SteveMD
my synopsis is as follows;

capitalism creates inequality...
someone getting rich makes lots of others poor
this is a fact
Poor people invoke or turn to religion to deal with there financial insecurity and the unfairness of there situation.
(When was the last time you saw a millionair in church)
3rd world contries (non christion) have fewer religions with a devil.
There is no BAD role model.
Meaning that there should be less crime however impoverished.Which is true
Western civilization and other (abrahamic)religions ,jewish,christian,islam ect do have a BAD role model to follow,so you would think there is more crime in these societies.
Which there is.
Its not so much an east / west divide , its more of a devil or no devil divide.
Nearly all the western world is dominated by God and Devil religeons and conciquently have more crime than the others.
I am not saying that religions are at fault here.
The root of this problem is Capitalism caused insecurity.
Capitalists get a sexual satifaction from there behavior.
This causes poor people to turn to religeon, religion is a conciquence not a cause.
I just checked the site www.new scientist an its subscription.
Back to your point it is not western societies per say that have the worst crime.
It is GOD and DEVIL worshiping societies (of which the western world belongs) that have the worst crimes.
Example ;Bhurma (buddist) low crime.Phillapines (christian) high crime.Both eastern .
USA (christian) high crime.Sweden mostly (non christian) low crime both western.
The fact that it is developed contries is because the capitalism that "developed "these contries created the inequalities that cause crime.
Some religions are for capitalism because the inequality drives people to them making them think the are more succesfull.(a capitalist point of view)
May I point out that Jesus was most definately not a capitalist.Remember the money changers.
sorry about the stats.maybe astro or providor can help.

power sex capitalism dominance ,all release the same pleasure hormones.
being in a large crowd ,reading great prose,looking at flowers, and religeous experiances and listenig to some types of music do the same.
Differant amounts for differant people.

Very interesting hypothesis physics911comfan, but I'm not sure how this affects the subject under discussion; The banning of the owning of images of extreme pornography? Certainly this material is about power and sex, but we know people find these things pleasurable.

I am of the opinion that violent sex crime, in particular, is indeed related to wider cultural attitudes, rather than violent entertainment or even violent pornography. Religion almost certainly plays a major part, as no doubt political philosophy's do, but I don't want to wander too far from this threads central subject.

Are there any stats you can post here, or give me a link to, on the relative crimes rates in various countries? I would seriously like to review this kind of evidence.

Steve

reference
link

the stats are in the annexe along with the various references

The banning of the owning of images of extreme pornography?

a site full of crime stats steveMD
www.samarthbharat.com/unicristatistics.htm

The subject is worded to confuse,as is probably the law.
I understand its context,but feel that the word extreme has substituted the word violent,for commercial reasons.
a photo of a consensual lesbian sex whilst they were skydiving at 18000ft .would be considered porn and extreme.But not what this is about.However extreme porn is what it would be.
It is meant to describe violent porn.This said people would ask well what about violence to animals should photo's of that be allowed?
From there it is a very small step to why do they allow any violent act to man or beast at all,and so doing put out of buisiness hollywood,the news channels and all combative sports.
This law is inconsistant and irrational.They should say what they mean and take the concequences.
Me I think all violence should be banned.
All acts of violence are degrading and create a victim.criminal

Astrocat, thank you, that is an interesting article and an interesting point of view. I somewhat agree with him that culture has more effect on behaviour than harsh laws.

For instance we all agree that sex-crime is lower in Japan than the USA. But in Japan they have some of the most violent entertainment available, including the most violent pornography.

This study;

Link

By Milton Diamond at the university of Hawaii, studied this
phenomena.

The study reviews a great deal of research in this area
and is very interesting reading.


For those who want to cut to the end, it concludes;

"In sum, the concern that countries allowing pornography would show increased sex crime rates due to modeling or that adolescents in particular would be negatively vulnerable to and receptive to such models or the society would be otherwise adversely effected has not been vindicated. It is certainly clear from our data and analysis that a massive increase in available pornography in Japan has been correlated with a dramatic decrease in sexual crimes and most so among youngsters as perpetrators or victims. We have mentioned some possible influential factors."


physics911comfan , thank you for the link. I will look at this tomorrow (it's past my bedtime already). You spotted the Government tactic of non-specific wording and purposeful vagueness, right off.

I have no taste for violent porn and cannot even watch some 'horror' films at all LOL! Having said that, I would not deny others the right to look at such things, unless I had clear evidence that doing so was harmful.

But I agree that we need a sea-change in our culture and our attitudes toward violence overall. Will banning people from looking at violent porn do that? Or do we need a more fundamental change?

I think telling people "you cannot look at that", will just make them look all the more. We cannot stop people from looking or, I believe, enjoying depictions of violence, but we can foster an attitude similar to the Japanese culture. That no matter what you look at and enjoy as a fantasy, real violence is absolutely unacceptable.

Triarius:



Actually the full quote was addressed by Griffith-Jones to the Jury and he said:

"Ask yourselves the question: would you approve of your young sons, young daughters - because girls can read as well as boys - reading this book. Is it a book that you would have lying around the house? Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?"

Now there's nothing there that I can see about him "denying the book to himself". If it was, he could have said something like "is it a book you would wish to read yourself"?

Don't forget that Griffith-Jones *had* read the book himself and then made this incredibly patronising statement with what looks like the implication that it was ok for *him* (being a fine, upstanding, morally virtuous and upper class Pilloc^H^Har of the Establishment) to read it, but that daughters, wives and servants could not be trusted with such material since it would corrupt their weaker minds.

You see, this is the same sort of thing that is being said with these "Dangerous Pictures". Our "Lords and Masters" aren't going to be affected by them, but there's some of us "little people" who can't be trusted not to do something dangerous if we get to see it, so we must be denied access to it "for our own good" as you, yourself say...



... which sums up my point nicely!



No, the "bargain" is "nulla poena sine lege". No punishment without law.

You've already argued that you have the "right" (it's not actually a "right", but we'll let that pass) to do anything not expressly forbidden by law.

However this "law" will not "expressly forbid", it just uses vague and subjective assertions that something *may* be illegal and the only way that someone can be *certain* that they won't be punished is to avoid *anything* that could be considered to possibly fall under that law.

So which do you want, Triarius? The "right" to do what you want because it's not expressly forbidden or the *fear* that you may be caught by a law simply because of someone else's *opinion* about what you're looking at?

astrocat:



I'm glad to hear it.



I wish I could say that they all were, but of course that's not possible to say categorically.

However we *have* laws to protect people against abuse and assault and murder and people generally doing things to them *without* their consent.

We don't need more laws to do what we already have laws to do. We certainly don't need laws that are so vague and subjective that you can't even be certain whether you're breaking them or not.



Hmm, that reads a little differently from...



... don't you think?



*IF* these proposals were actually setting some *SENSIBLE* boundaries, those of us in the BDSM Community wouldn't have a problem with them. But they *DO NOT*!

They are vague, subjective, based on personal taste and emotive arguments instead of being precise, objective and based on evidence of harm.

*That* is why we don't like them.

canvas:



True. Some might even argue that "Porn is theory, rape is practice" (the mantra of the Dworkinite feminists).

Unfortunately such arguments aren't actually backed up by facts, so they're not much good in a reasonable discussion.

astrocat:



HOLD ON JUST ONE DAMN MINUTE HERE!

Astrocat, this is not just a straw man argument, this is *incredibly* offensive and verging on libellous!

NOBODY in the BDSM community has argued for *ANY* such thing. For you to imply this suggests that either you have completely failed to grasp our arguments you or deliberately wish to insult those who object to these laws!

We have been trying to make the point that images such as the one you mention would be *ENTIRELY LEGAL* under the proposed laws because it's not "for sexual arousal", yet a similar *consensual act*, if deemed "for sexual arousal" would risk a three year jail sentence!

If you understand nothing else in this discussion, UNDERSTAND THAT!

PS (To save creating yet another post...)



[Mode=Irony]

I hope you're not attempting to censor this thread...?

[/Mode]

;-)

Graham, if you feel like you've been violated - then you have been violated.

No Graham, I wasn't trying to censor the thread ... that I believe is your modus operandi. I simply mentioned that the subject matter had already been started by physics elsewhere and I most certainly didn't exclude his comments by setting up a thread for him

:)



As I understand it the extraction of an image within a recording of a non sexual act is to be made illegal under these proposals if it was proved that the extracted image was to be solely for the purposes of sexual arousal. It doesn't matter that the recording was non sexual in nature if the person uses the extracted image for sexual purposes.

This is one of the proposals you have been objecting to, no?


As to the later comments about the disparity between my comments of 'I hope they throw the book at you' and 'My objection isn't based on a desire for revenge neither do I want to see people criminalised for consentual activity, but I do believe strongly in the notion of setting boundaries'.

You would have perhaps equate these comments in terms of my later comment of
'What if, for example, a rape was secretly filmed and the video passed around a select group of 'friends'

and the recently brought to light allegations whereby a member of the Royal Family was allegedly being blackmailed regarding a secretly filmed video tape.

I would imagine that the member of the Royal family would want the book thrown at the alleged perpetrator but wouldn't have any particular axe to grind in relation to criminalising consentual behaviour.

However this case does rather negate the assumptions that the incedence of or documentation of the production of secretly filmed material isn't a myth. And if it can be done to a vulnerable person such as member of the Royal family, how much more easily can secretly filmed material using non consentual situations be produced for distribution between 'networks' for exploitative purposes?





The problem is, is that if as in the above example recordings are made secretly and if the person involved was say an illegal immigrant brought to this country for purposes of prostitution ..... they would have no normal recourse to the law because a)illegal immigrants rarely go to the Police and b)they would have to escape from their masters.

But if the images were retrieved by the Police, they then might receive some protection by being traced and these networks being shut down.


To go on to your later point being that the BDSM community would prefer to see sensible boundaries. In what way might you re-draft the law?

If the law is drafted in a less than precise manner, it allows a judge and jury to determine parameters which is democratic. If the law is drafted in a precise manner, it opens up the politicians to allegations of imposing emotional morality.

So which is better? To have a set of vague guidelines that are open to interpretation on a case by case basis, or, a strict set of parameters decided by politicians.

Are the parameters of law better decided in the courts than in a select committee?

Astrocat, images of the man who pee'd on a dying woman would not be covered by the part of the law you cite. That deals with extracts from BBFC certified material.

If you believe a case could be made to a jury that the video was made for purposes of sexual gratification, then it might come under the wider definitions of the law. The individual was charged with a sex offence - public indecency (or outraging public morals?), I think, so that is not absolutely out of the question.

Then as Graham said, this is real abuse and no one is arguing that real abuse be exempt, quite the opposite in fact.

The Royal blackmail story?

Secretly filming someone engaged in a sexual act (whether a royal or an illegal immigrant)is a clear invasion of privacy and can also result in a sex offence charge. Again something no one here is defending.

You seem to go on to make a case that this law will somehow protect those who are trafficked for sexual slavery. It isn't clear how you see this working, could you explain that please? Can you keep it simple, I'm not a rocket scientist LOL!

Redrafting the law?

Well, removing the prosecution of individuals for looking, in private, at images of consensual acts where no serious injury occurs, would seem to cover it.

Liberty have proposed a slightly different amendment; they suggested a new defence; "where the accused could reasonably have believed that all participants were consenting".

Which would go some way to meeting the concerns many have about this law.

As for allowing courts to define the parameters, certainly that happens with many laws and can not be avoided. It may well be that in many cases this is a good thing, such 'interpretations' have pulled the teeth of bad laws in the past. Having said that, if the law is so vaguely drafted that the defendant could not know they were breaking it, then it is decidedly bad law.

This knowledge is actually enshrined as a human right in the EHRC (clause 7 I think, perhaps someone else knows more precisely?). Failure to comply with this right can constitute illegal law (under the charter) and can be said to cause a 'chilling effect'. Where individuals are prevented from doing something perfectly legal because of their uncertainty of the law.

canvas:



Of course, but that's not the point.

You said "Some people might say the threat is that pornography devalues peoples humanity and dignity."

Now if *you* feel you've been "devalued" that's your prerogative. However there are those will will argue "on behalf of others" (ie women who pose for porn) that *they* are being "devalued" by doing so and sticking their noses in someone else's business.

They are saying that these women are not capable of making up their own minds whether or not they are being "devalued" (or that they're the victims of male oppression or some other BS) and that they're "letting the side down".

If the participants make an *informed choice* about appearing in this material, it is their own business and nobody else's.

astrocat:



You are free to believe whatever you wish. However believing it or continually repeating a claim doesn't make it true. I also think you need to look up the meaning of the word "irony".



Yes, that is correct. But what you said was: "this is the sort of image that the objectors say we should allow." which is offensive nonsense and a gross misrepresentation of what we have been saying.

As to your subsequent comments about the Royal Family and secretly filmed material, you are in the realms of sheer speculation.

Yes, there's secretly filmed material, this doesn't prove the existence of snuff movies or anything else, however.



I agree and that is why the laws like this, as they stand, are badly worded and applied since to get protection from them you have to admit to an offence. But this is not the subject under discussion.



I wouldn't. I'd throw it out entirely because all it does is criminalise possession of *images* that someone else doesn't like.

Unfortunately it may well be the case that, in a desperate attempt to save face, the Government will force it through anyway, so the amendments proposed by Harry Crouch MP are our best chance of at least seeing some sanity prevail.

Can we please move away from these endless hypotheticals on supposed 'networks' trading in snuff movies and real rape porn, that ‘could’ or ‘may’ exist, featuring trafficked illegal, immigrants and torture victims etc.

No-one has ever shown them to exist. If they were to exist, then let’s by all means ban them.
But as of current knowledge they make up exactly 0% of the material to be affected by this law.

Not merely is there no evidence of there being any such material made routinely, there isn’t even anything pointing to any material of this nature circulating at all.

Now I am willing to assume that perhaps there are one or two such films. Perhaps. After all, never say never. But it’s an assumption, nothing more. A concession to a hypothetical possibility.

These ‘what if’ scenarios really are no sound basis for action.
(After all, in hindsight, ‘what if’ Saddam had WMDs, wasn’t the wisest question to ask, was it?)
There needs to be something to back assumptions up. Dodgy dossiers lead to dodgy wars. Dodgy assumptions most likely to dodgy laws.

‘What if’ Smarties cause brain damage? Who needs evidence? Let’s act now, before it’s too late! ‘What if’ watching basketball reduces sperm count? Why is nobody doing anything? ‘What if’ table tennis players are conspiring to kill us all in our sleep?

So in that light the chorus of ‘what if’ women are being abused in the making of porn, takes on a different shade. An unsubstantiated hypothesis alone is not an argument. There must be something to it. So far there has been nothing to substantiate it. In spite of there being a great many people very keen to find something.

Better still, there is a strong argument for this ‘what if’ to remain without substance; namely the ease with which this material can apparently be produced with willing protagonists.

So please folks, we are not introducing these laws to protect trafficked women from molestation. We are doing so, because government categorises these images as ‘abhorrent’. It’s a case of seeking to ban something toward which one feels moral abhorrence.

With no indication of abuse for production being existent the everlasting return to this tiresome argument is tedious.

The issue remains entirely moral.

I agree Phantom, well said.

Further, I believe this proposed law, as it is presently worded, is immoral.

Punishing people for no good reason cannot be said to be a moral act.

and yet you wouldn't re-draft the law, you'd throw it out.

In other words it would be allowed because there would be no law to prevent an extracted image being used for sexual gratification.

You go on to admit there is secretly filmed material after Phantom has challenged the logic of such strange goings on as wanting to film people secretly



so it seems to me that the objectors to these proposals aren't even sure themselves what material might be being produced so can hardly make the argument that real rape movies aren't being made.



doesn't disprove it either and the odds on Triarius hunch being correct have just significantly shortened.

so we've now gone from it being an illogical hypothetical to a ' Perhaps. After all, never say never'.

And yes the Gov. is introducing these laws catergorised as morally abhorrent because patently there are certain sections of society who have absolutely no concept of morality.

It was only a little while ago that it came to light what terrible practices were taking place with Chinese gangmasters. The Far East has a reputation for being more tolerant than we are of sexual practices. International co-operation might lead to the tracing and shutting down of networks that use illegal sex workers and lead to allsorts of revelations regarding images of forced sex.

I'm not interested in criminalising consentual sex that doesn't involve corpses or animals. I am interested in criminalising people who look at images of extreme violence produced under duress or filmed non consentually. I don't believe that the porn industry is free from such practices, and one of the most likely places it would be found would be within the arena of sexual trafficking where the girls are two a penny and easily disposed of.

The law has to be able to prosecute the makers and the recipients of such attrocity, I don't think this law is aimed at Mr. & Mrs. Bloggs' nocturnal whipping sessions.

Well how would the images be "retrieved by the police"? Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing with the principle, I just don't understand the mechanics of this.

Do you mean found during a search Or passed to them along with a complaint?

Right now, without the proposed law, if the police found a video of extreme porn, they are perfectly entitled to investigate it, to satisfy themselves that no crime is being committed, this may lead to prosecutions. So no need for this new law in this particular case.

Have I misunderstood you, are you thinking of some other form of 'retrieval'?

International cooperation would almost certainly be needed to tackle sex trafficking, but almost every country, which was asked, has refused to cooperate with this law. So the proposed law cannot help such investigations.

Yes, this might lead to all sorts of revelations, but how is that relevant? We do not legislate on the off chance that it might turn something up.



So are we. Further we do not want people who look at images of consensual sex criminalising either, which this law will do.



Can't argue with that, though we don't know if abuse, in the porn industry, is any greater than in any other walk of life, but how will this law help?

Well if you are talking about images from online sources, as opposed to those found on video or photos (see above) the police already have access to them. How will locking up some poor soul who downloads them help?

As I understand it Steve, this legislation is aimed primarily at images transmitted over the internet. The corollory would be to ask how would locking up the poor souls who download child abuse help?

By using the exactly the same methodology as the Virtual Global Taskforce by expanding the scope to include content such as bestiality, necrophilia and extreme violence it would serve to
make the Internet a safer place;
to identify, locate and help those at risk; and
to hold perpetrators appropriately to account

if we are willing to do this for children, why should we not also target those who sexually abuse adults? While it is relatively clear cut that a child iss being abused, it is not so easy to prove that an adult may be being abused but they still deserve the same protections under law. And if people are downloading these images, it creates a demand for the abuser.

Operation PIN is a website that purports to contain images of child abuse but is actually a law enforcement site. The same methodology could be applied to the practices covered by these ammendments. How can we know how much abuse is taking place unless we can guage how much interest there is in it and tackle the problem without knowing the extent to which some people will go to get hold of these sort of images?

There has to be a law to prosecute those who download these images in order to try and stop the chain of demand in order to try and stop the abuse. How much child abuse were we aware of before laws were brought in to criminalise possession of that?

Alright, it hasn't stopped and it probably never will, but that doesn't mean that with a new media such as the internet that we shouldn't make law to try and prevent it.

If it is an illegal act, it has to be illegal to view it

Astro - are you saying a site exists that portrays child abuse and is run by a law enforcement agency?

All child porn is by definition evidence of an illegal act. Downloading those images encourages the making of the porn and therefore the illegal act itself.

Now bestiality is illegal so a photo or film of it could be treated the same as chld porn, necrophilia is illegal, but is having sex with someone pretending to be dead? How do you tell the difference, from the image alone?

Real sexual abuse is illegal, but how do you tell if someone is acting or actually abused from the image alone?

This law is not aimed merely at images of real illegal acts but it is also deliberately aimed at images of 'pretend' illegal acts.

Now you may say we should prosecute all the same, because we will discourage the real illegal acts.

I wouldn't agree with that point of view, but let's accept that we were willing to pay that price, for the sake of this question;

Why shouldn't the defendant be allowed to show if he had good cause to believe that the images were legal?

As for your 'virtual global task force', I have clearly said that there will be almost no international cooperation with this proposed law.

As for investigating the subject further, I have nothing against that, but don't you think that should have been done before legislation?

Ok, let’s produce another hypothetical:

The Tory party is responsible for cancer.
Therefore we ought to ban it.

Now I hear many of you scoffing. What nonsense.
Well, according to the logic someone has just produced above, it’s not for me to set out and show that the Tory party is a carcinogenic, it’s for the Conservative Party to prove that it isn’t.
If it can’t satisfactorily do so, it ought to be banned.

Now, I would like to stress I don’t inhabit that kind of a world, but then I’m not keen on banning things, as many of you will have gathered by now.

But let’s enter a little further into this surreal world, shall we?

Also, if you are in a video riding a hamster, you may be done for animal cruelty. After all, hamsters are much too small to be ridden and hence it’s fairly obvious that it’s an unlawful act. However, what about horses?

Sure, horses are actually animals designed for the purpose, but couldn’t it be that one of them is being ridden against its will. I think we ought to have a law against this, no? Clearly we ought to ban any film featuring horse riding, just to be on the safe side, lest any horse has been ridden against its will in production. In fact, let's imprison people who are found in possession of extracts of black beauty. After all, those horse molesting bastards have it coming!

Please just draw the parallels with what you’ve just read in some of the previous posts and have a giggle. I think it’s all we’re left with.

There is no utilitarian argument for the ban on this material. There is no measurable harm anyone can point to. Therefore some descend into these ‘what if’ scenarios in an attempt to explain that the law ‘may’ be protecting us from hitherto unknown, hypothetical harms.

However, we return again and again to the age-old point. It’s a moral divide entirely.
Some believe this to be morally corrupting.
Some believe it merely to be a form of pornography among many others.
Some believe the public must intervene into the private lives of others in order to protect them from the corrosive nature of the material they may choose to possess.
Some believe the state should have no role in telling people how to live in the privacy of their own homes and should stop nannying them.

Sure, we can remain with the ‘what if’ debate and wonder if eating peanut butter today will make us less able to fend off a Martian invasion in a hundred years time, but I see little point in it.

If anyone has any serious evidence to substantiate claims that there is widespread real abuse (or even singular cases of it) in relevant pornography, let’s see it. Else, you cannot be serious in proposing legislation on the basis of ‘what if’….

After all, what if polar bears suddenly all decide to migrate to Britain? Better have a cull then. Just to be safe.

Ye gods.

So please, by all means tell us of the moral need for prohibition and let's debate that.
But suggesting we ought to lock people up - for real - because there is a faint possibility of something untoward going on somewhere, perhaps, is just painful.

I know, Yorker, I'm getting carried away again.
Breathe, phantom, breathe....

Scrubs



Yes

VGT-OPERATION PIN

I gather if you click on their site your computer screen goes black and you get a welcome message from the cops telling you you're in loads of trouble.

:))

Steve



I would suspect that would form an intrinsic plank of any defence. Which would go back to the concept that it would be for a jury to decide and pull the teeth of bad law.

astrocat:



Oh *nice* bit of word twisting there, astrocat.

Please try to comprehend the difference between "not wanting to ban" and "approving of".



Again you twist things. The News of the Screws employs "secret filming" as do many "investigative journalism" programmes and, of course, the Police.



Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, astrocat.

*WHEN* will you start to understand the meaning of *BURDEN OF PROOF*???



"Certain sections"? You mean like people who urinate on dying disabled women? So *why* haven't they made this law target people like that and, instead, attempt to foist *their* "concepts of morality" on people who are *not* doing harm to anyone?

Astrocat, it seems like common sense that such a defence would of course be allowed, doesn't it?

But this law, as it is worded at present, will not allow such a defence.
Liberty (PDF briefing-from the bottom of page 16) asks that it should and if such a defence were available, that would go some way to satisfying many of those who think the proposed law is unjust.

This from the bill;




No other defence will be allowed to be argued in court.

Can you see why some think this law needs to be rethought or at least amended?

The Bill in full