[citw150] CITW 150 L3 Q5
- From: "Azrael Leviticus" <azeral777@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: citw150@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 20:42:42 -0500
Pornography can be a wonderful thing. Pornography has been known to bring
people together, spice up marriages, create jobs, help the economy, and has
been a friend of the lonely and bored alike, and nowhere can you find more
of it than the Internet.
But there's a darker side to this pornographic playground. All things have
been made more available through technology, which includes the more illegal
varieties of sexual material - particularly child pornography. The most
compelling argument against child pornography is that it is exploitation of
an individual who doesn't know enough to make an informed decision, who
doesn't know enough to choose whether or not they wish to engage in sexual
conduct or be photographed/recorded, and who may be possibly scarred for
life from the experience. However, I'm not here to point out that there is
child pornography on the Internet or warn you against it. I'm here to bring
to light and debate the ethics of a legal alternative originating in Japan,
known as 'lolicon'. Lolicon stands for 'lolita complex' and refers to an
individual sexually attracted to innocence and, more specifically, young
girls. It also is a name for the variety of hentai (pornography drawn in an
anime style, similarly originating in Japan) that they favor, drawn images
depicting young (typically preteen) girls.
Now, the very idea of lolicon may be revolting to many of you, and that's
understandable, but I ask you to suppress that impulse for just a moment to
consider the following: in lolicon, the 'people' depicted don't exist.
They're drawn, figments of the imagination, no more than lines and perhaps
color, so nobody is being harmed or exploited in its creation. As such, it
is currently legal in this country, Japan (where it's actually accepted as a
relatively normal, moderately healthy thing, rather than lumped under
'pedophilia' and shunned as it usually as in the United States), and a great
many other countries, though there are politicians who would like to change
this.
Some say that this may encourage pedophiles to indulge in the activities we
all fear, strengthening their fantasies and more easily allowing them to
blur the line between fantasy and reality. Some believe that it's a healthy
outlet for a natural sexual urge (after all, how many people are attracted
to the Catholic school girl look, debatably indicative of repressed
pedophilial urges), allowing pedophiles a healthy, safe outlet for their
urges that could prevent things from getting out of hand. Is repressing
these urges really safer than letting them out or indulging them? Is it
still immoral to create 'child pornography' in drawn or story form if nobody
is being exploited? Are lawmakers trying to dictate morality despite freedom
of speech and the victimless nature of these images, or are they struggling
to de-ice the slippery slope that is sexual freedom?
Note: Though they are plentiful, I will not be providing links due to the
potentially sensitive nature of this issue. If you'd like to see exactly
what I'm talking about, it shouldn't be very difficult to locate examples.
--------------------------
Ryan Bailey
Azeral777@xxxxxxxxx
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves
up and hurry off is if nothing ever happened."
- Sir Winston Churchill
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