criminalized. Like, oh I don't know. . . 24/7 broadcasts of violence and hatred on the mainstream TeeVee stations that every study shows has a de-sensitizing effect on youngsters and leads to more actual violence down the road. But, of course, that would mean making Fox News into criminal material and we know THAT won't happen.

The concept of virtual child porn creeps me out as much as anyone - maybe more so because I have 100% confidence that in the very near future it will be possible to create not just "canned" virtual child porn but real-time, MMO-on-steroids scenario enactment. How about virtual child porn/snuff scenarios, with the "virtual victim" screaming for mercy? It's horrific stuff, it is going to be happening very soon, and making it criminal opens the door to wholesale trampling of any semblance of logical coherence in our criminal statutes and the eradication of any shreds of respect for personal privacy when there is nobody being hurt by one's actions (other than patterns of electrons).

Recently a very popular PC game came under fire because it implemented a "hack" to prevent players from killing (virtual) children. The same players can set off a tactical nuclear weapon in an inhabited city - but not shoot a child in the head with a (virtual) gun. Apparently this somehow shows how much we "care" for real children. I remain unconvinced - sanctimony has never been an effective substitute for real responsibility.

Fausty