This is the most affecting article i’ve read on Unherd. Just in the UK, an average of 10 families a day, every day. Lives shattered beyond repair, and not through accidental causes. Then, those subject to the abuse which creates the downloaded images.
The internet has clearly let loose something within humans, predominantly men of course, that must have lain dormant or been confined to the very fringes of societies until recently. Is there an historical precedent for such activity, on such a scale?
It’s a very difficult subject to even contemplate. The feeling of betrayal; of having lived with, loved, and having enjoyed a sexual relationship with someone whose psyche was fixated on abuse of children. Can we ever truly ‘know’ another person, however close the relationship?
Now that such things are being discussed, and i think rightly so, however difficult – we must all ask: just what is it in the human psyche that precipitates this? Is it the primarily male need to dominate, at whatever cost? Do other animal species abuse their young? It’s no use just shuddereing in disgust, these questions and more need to be faced up to. It’s not a symptom of western social malaise, or global malaise, since it’s always been present, just hidden. The internet has brought it into the open, and i wonder whether we can bear to face up to it. But we must.
You raise some really interesting issues in your comment. Why do humans do this? I suspect, from having read about evolutionary psychiatry, that there are some people who are simply wired to be attracted to children. It has been part of societies all around the globe for as long as we can tell but, as you say, the Internet has really turbocharged it.
I suspect that many who use child porn would not have sought it out prior to the advent of the net. As porn works on our addiction centre, (whatever the technical term is), the brain becomes used to a level of stimulation and requires more and more to get the same level of arousal. Taboos are powerful sexual stimulants and so these people feed their addiction by raising the level of taboo. Had they existed in a different era, a lingerie catalogue would have sufficed.
Every sexual variation and fetish is catered to now. So they go to the transgressive for kicks. I expect they are tortured with shame about it.
I also think that power relations, as you point out, are at play. So much about sex is about power and dominance, as well as for emotional closeness. But power play in sexual fetishes are very popular.
I suspect the Internet has not been such a great idea for the human brain. Desire is flattened by endless choice, mystery has faded, taboos are now normalised. And ok, let’s be sex positive and all that, but I suspect we need boundaries and taboos, not open slather.
I think the proliferation of child porn is a tragedy and a by-product of the drive for instant everything. Personally I think any sort of porn should be much, much harder to access. What we are doing to the brains of kids is appalling and some of us are doing it to their bodies too, and then sending it out to addicted and callous men to w**k over.
These men have a problem. But actually, we all do.
Thanks for your response, with real insights into the mechanisms which drive this activity. Greater understanding of ourselves is the only way forward.
Though a driver of proliferation, the internet – in holding up perhaps the first clear mirror of ourselves – could also take our understanding to a new level. We may just be at the stage of recoiling at the recognition in the mirror.
As you say, sexual abuse of children has lihely always existed. By looking straight into the mirror rather than recoiling, there may be hope.
I’m not so sure the Internet is a clear mirror of humanity. Plenty of people don’t use it, it is dominated by American interests who try to push the free speech line while actually being more interested in exploiting human psychological weakness for money. It is a device that distorts the image of those who look at it too long.
We evolved for small group interaction where communication was holistic and consequences for offence immediate. We saw clearly the hurt we inflicted, even if we chose to ignore it. Now we have trolls and abuse and toddlers being raped and we do not see the consequences of our words and behaviours. We can shut the device down and immediately return to wholesome family life, always compartmentalising, always accessing the gratification but not the consequences. Few men who view this stuff could tolerate being in the same room when it’s being done. But distanced by screens they can.
Or maybe I am too generous. The men who watch real time abuse by untraceable live video are growing in number. Perhaps this predatory sexual abuse is what we are. Slavery was a huge part of the ancient world, still is, albeit criminal. But we do it. We enslave and abuse those lower down our hierarchy. Poor, young, brown or black, female or all of the above. I read of a 4 yr old girl kept in a cage in China and used by men who paid for the pleasure they got from it.
Man is wolf to man.
And we knew that long before the Internet arrived.
Yes, that’s fair. Perhaps i should rephrase my point about the internet.
Although philosophers, writers, artists etc. have pondered on the nature of humanity throughout recorded history, it’s only now that a global awareness which the vast majority can share and become involved in has become available to us. In that respect, it’s a new type of mirror, and it really is only in its infancy.
As such, ‘everyman’ is now being reflected, and whilst the point you make about the distortions of the business model is correct, without these initial stages we can’t reflect upon where it’s taking us and how we might control it to greater effect: a bit like the Wild West.
I should also add that a huge amount of good comes from the internet too, it’s not all doom and gloom. But the kind of reflection of ourselves that i speak of – a kind of overall heightened awareness – is in my view also responsible for much of the Woke phenomenon, as part of the recoil.
Until we learn how to look ourselves in the mirror (any mirror) more clearly, we’ll continue making the same mistakes that comprise the history of humankind to date. But just look at what we’ve achieved along the way!
Yes, that’s fair. Perhaps i should rephrase my point about the internet.
Although philosophers, writers, artists etc. have pondered on the nature of humanity throughout recorded history, it’s only now that a global awareness which the vast majority can share and become involved in has become available to us. In that respect, it’s a new type of mirror, and it really is only in its infancy.
As such, ‘everyman’ is now being reflected, and whilst the point you make about the distortions of the business model is correct, without these initial stages we can’t reflect upon where it’s taking us and how we might control it to greater effect: a bit like the Wild West.
I should also add that a huge amount of good comes from the internet too, it’s not all doom and gloom. But the kind of reflection of ourselves that i speak of – a kind of overall heightened awareness – is in my view also responsible for much of the Woke phenomenon, as part of the recoil.
Until we learn how to look ourselves in the mirror (any mirror) more clearly, we’ll continue making the same mistakes that comprise the history of humankind to date. But just look at what we’ve achieved along the way!
I’m not so sure the Internet is a clear mirror of humanity. Plenty of people don’t use it, it is dominated by American interests who try to push the free speech line while actually being more interested in exploiting human psychological weakness for money. It is a device that distorts the image of those who look at it too long.
We evolved for small group interaction where communication was holistic and consequences for offence immediate. We saw clearly the hurt we inflicted, even if we chose to ignore it. Now we have trolls and abuse and toddlers being raped and we do not see the consequences of our words and behaviours. We can shut the device down and immediately return to wholesome family life, always compartmentalising, always accessing the gratification but not the consequences. Few men who view this stuff could tolerate being in the same room when it’s being done. But distanced by screens they can.
Or maybe I am too generous. The men who watch real time abuse by untraceable live video are growing in number. Perhaps this predatory sexual abuse is what we are. Slavery was a huge part of the ancient world, still is, albeit criminal. But we do it. We enslave and abuse those lower down our hierarchy. Poor, young, brown or black, female or all of the above. I read of a 4 yr old girl kept in a cage in China and used by men who paid for the pleasure they got from it.
Man is wolf to man.
And we knew that long before the Internet arrived.
Why do they do it?
Adult human female sexual characteristics are based on neoteny.
The physical attractiveness of women to men and the natural help, support and protection that men provide for women is very much dependent of the features that neoteny creates.
Abnormal desire in men is an extreme expression of their natural proclivities.
Thanks for your response, with real insights into the mechanisms which drive this activity. Greater understanding of ourselves is the only way forward.
Though a driver of proliferation, the internet – in holding up perhaps the first clear mirror of ourselves – could also take our understanding to a new level. We may just be at the stage of recoiling at the recognition in the mirror.
As you say, sexual abuse of children has lihely always existed. By looking straight into the mirror rather than recoiling, there may be hope.
Why do they do it?
Adult human female sexual characteristics are based on neoteny.
The physical attractiveness of women to men and the natural help, support and protection that men provide for women is very much dependent of the features that neoteny creates.
Abnormal desire in men is an extreme expression of their natural proclivities.
What of the minds of the thousands of people who legally sift through the millions of these images? Police officers and other agency staff whose full-time job is to scrutinise the confiscated devices. Are any strict psychometric tests used to screen and select those specialised investigators? What specific training is given for such a harrowing job? Can healthy minds be corrupted and if so can rehabilitation be given? And then there are courts; judges, lawyers, juries, journalists, etc exposed to the trauma of extreme disgust.
Great point.The ripples from this aspect of the internet (of ourselves) spread ever outwards.
This article, and discussion, are also a counter-ripple, however small as yet. But the fact this can openly be discussed is, i feel, a significant attempt towards an understanding of our humanity.
My brother is a policeman who is on a sex offender supervisor team. Some of the stories he hears are horrific.
But, he says for the first time in years (he’s been in the police over 20 years) he actually feels like he’s doing something to protect the community, which is what he joined for, and I think that helps him to cope with what he has to deal with.
My brother is a policeman who is on a sex offender supervisor team. Some of the stories he hears are horrific.
But, he says for the first time in years (he’s been in the police over 20 years) he actually feels like he’s doing something to protect the community, which is what he joined for, and I think that helps him to cope with what he has to deal with.
There are articles and interviews with these people out there online. I’ve read some. Sifting through this material takes a terrible toll on those paid to do it. Even seeing a wholesome picture of a father embracing his kids can be triggering after so long. They generally don’t last long in that job.
Actually there are many judges who are into child pornography as there are pedaphile pedatricians, teachers, priests etc. So, yes, one wonders what qualifications the legal viewers of pornograpy have, and why they would want to do it.
Great point.The ripples from this aspect of the internet (of ourselves) spread ever outwards.
This article, and discussion, are also a counter-ripple, however small as yet. But the fact this can openly be discussed is, i feel, a significant attempt towards an understanding of our humanity.
There are articles and interviews with these people out there online. I’ve read some. Sifting through this material takes a terrible toll on those paid to do it. Even seeing a wholesome picture of a father embracing his kids can be triggering after so long. They generally don’t last long in that job.
Actually there are many judges who are into child pornography as there are pedaphile pedatricians, teachers, priests etc. So, yes, one wonders what qualifications the legal viewers of pornograpy have, and why they would want to do it.
4 or 5 years ago I was listening to a barrister talking about his career on Radio 5. The interviewer finished by asking him what was the biggest change he had seen in 25 year at the Bar.
He responded the huge increase in sexual offences. He said that when he started out as a barrister he would have to defend the very occasional criminal offence, but it had reached the point where the largest number of criminal offences of any category coming before the courts were sexual offences.
You have said everything I was thinking as I read this article, so i won’t repeat it. But what the hell is this epidemic of child pornography all about. So many questions, and as you say it must have been there all along.
You raise some really interesting issues in your comment. Why do humans do this? I suspect, from having read about evolutionary psychiatry, that there are some people who are simply wired to be attracted to children. It has been part of societies all around the globe for as long as we can tell but, as you say, the Internet has really turbocharged it.
I suspect that many who use child porn would not have sought it out prior to the advent of the net. As porn works on our addiction centre, (whatever the technical term is), the brain becomes used to a level of stimulation and requires more and more to get the same level of arousal. Taboos are powerful sexual stimulants and so these people feed their addiction by raising the level of taboo. Had they existed in a different era, a lingerie catalogue would have sufficed.
Every sexual variation and fetish is catered to now. So they go to the transgressive for kicks. I expect they are tortured with shame about it.
I also think that power relations, as you point out, are at play. So much about sex is about power and dominance, as well as for emotional closeness. But power play in sexual fetishes are very popular.
I suspect the Internet has not been such a great idea for the human brain. Desire is flattened by endless choice, mystery has faded, taboos are now normalised. And ok, let’s be sex positive and all that, but I suspect we need boundaries and taboos, not open slather.
I think the proliferation of child porn is a tragedy and a by-product of the drive for instant everything. Personally I think any sort of porn should be much, much harder to access. What we are doing to the brains of kids is appalling and some of us are doing it to their bodies too, and then sending it out to addicted and callous men to w**k over.
These men have a problem. But actually, we all do.
What of the minds of the thousands of people who legally sift through the millions of these images? Police officers and other agency staff whose full-time job is to scrutinise the confiscated devices. Are any strict psychometric tests used to screen and select those specialised investigators? What specific training is given for such a harrowing job? Can healthy minds be corrupted and if so can rehabilitation be given? And then there are courts; judges, lawyers, juries, journalists, etc exposed to the trauma of extreme disgust.
4 or 5 years ago I was listening to a barrister talking about his career on Radio 5. The interviewer finished by asking him what was the biggest change he had seen in 25 year at the Bar.
He responded the huge increase in sexual offences. He said that when he started out as a barrister he would have to defend the very occasional criminal offence, but it had reached the point where the largest number of criminal offences of any category coming before the courts were sexual offences.
You have said everything I was thinking as I read this article, so i won’t repeat it. But what the hell is this epidemic of child pornography all about. So many questions, and as you say it must have been there all along.
Last edited 1 year ago by Clare Knight
Steve Murray
1 year ago
This is the most affecting article i’ve read on Unherd. Just in the UK, an average of 10 families a day, every day. Lives shattered beyond repair, and not through accidental causes. Then, those subject to the abuse which creates the downloaded images.
The internet has clearly let loose something within humans, predominantly men of course, that must have lain dormant or been confined to the very fringes of societies until recently. Is there an historical precedent for such activity, on such a scale?
It’s a very difficult subject to even contemplate. The feeling of betrayal; of having lived with, loved, and having enjoyed a sexual relationship with someone whose psyche was fixated on abuse of children. Can we ever truly ‘know’ another person, however close the relationship?
Now that such things are being discussed, and i think rightly so, however difficult – we must all ask: just what is it in the human psyche that precipitates this? Is it the primarily male need to dominate, at whatever cost? Do other animal species abuse their young? It’s no use just shuddereing in disgust, these questions and more need to be faced up to. It’s not a symptom of western social malaise, or global malaise, since it’s always been present, just hidden. The internet has brought it into the open, and i wonder whether we can bear to face up to it. But we must.
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
One of the many things I find so worrying about all this, is the sheer number of men looking at this stuff. In the past of course these images didn’t exist in any significant volume (yes, I know, Lewis Carol) but with the internet as a distribution system par excellence, supply seems to have created demand.
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
One of the many things I find so worrying about all this, is the sheer number of men looking at this stuff. In the past of course these images didn’t exist in any significant volume (yes, I know, Lewis Carol) but with the internet as a distribution system par excellence, supply seems to have created demand.
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
This article raises all sorts of moral questions about human behaviour. Why is it not a criminal offence to watch videos of beheadings and other lethal and violent incidents? Clearly we regularly view fake violence in films and TV dramas – would it be acceptable to watch CGI child porn where no real children were harmed? Would such viewing lead to actual child abuse or would it substitute for it and become a harmless outlet for a base obsession?
Indulging in secret obsession tends to be destructive of any relationship. A friend of my son’s broke up with her boyfriend because he could not conquer a gambling addiction and consistently lied about it. Unlike the wife of a child porn addict she could talk about it and receive sympathy. Much of the destructive effects on the partners of child porn addicts seems to arise because they can’t talk about it and receive a sympathetic hearing. The destruction of trust is similar in both cases. Is this a problem of the reaction of people to the wives of porn addicts?
Most of us are disgusted by child porn and yet many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust such as homosexuality, sadism and masochism have become acceptable and indeed celebrated.
Terrible things happen in life are we all to be entitled to victim status and publicly financed victim support? I certainly don’t have easy answers to such questions but perhaps they need considering.
You just compared homosexuality to child porn, sadism, and masochism.
Do you understand the difference between child rape images and homosexuality? Can you explain the difference? I hope so.
Sadism and masochism involve the sexualization of violence. Can you see the difference between that and child rape images? Can you see how there might be overlap between the two? Are some taboos necessary for a healthy society?
Can you see the difference between a gambling addiction and an addiction to images of child rape?
Would CGI images of child rape lower a pedophile’s inhibitions or enforce those inhibitions? I’m guessing the former.
Would you feel safe having your child taught by a teacher who watches CGI child porn? Why or why not?
Men who enjoy watching images of child rape are extremely dangerous – and so are men who enjoy watching images of people being beheaded. I think those images should be banned from the internet and I would seriously question the sanity of anyone who enjoyed watching those videos – especially if they masturbated to them.
Our priority should always be to protect the vulnerable, not those who prey upon them.
Protect the kids. Lock up those who prey upon them. No child’s safety should ever be sacrificed to protect the freedom of a grown man.
Penny, I am a man of my time and I know you to be a survivor of childhood sexual abuse so you will certainly not find me defending child porn.
However, what disgusts and appalls is not fixed and different times have had different approaches. Few would today support the hanging of two men for an “act too horrible to speak of” only 190 years ago. Today that act is celebrated with multicoloured flags in the streets. Most of us are rightly appalled that men could be hanged for it just a few generations ago. Child prostitution involving girls of 12 and 13 was rife in late Victorian England and it required William Stead to publicise this so that the legal age of consent was raised in 1885 from 13 to 16. I suspect most in Victorian times would have been more shocked by a gay father than one consorting with 13 year old girls.
What concerns me most is the failure of the police on an international level to concentrate their fire on those involved in the production of the original images. How often do we hear of savage sentences being meted out to the originators of these images – the real abusers and rapists – as opposed to those who merely view them like the perverted voyeurs of beheadings? The argument that viewing child pornography perpetuates it would be more compelling if all these knocks actually diminished the supply. It seems that too often the efforts are concentrated on individual consumers rather than the pernicious originators of child porn. In the article none of the wives whose whole life is torn apart by the knock actually suggests that their husband has in fact sexually interfered with their children. Is there research as to whether child porn viewers do in fact invariably go on to commit offences against their or other children?
Will future generations view our approach to consumers of child porn as the most effective and humane way of dealing with the production of child pornography or consider it to be as perverse as we consider our forebears approach to child prostitution and homosexuality.
Penny, I am a man of my time and I know you to be a survivor of childhood sexual abuse so you will certainly not find me defending child porn.
However, what disgusts and appalls is not fixed and different times have had different approaches. Few would today support the hanging of two men for an “act too horrible to speak of” only 190 years ago. Today that act is celebrated with multicoloured flags in the streets. Most of us are rightly appalled that men could be hanged for it just a few generations ago. Child prostitution involving girls of 12 and 13 was rife in late Victorian England and it required William Stead to publicise this so that the legal age of consent was raised in 1885 from 13 to 16. I suspect most in Victorian times would have been more shocked by a gay father than one consorting with 13 year old girls.
What concerns me most is the failure of the police on an international level to concentrate their fire on those involved in the production of the original images. How often do we hear of savage sentences being meted out to the originators of these images – the real abusers and rapists – as opposed to those who merely view them like the perverted voyeurs of beheadings? The argument that viewing child pornography perpetuates it would be more compelling if all these knocks actually diminished the supply. It seems that too often the efforts are concentrated on individual consumers rather than the pernicious originators of child porn. In the article none of the wives whose whole life is torn apart by the knock actually suggests that their husband has in fact sexually interfered with their children. Is there research as to whether child porn viewers do in fact invariably go on to commit offences against their or other children?
Will future generations view our approach to consumers of child porn as the most effective and humane way of dealing with the production of child pornography or consider it to be as perverse as we consider our forebears approach to child prostitution and homosexuality.
” … many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust …” were also illegal back then: making some taboo activity legal might be celebrated by its participants but still causes disgust to the rest of us.
You just compared homosexuality to child porn, sadism, and masochism.
Do you understand the difference between child rape images and homosexuality? Can you explain the difference? I hope so.
Sadism and masochism involve the sexualization of violence. Can you see the difference between that and child rape images? Can you see how there might be overlap between the two? Are some taboos necessary for a healthy society?
Can you see the difference between a gambling addiction and an addiction to images of child rape?
Would CGI images of child rape lower a pedophile’s inhibitions or enforce those inhibitions? I’m guessing the former.
Would you feel safe having your child taught by a teacher who watches CGI child porn? Why or why not?
Men who enjoy watching images of child rape are extremely dangerous – and so are men who enjoy watching images of people being beheaded. I think those images should be banned from the internet and I would seriously question the sanity of anyone who enjoyed watching those videos – especially if they masturbated to them.
Our priority should always be to protect the vulnerable, not those who prey upon them.
Protect the kids. Lock up those who prey upon them. No child’s safety should ever be sacrificed to protect the freedom of a grown man.
” … many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust …” were also illegal back then: making some taboo activity legal might be celebrated by its participants but still causes disgust to the rest of us.
My thought as I read the article was that support groups like that for grief might be helpful for the families of child pornography abusers.
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
This article raises all sorts of moral questions about human behaviour. Why is it not a criminal offence to watch videos of beheadings and other lethal and violent incidents? Clearly we regularly view fake violence in films and TV dramas – would it be acceptable to watch CGI child porn where no real children were harmed? Would such viewing lead to actual child abuse or would it substitute for it and become a harmless outlet for a base obsession?
Indulging in secret obsession tends to be destructive of any relationship. A friend of my son’s broke up with her boyfriend because he could not conquer a gambling addiction and consistently lied about it. Unlike the wife of a child porn addict she could talk about it and receive sympathy. Much of the destructive effects on the partners of child porn addicts seems to arise because they can’t talk about it and receive a sympathetic hearing. The destruction of trust is similar in both cases. Is this a problem of the reaction of people to the wives of porn addicts?
Most of us are disgusted by child porn and yet many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust such as homosexuality, sadism and masochism have become acceptable and indeed celebrated.
Terrible things happen in life are we all to be entitled to victim status and publicly financed victim support? I certainly don’t have easy answers to such questions but perhaps they need considering.
Mark Goodhand
1 year ago
“Bob re-offended last year”
How was he free to re-offend, one wonders?
The Sex Offender’s Register is not fit for purpose.
People who enjoy watching the abuse of children should be removed from society forever.
The only thing that makes me pause is the possibility of miscarriages of justice. It’s easy to imagine evidence being planted, to bring down an enemy of the state, or just a personal enemy.
That line jumps off the page. I took it to mean that he had once again looked at illegal pictures. Hard to believe the police can prevent an offender from gaining access to the internet’s dark corners. They would need to constantly monitor his computer, phone, and library access. (Do internet cafes still exist?)
That line jumps off the page. I took it to mean that he had once again looked at illegal pictures. Hard to believe the police can prevent an offender from gaining access to the internet’s dark corners. They would need to constantly monitor his computer, phone, and library access. (Do internet cafes still exist?)
The Sex Offender’s Register is not fit for purpose.
People who enjoy watching the abuse of children should be removed from society forever.
The only thing that makes me pause is the possibility of miscarriages of justice. It’s easy to imagine evidence being planted, to bring down an enemy of the state, or just a personal enemy.
Susan James
1 year ago
I am glad to see this article raising the profile of the suffering caused to partners and families of sex offenders. There is another area of offending which is increasingly being pursued by the police and that is historic abuse. The knock can come 40 or 50 years after the event, an event which took place before the offender and his current partner had even met. Teenage boys can sometimes do incredibly stupid and utterly wrong things with a younger family member. It is recognised that young people are not fully neurologically developed until their mid twenties and often the offence is not repeated in adulthood and the teenager becomes a kind and loving partner and father. Nevertheless, society requires that such offences are punished with the result that the partners and family are punished as well.
Partners of an offender in this situation are devastated. A whole married or co-habiting life: 20, 30 40 years becomes meaningless. It is impossible to create a new future for the reasons explained in the article but in particular, where the knock comes when you are in your 60s, there is no time left in your life to turn anything around. There are financial issues too. Crown Prosecution costs and defence costs run to tens of thousands and the partner’s resources are taken into account even though they are also victims.
How can you decide whether to remain with someone you have loved and cared for for decades in such desperately stressful circumstances? And what are the emotional, practical and financial consequences of separating?
This cannot be the best solution for the victim either. All that happens is that more victims are created. You cannot pile the blame for all the misery that follows onto the shoulders of an 18 year old boy who is effectively long gone. As a society we need to think about better ways of addressing this that recognise the needs of everyone concerned. Why not, in suitable circumstances, some kind mediation that enables the victim to hear the remorse of the offender, provides for the offender to agree to appropriate measures being taken for example, to have no contact with the victim but pay for the cost of therapy for the victim, and gives everyone a chance for some kind of life after the knock?
I don’t get the thing about teenage boys doing “stupid” things with younger family members. Sounds like minimizing something very creepy.
Susan James
1 year ago
I am glad to see this article raising the profile of the suffering caused to partners and families of sex offenders. There is another area of offending which is increasingly being pursued by the police and that is historic abuse. The knock can come 40 or 50 years after the event, an event which took place before the offender and his current partner had even met. Teenage boys can sometimes do incredibly stupid and utterly wrong things with a younger family member. It is recognised that young people are not fully neurologically developed until their mid twenties and often the offence is not repeated in adulthood and the teenager becomes a kind and loving partner and father. Nevertheless, society requires that such offences are punished with the result that the partners and family are punished as well.
Partners of an offender in this situation are devastated. A whole married or co-habiting life: 20, 30 40 years becomes meaningless. It is impossible to create a new future for the reasons explained in the article but in particular, where the knock comes when you are in your 60s, there is no time left in your life to turn anything around. There are financial issues too. Crown Prosecution costs and defence costs run to tens of thousands and the partner’s resources are taken into account even though they are also victims.
How can you decide whether to remain with someone you have loved and cared for for decades in such desperately stressful circumstances? And what are the emotional, practical and financial consequences of separating?
This cannot be the best solution for the victim either. All that happens is that more victims are created. You cannot pile the blame for all the misery that follows onto the shoulders of an 18 year old boy who is effectively long gone. As a society we need to think about better ways of addressing this that recognise the needs of everyone concerned. Why not, in suitable circumstances, some kind mediation that enables the victim to hear the remorse of the offender, provides for the offender to agree to appropriate measures being taken for example, to have no contact with the victim but pay for the cost of therapy for the victim, and gives everyone a chance for some kind of life after the knock?
Ian McKinney
1 year ago
This was so sad – my heart goes out to these women and their children.
Ian McKinney
1 year ago
This was so sad – my heart goes out to these women and their children.
Josh
1 year ago
What a painful, deeply depressing read, utterly tragic. Through no fault of their own, the mother’s and children’s lives are torn apart in unimaginable ways. They have my full sympathy and I can imagine almost no greater betrayal than this to suffer. Tainted by the sins of those you think you know.
Emily Riedel
1 year ago
As much as many porn-purveyors will deny it, this abomination begins with a porn addiction. That’s the first stop on your way to ending up with a knock on your door and your life torn apart.
Orlando W.
1 year ago
It seems like a large chuck of the British population are pedophiles
Orlando W.
1 year ago
It seems like a large chuck of the British population are pedophiles
Penny Adrian
1 year ago
These women do need and deserve support. However, I don’t think I could maintain a friendship with a woman who gave her pedophile ex husband access to her small children. I would sincerely doubt her sanity and sense of responsibility.
That’s too simplistic. Children love their parents and can have no conception of the flaws which revile other adults. How do you explain to small children that you are are forbidding them from seeing a father they love when you can’t explain why? These women are in an impossible dilemma, no wonder they are so lonely when they get this kind of reaction if they are honest.
I am not defending these offenders, but many of them seem to be able to compartmentalise to the extent that they are loving decent fathers to their own children. The Internet allows them to distance themselves from the abominable crimes being committed upon other people’s children. It ‘s not logical or clearly supportable but it is possible to understand this. Our revulsion stops enough public discussion for them to suppress what they must know to be true, that these are real children being exploited and damaged.
I think that you are on to something when you say that these men are able to distance themselves via the internet; perhaps without thde ‘net they may never have been involved. Another negative aspect of the internet, for all the positive uses I still wonder if the negatives out-weigh them. If only we could put the genie back into the bottle.
That’s a really good point – these women really are in a very tricky situation. I also think you’re right about the internet distancing the viewer from the crime. I think it is unlikely that most of the men who view this stuff would ever act it out in real life – but the authorities need to act, as they can’t know who will or will not offend in real life. I also think that a substantial portion of them had those desires ‘woken up’ by general porn watching – after a while the endless vanilla does not excite so much and so more extreme images are required for the same dopamine hit.
I think that you are on to something when you say that these men are able to distance themselves via the internet; perhaps without thde ‘net they may never have been involved. Another negative aspect of the internet, for all the positive uses I still wonder if the negatives out-weigh them. If only we could put the genie back into the bottle.
That’s a really good point – these women really are in a very tricky situation. I also think you’re right about the internet distancing the viewer from the crime. I think it is unlikely that most of the men who view this stuff would ever act it out in real life – but the authorities need to act, as they can’t know who will or will not offend in real life. I also think that a substantial portion of them had those desires ‘woken up’ by general porn watching – after a while the endless vanilla does not excite so much and so more extreme images are required for the same dopamine hit.
That’s too simplistic. Children love their parents and can have no conception of the flaws which revile other adults. How do you explain to small children that you are are forbidding them from seeing a father they love when you can’t explain why? These women are in an impossible dilemma, no wonder they are so lonely when they get this kind of reaction if they are honest.
I am not defending these offenders, but many of them seem to be able to compartmentalise to the extent that they are loving decent fathers to their own children. The Internet allows them to distance themselves from the abominable crimes being committed upon other people’s children. It ‘s not logical or clearly supportable but it is possible to understand this. Our revulsion stops enough public discussion for them to suppress what they must know to be true, that these are real children being exploited and damaged.
Penny Adrian
1 year ago
These women do need and deserve support. However, I don’t think I could maintain a friendship with a woman who gave her pedophile ex husband access to her small children. I would sincerely doubt her sanity and sense of responsibility.
This is the most affecting article i’ve read on Unherd. Just in the UK, an average of 10 families a day, every day. Lives shattered beyond repair, and not through accidental causes. Then, those subject to the abuse which creates the downloaded images.
The internet has clearly let loose something within humans, predominantly men of course, that must have lain dormant or been confined to the very fringes of societies until recently. Is there an historical precedent for such activity, on such a scale?
It’s a very difficult subject to even contemplate. The feeling of betrayal; of having lived with, loved, and having enjoyed a sexual relationship with someone whose psyche was fixated on abuse of children. Can we ever truly ‘know’ another person, however close the relationship?
Now that such things are being discussed, and i think rightly so, however difficult – we must all ask: just what is it in the human psyche that precipitates this? Is it the primarily male need to dominate, at whatever cost? Do other animal species abuse their young? It’s no use just shuddereing in disgust, these questions and more need to be faced up to. It’s not a symptom of western social malaise, or global malaise, since it’s always been present, just hidden. The internet has brought it into the open, and i wonder whether we can bear to face up to it. But we must.
You raise some really interesting issues in your comment. Why do humans do this? I suspect, from having read about evolutionary psychiatry, that there are some people who are simply wired to be attracted to children. It has been part of societies all around the globe for as long as we can tell but, as you say, the Internet has really turbocharged it.
I suspect that many who use child porn would not have sought it out prior to the advent of the net. As porn works on our addiction centre, (whatever the technical term is), the brain becomes used to a level of stimulation and requires more and more to get the same level of arousal. Taboos are powerful sexual stimulants and so these people feed their addiction by raising the level of taboo. Had they existed in a different era, a lingerie catalogue would have sufficed.
Every sexual variation and fetish is catered to now. So they go to the transgressive for kicks. I expect they are tortured with shame about it.
I also think that power relations, as you point out, are at play. So much about sex is about power and dominance, as well as for emotional closeness. But power play in sexual fetishes are very popular.
I suspect the Internet has not been such a great idea for the human brain. Desire is flattened by endless choice, mystery has faded, taboos are now normalised. And ok, let’s be sex positive and all that, but I suspect we need boundaries and taboos, not open slather.
I think the proliferation of child porn is a tragedy and a by-product of the drive for instant everything. Personally I think any sort of porn should be much, much harder to access. What we are doing to the brains of kids is appalling and some of us are doing it to their bodies too, and then sending it out to addicted and callous men to w**k over.
These men have a problem. But actually, we all do.
Thanks for your response, with real insights into the mechanisms which drive this activity. Greater understanding of ourselves is the only way forward.
Though a driver of proliferation, the internet – in holding up perhaps the first clear mirror of ourselves – could also take our understanding to a new level. We may just be at the stage of recoiling at the recognition in the mirror.
As you say, sexual abuse of children has lihely always existed. By looking straight into the mirror rather than recoiling, there may be hope.
I’m not so sure the Internet is a clear mirror of humanity. Plenty of people don’t use it, it is dominated by American interests who try to push the free speech line while actually being more interested in exploiting human psychological weakness for money. It is a device that distorts the image of those who look at it too long.
We evolved for small group interaction where communication was holistic and consequences for offence immediate. We saw clearly the hurt we inflicted, even if we chose to ignore it. Now we have trolls and abuse and toddlers being raped and we do not see the consequences of our words and behaviours. We can shut the device down and immediately return to wholesome family life, always compartmentalising, always accessing the gratification but not the consequences. Few men who view this stuff could tolerate being in the same room when it’s being done. But distanced by screens they can.
Or maybe I am too generous. The men who watch real time abuse by untraceable live video are growing in number. Perhaps this predatory sexual abuse is what we are. Slavery was a huge part of the ancient world, still is, albeit criminal. But we do it. We enslave and abuse those lower down our hierarchy. Poor, young, brown or black, female or all of the above. I read of a 4 yr old girl kept in a cage in China and used by men who paid for the pleasure they got from it.
Man is wolf to man.
And we knew that long before the Internet arrived.
Yes, that’s fair. Perhaps i should rephrase my point about the internet.
Although philosophers, writers, artists etc. have pondered on the nature of humanity throughout recorded history, it’s only now that a global awareness which the vast majority can share and become involved in has become available to us. In that respect, it’s a new type of mirror, and it really is only in its infancy.
As such, ‘everyman’ is now being reflected, and whilst the point you make about the distortions of the business model is correct, without these initial stages we can’t reflect upon where it’s taking us and how we might control it to greater effect: a bit like the Wild West.
I should also add that a huge amount of good comes from the internet too, it’s not all doom and gloom. But the kind of reflection of ourselves that i speak of – a kind of overall heightened awareness – is in my view also responsible for much of the Woke phenomenon, as part of the recoil.
Until we learn how to look ourselves in the mirror (any mirror) more clearly, we’ll continue making the same mistakes that comprise the history of humankind to date. But just look at what we’ve achieved along the way!
I was hoping we might be free of the word woke for this discussion, but no, Steve had to throw it in.
I was hoping we might be free of the word woke for this discussion, but no, Steve had to throw it in.
Yes, that’s fair. Perhaps i should rephrase my point about the internet.
Although philosophers, writers, artists etc. have pondered on the nature of humanity throughout recorded history, it’s only now that a global awareness which the vast majority can share and become involved in has become available to us. In that respect, it’s a new type of mirror, and it really is only in its infancy.
As such, ‘everyman’ is now being reflected, and whilst the point you make about the distortions of the business model is correct, without these initial stages we can’t reflect upon where it’s taking us and how we might control it to greater effect: a bit like the Wild West.
I should also add that a huge amount of good comes from the internet too, it’s not all doom and gloom. But the kind of reflection of ourselves that i speak of – a kind of overall heightened awareness – is in my view also responsible for much of the Woke phenomenon, as part of the recoil.
Until we learn how to look ourselves in the mirror (any mirror) more clearly, we’ll continue making the same mistakes that comprise the history of humankind to date. But just look at what we’ve achieved along the way!
I’m not so sure the Internet is a clear mirror of humanity. Plenty of people don’t use it, it is dominated by American interests who try to push the free speech line while actually being more interested in exploiting human psychological weakness for money. It is a device that distorts the image of those who look at it too long.
We evolved for small group interaction where communication was holistic and consequences for offence immediate. We saw clearly the hurt we inflicted, even if we chose to ignore it. Now we have trolls and abuse and toddlers being raped and we do not see the consequences of our words and behaviours. We can shut the device down and immediately return to wholesome family life, always compartmentalising, always accessing the gratification but not the consequences. Few men who view this stuff could tolerate being in the same room when it’s being done. But distanced by screens they can.
Or maybe I am too generous. The men who watch real time abuse by untraceable live video are growing in number. Perhaps this predatory sexual abuse is what we are. Slavery was a huge part of the ancient world, still is, albeit criminal. But we do it. We enslave and abuse those lower down our hierarchy. Poor, young, brown or black, female or all of the above. I read of a 4 yr old girl kept in a cage in China and used by men who paid for the pleasure they got from it.
Man is wolf to man.
And we knew that long before the Internet arrived.
Why do they do it?
Adult human female sexual characteristics are based on neoteny.
The physical attractiveness of women to men and the natural help, support and protection that men provide for women is very much dependent of the features that neoteny creates.
Abnormal desire in men is an extreme expression of their natural proclivities.
That is very insulting to men.
It’s scientific fact.
I encourage everyone to research it for themselves.
Karen Straughan has an informative video on YouTube with the title Neoteny!
Karen Straughan has an informative video on YouTube with the title Neoteny!
It’s scientific fact.
I encourage everyone to research it for themselves.
That’s speculation not fact.
That is very insulting to men.
That’s speculation not fact.
Now we don’t, speak for yourself, please.
Thanks for your response, with real insights into the mechanisms which drive this activity. Greater understanding of ourselves is the only way forward.
Though a driver of proliferation, the internet – in holding up perhaps the first clear mirror of ourselves – could also take our understanding to a new level. We may just be at the stage of recoiling at the recognition in the mirror.
As you say, sexual abuse of children has lihely always existed. By looking straight into the mirror rather than recoiling, there may be hope.
Why do they do it?
Adult human female sexual characteristics are based on neoteny.
The physical attractiveness of women to men and the natural help, support and protection that men provide for women is very much dependent of the features that neoteny creates.
Abnormal desire in men is an extreme expression of their natural proclivities.
Now we don’t, speak for yourself, please.
What of the minds of the thousands of people who legally sift through the millions of these images? Police officers and other agency staff whose full-time job is to scrutinise the confiscated devices. Are any strict psychometric tests used to screen and select those specialised investigators? What specific training is given for such a harrowing job? Can healthy minds be corrupted and if so can rehabilitation be given? And then there are courts; judges, lawyers, juries, journalists, etc exposed to the trauma of extreme disgust.
Great point.The ripples from this aspect of the internet (of ourselves) spread ever outwards.
This article, and discussion, are also a counter-ripple, however small as yet. But the fact this can openly be discussed is, i feel, a significant attempt towards an understanding of our humanity.
Or a step towards a better understanding of man’s inhumanity to man.
Or a step towards a better understanding of man’s inhumanity to man.
You mind find this answers your questions: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-police-officers-battling-online-child-abuse-there-are-things-you-cant-unsee-r2xzmg3r8
My brother is a policeman who is on a sex offender supervisor team. Some of the stories he hears are horrific.
But, he says for the first time in years (he’s been in the police over 20 years) he actually feels like he’s doing something to protect the community, which is what he joined for, and I think that helps him to cope with what he has to deal with.
Your brother is a hero. Tell him THANK YOU from a survivor of child sexual abuse.
Your brother is a hero. Tell him THANK YOU from a survivor of child sexual abuse.
My brother is a policeman who is on a sex offender supervisor team. Some of the stories he hears are horrific.
But, he says for the first time in years (he’s been in the police over 20 years) he actually feels like he’s doing something to protect the community, which is what he joined for, and I think that helps him to cope with what he has to deal with.
There are articles and interviews with these people out there online. I’ve read some. Sifting through this material takes a terrible toll on those paid to do it. Even seeing a wholesome picture of a father embracing his kids can be triggering after so long. They generally don’t last long in that job.
Actually there are many judges who are into child pornography as there are pedaphile pedatricians, teachers, priests etc. So, yes, one wonders what qualifications the legal viewers of pornograpy have, and why they would want to do it.
Great point.The ripples from this aspect of the internet (of ourselves) spread ever outwards.
This article, and discussion, are also a counter-ripple, however small as yet. But the fact this can openly be discussed is, i feel, a significant attempt towards an understanding of our humanity.
You mind find this answers your questions: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-police-officers-battling-online-child-abuse-there-are-things-you-cant-unsee-r2xzmg3r8
There are articles and interviews with these people out there online. I’ve read some. Sifting through this material takes a terrible toll on those paid to do it. Even seeing a wholesome picture of a father embracing his kids can be triggering after so long. They generally don’t last long in that job.
Actually there are many judges who are into child pornography as there are pedaphile pedatricians, teachers, priests etc. So, yes, one wonders what qualifications the legal viewers of pornograpy have, and why they would want to do it.
4 or 5 years ago I was listening to a barrister talking about his career on Radio 5. The interviewer finished by asking him what was the biggest change he had seen in 25 year at the Bar.
He responded the huge increase in sexual offences. He said that when he started out as a barrister he would have to defend the very occasional criminal offence, but it had reached the point where the largest number of criminal offences of any category coming before the courts were sexual offences.
I suspect that’s because more sexual offences are being prosecuted and there’s more of us.
I suspect that’s because more sexual offences are being prosecuted and there’s more of us.
You have said everything I was thinking as I read this article, so i won’t repeat it. But what the hell is this epidemic of child pornography all about. So many questions, and as you say it must have been there all along.
You raise some really interesting issues in your comment. Why do humans do this? I suspect, from having read about evolutionary psychiatry, that there are some people who are simply wired to be attracted to children. It has been part of societies all around the globe for as long as we can tell but, as you say, the Internet has really turbocharged it.
I suspect that many who use child porn would not have sought it out prior to the advent of the net. As porn works on our addiction centre, (whatever the technical term is), the brain becomes used to a level of stimulation and requires more and more to get the same level of arousal. Taboos are powerful sexual stimulants and so these people feed their addiction by raising the level of taboo. Had they existed in a different era, a lingerie catalogue would have sufficed.
Every sexual variation and fetish is catered to now. So they go to the transgressive for kicks. I expect they are tortured with shame about it.
I also think that power relations, as you point out, are at play. So much about sex is about power and dominance, as well as for emotional closeness. But power play in sexual fetishes are very popular.
I suspect the Internet has not been such a great idea for the human brain. Desire is flattened by endless choice, mystery has faded, taboos are now normalised. And ok, let’s be sex positive and all that, but I suspect we need boundaries and taboos, not open slather.
I think the proliferation of child porn is a tragedy and a by-product of the drive for instant everything. Personally I think any sort of porn should be much, much harder to access. What we are doing to the brains of kids is appalling and some of us are doing it to their bodies too, and then sending it out to addicted and callous men to w**k over.
These men have a problem. But actually, we all do.
What of the minds of the thousands of people who legally sift through the millions of these images? Police officers and other agency staff whose full-time job is to scrutinise the confiscated devices. Are any strict psychometric tests used to screen and select those specialised investigators? What specific training is given for such a harrowing job? Can healthy minds be corrupted and if so can rehabilitation be given? And then there are courts; judges, lawyers, juries, journalists, etc exposed to the trauma of extreme disgust.
4 or 5 years ago I was listening to a barrister talking about his career on Radio 5. The interviewer finished by asking him what was the biggest change he had seen in 25 year at the Bar.
He responded the huge increase in sexual offences. He said that when he started out as a barrister he would have to defend the very occasional criminal offence, but it had reached the point where the largest number of criminal offences of any category coming before the courts were sexual offences.
You have said everything I was thinking as I read this article, so i won’t repeat it. But what the hell is this epidemic of child pornography all about. So many questions, and as you say it must have been there all along.
This is the most affecting article i’ve read on Unherd. Just in the UK, an average of 10 families a day, every day. Lives shattered beyond repair, and not through accidental causes. Then, those subject to the abuse which creates the downloaded images.
The internet has clearly let loose something within humans, predominantly men of course, that must have lain dormant or been confined to the very fringes of societies until recently. Is there an historical precedent for such activity, on such a scale?
It’s a very difficult subject to even contemplate. The feeling of betrayal; of having lived with, loved, and having enjoyed a sexual relationship with someone whose psyche was fixated on abuse of children. Can we ever truly ‘know’ another person, however close the relationship?
Now that such things are being discussed, and i think rightly so, however difficult – we must all ask: just what is it in the human psyche that precipitates this? Is it the primarily male need to dominate, at whatever cost? Do other animal species abuse their young? It’s no use just shuddereing in disgust, these questions and more need to be faced up to. It’s not a symptom of western social malaise, or global malaise, since it’s always been present, just hidden. The internet has brought it into the open, and i wonder whether we can bear to face up to it. But we must.
One of the many things I find so worrying about all this, is the sheer number of men looking at this stuff. In the past of course these images didn’t exist in any significant volume (yes, I know, Lewis Carol) but with the internet as a distribution system par excellence, supply seems to have created demand.
One of the many things I find so worrying about all this, is the sheer number of men looking at this stuff. In the past of course these images didn’t exist in any significant volume (yes, I know, Lewis Carol) but with the internet as a distribution system par excellence, supply seems to have created demand.
This article raises all sorts of moral questions about human behaviour. Why is it not a criminal offence to watch videos of beheadings and other lethal and violent incidents? Clearly we regularly view fake violence in films and TV dramas – would it be acceptable to watch CGI child porn where no real children were harmed? Would such viewing lead to actual child abuse or would it substitute for it and become a harmless outlet for a base obsession?
Indulging in secret obsession tends to be destructive of any relationship. A friend of my son’s broke up with her boyfriend because he could not conquer a gambling addiction and consistently lied about it. Unlike the wife of a child porn addict she could talk about it and receive sympathy. Much of the destructive effects on the partners of child porn addicts seems to arise because they can’t talk about it and receive a sympathetic hearing. The destruction of trust is similar in both cases. Is this a problem of the reaction of people to the wives of porn addicts?
Most of us are disgusted by child porn and yet many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust such as homosexuality, sadism and masochism have become acceptable and indeed celebrated.
Terrible things happen in life are we all to be entitled to victim status and publicly financed victim support? I certainly don’t have easy answers to such questions but perhaps they need considering.
You just compared homosexuality to child porn, sadism, and masochism.
Do you understand the difference between child rape images and homosexuality? Can you explain the difference? I hope so.
Sadism and masochism involve the sexualization of violence. Can you see the difference between that and child rape images? Can you see how there might be overlap between the two? Are some taboos necessary for a healthy society?
Can you see the difference between a gambling addiction and an addiction to images of child rape?
Would CGI images of child rape lower a pedophile’s inhibitions or enforce those inhibitions? I’m guessing the former.
Would you feel safe having your child taught by a teacher who watches CGI child porn? Why or why not?
Men who enjoy watching images of child rape are extremely dangerous – and so are men who enjoy watching images of people being beheaded. I think those images should be banned from the internet and I would seriously question the sanity of anyone who enjoyed watching those videos – especially if they masturbated to them.
Our priority should always be to protect the vulnerable, not those who prey upon them.
Protect the kids. Lock up those who prey upon them. No child’s safety should ever be sacrificed to protect the freedom of a grown man.
Penny, I am a man of my time and I know you to be a survivor of childhood sexual abuse so you will certainly not find me defending child porn.
However, what disgusts and appalls is not fixed and different times have had different approaches. Few would today support the hanging of two men for an “act too horrible to speak of” only 190 years ago. Today that act is celebrated with multicoloured flags in the streets. Most of us are rightly appalled that men could be hanged for it just a few generations ago. Child prostitution involving girls of 12 and 13 was rife in late Victorian England and it required William Stead to publicise this so that the legal age of consent was raised in 1885 from 13 to 16. I suspect most in Victorian times would have been more shocked by a gay father than one consorting with 13 year old girls.
What concerns me most is the failure of the police on an international level to concentrate their fire on those involved in the production of the original images. How often do we hear of savage sentences being meted out to the originators of these images – the real abusers and rapists – as opposed to those who merely view them like the perverted voyeurs of beheadings? The argument that viewing child pornography perpetuates it would be more compelling if all these knocks actually diminished the supply. It seems that too often the efforts are concentrated on individual consumers rather than the pernicious originators of child porn. In the article none of the wives whose whole life is torn apart by the knock actually suggests that their husband has in fact sexually interfered with their children. Is there research as to whether child porn viewers do in fact invariably go on to commit offences against their or other children?
Will future generations view our approach to consumers of child porn as the most effective and humane way of dealing with the production of child pornography or consider it to be as perverse as we consider our forebears approach to child prostitution and homosexuality.
Penny, I am a man of my time and I know you to be a survivor of childhood sexual abuse so you will certainly not find me defending child porn.
However, what disgusts and appalls is not fixed and different times have had different approaches. Few would today support the hanging of two men for an “act too horrible to speak of” only 190 years ago. Today that act is celebrated with multicoloured flags in the streets. Most of us are rightly appalled that men could be hanged for it just a few generations ago. Child prostitution involving girls of 12 and 13 was rife in late Victorian England and it required William Stead to publicise this so that the legal age of consent was raised in 1885 from 13 to 16. I suspect most in Victorian times would have been more shocked by a gay father than one consorting with 13 year old girls.
What concerns me most is the failure of the police on an international level to concentrate their fire on those involved in the production of the original images. How often do we hear of savage sentences being meted out to the originators of these images – the real abusers and rapists – as opposed to those who merely view them like the perverted voyeurs of beheadings? The argument that viewing child pornography perpetuates it would be more compelling if all these knocks actually diminished the supply. It seems that too often the efforts are concentrated on individual consumers rather than the pernicious originators of child porn. In the article none of the wives whose whole life is torn apart by the knock actually suggests that their husband has in fact sexually interfered with their children. Is there research as to whether child porn viewers do in fact invariably go on to commit offences against their or other children?
Will future generations view our approach to consumers of child porn as the most effective and humane way of dealing with the production of child pornography or consider it to be as perverse as we consider our forebears approach to child prostitution and homosexuality.
” … many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust …” were also illegal back then: making some taboo activity legal might be celebrated by its participants but still causes disgust to the rest of us.
My thought as I read the article was that support groups like that for grief might be helpful for the families of child pornography abusers.
You just compared homosexuality to child porn, sadism, and masochism.
Do you understand the difference between child rape images and homosexuality? Can you explain the difference? I hope so.
Sadism and masochism involve the sexualization of violence. Can you see the difference between that and child rape images? Can you see how there might be overlap between the two? Are some taboos necessary for a healthy society?
Can you see the difference between a gambling addiction and an addiction to images of child rape?
Would CGI images of child rape lower a pedophile’s inhibitions or enforce those inhibitions? I’m guessing the former.
Would you feel safe having your child taught by a teacher who watches CGI child porn? Why or why not?
Men who enjoy watching images of child rape are extremely dangerous – and so are men who enjoy watching images of people being beheaded. I think those images should be banned from the internet and I would seriously question the sanity of anyone who enjoyed watching those videos – especially if they masturbated to them.
Our priority should always be to protect the vulnerable, not those who prey upon them.
Protect the kids. Lock up those who prey upon them. No child’s safety should ever be sacrificed to protect the freedom of a grown man.
” … many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust …” were also illegal back then: making some taboo activity legal might be celebrated by its participants but still causes disgust to the rest of us.
My thought as I read the article was that support groups like that for grief might be helpful for the families of child pornography abusers.
This article raises all sorts of moral questions about human behaviour. Why is it not a criminal offence to watch videos of beheadings and other lethal and violent incidents? Clearly we regularly view fake violence in films and TV dramas – would it be acceptable to watch CGI child porn where no real children were harmed? Would such viewing lead to actual child abuse or would it substitute for it and become a harmless outlet for a base obsession?
Indulging in secret obsession tends to be destructive of any relationship. A friend of my son’s broke up with her boyfriend because he could not conquer a gambling addiction and consistently lied about it. Unlike the wife of a child porn addict she could talk about it and receive sympathy. Much of the destructive effects on the partners of child porn addicts seems to arise because they can’t talk about it and receive a sympathetic hearing. The destruction of trust is similar in both cases. Is this a problem of the reaction of people to the wives of porn addicts?
Most of us are disgusted by child porn and yet many of the taboos of the past that caused disgust such as homosexuality, sadism and masochism have become acceptable and indeed celebrated.
Terrible things happen in life are we all to be entitled to victim status and publicly financed victim support? I certainly don’t have easy answers to such questions but perhaps they need considering.
“Bob re-offended last year”
How was he free to re-offend, one wonders?
The Sex Offender’s Register is not fit for purpose.
People who enjoy watching the abuse of children should be removed from society forever.
The only thing that makes me pause is the possibility of miscarriages of justice. It’s easy to imagine evidence being planted, to bring down an enemy of the state, or just a personal enemy.
I agree 100%. But children are powerless so law makers who seek power don’t care enough to truly protect them.
That line jumps off the page. I took it to mean that he had once again looked at illegal pictures. Hard to believe the police can prevent an offender from gaining access to the internet’s dark corners. They would need to constantly monitor his computer, phone, and library access. (Do internet cafes still exist?)
Well that’s a risk when any crime is prosecuted
I agree 100%. But children are powerless so law makers who seek power don’t care enough to truly protect them.
That line jumps off the page. I took it to mean that he had once again looked at illegal pictures. Hard to believe the police can prevent an offender from gaining access to the internet’s dark corners. They would need to constantly monitor his computer, phone, and library access. (Do internet cafes still exist?)
Well that’s a risk when any crime is prosecuted
“Bob re-offended last year”
How was he free to re-offend, one wonders?
The Sex Offender’s Register is not fit for purpose.
People who enjoy watching the abuse of children should be removed from society forever.
The only thing that makes me pause is the possibility of miscarriages of justice. It’s easy to imagine evidence being planted, to bring down an enemy of the state, or just a personal enemy.
I am glad to see this article raising the profile of the suffering caused to partners and families of sex offenders. There is another area of offending which is increasingly being pursued by the police and that is historic abuse. The knock can come 40 or 50 years after the event, an event which took place before the offender and his current partner had even met. Teenage boys can sometimes do incredibly stupid and utterly wrong things with a younger family member. It is recognised that young people are not fully neurologically developed until their mid twenties and often the offence is not repeated in adulthood and the teenager becomes a kind and loving partner and father. Nevertheless, society requires that such offences are punished with the result that the partners and family are punished as well.
Partners of an offender in this situation are devastated. A whole married or co-habiting life: 20, 30 40 years becomes meaningless. It is impossible to create a new future for the reasons explained in the article but in particular, where the knock comes when you are in your 60s, there is no time left in your life to turn anything around. There are financial issues too. Crown Prosecution costs and defence costs run to tens of thousands and the partner’s resources are taken into account even though they are also victims.
How can you decide whether to remain with someone you have loved and cared for for decades in such desperately stressful circumstances? And what are the emotional, practical and financial consequences of separating?
This cannot be the best solution for the victim either. All that happens is that more victims are created. You cannot pile the blame for all the misery that follows onto the shoulders of an 18 year old boy who is effectively long gone. As a society we need to think about better ways of addressing this that recognise the needs of everyone concerned. Why not, in suitable circumstances, some kind mediation that enables the victim to hear the remorse of the offender, provides for the offender to agree to appropriate measures being taken for example, to have no contact with the victim but pay for the cost of therapy for the victim, and gives everyone a chance for some kind of life after the knock?
I don’t get the thing about teenage boys doing “stupid” things with younger family members. Sounds like minimizing something very creepy.
I don’t get the thing about teenage boys doing “stupid” things with younger family members. Sounds like minimizing something very creepy.
I am glad to see this article raising the profile of the suffering caused to partners and families of sex offenders. There is another area of offending which is increasingly being pursued by the police and that is historic abuse. The knock can come 40 or 50 years after the event, an event which took place before the offender and his current partner had even met. Teenage boys can sometimes do incredibly stupid and utterly wrong things with a younger family member. It is recognised that young people are not fully neurologically developed until their mid twenties and often the offence is not repeated in adulthood and the teenager becomes a kind and loving partner and father. Nevertheless, society requires that such offences are punished with the result that the partners and family are punished as well.
Partners of an offender in this situation are devastated. A whole married or co-habiting life: 20, 30 40 years becomes meaningless. It is impossible to create a new future for the reasons explained in the article but in particular, where the knock comes when you are in your 60s, there is no time left in your life to turn anything around. There are financial issues too. Crown Prosecution costs and defence costs run to tens of thousands and the partner’s resources are taken into account even though they are also victims.
How can you decide whether to remain with someone you have loved and cared for for decades in such desperately stressful circumstances? And what are the emotional, practical and financial consequences of separating?
This cannot be the best solution for the victim either. All that happens is that more victims are created. You cannot pile the blame for all the misery that follows onto the shoulders of an 18 year old boy who is effectively long gone. As a society we need to think about better ways of addressing this that recognise the needs of everyone concerned. Why not, in suitable circumstances, some kind mediation that enables the victim to hear the remorse of the offender, provides for the offender to agree to appropriate measures being taken for example, to have no contact with the victim but pay for the cost of therapy for the victim, and gives everyone a chance for some kind of life after the knock?
This was so sad – my heart goes out to these women and their children.
This was so sad – my heart goes out to these women and their children.
What a painful, deeply depressing read, utterly tragic. Through no fault of their own, the mother’s and children’s lives are torn apart in unimaginable ways. They have my full sympathy and I can imagine almost no greater betrayal than this to suffer. Tainted by the sins of those you think you know.
As much as many porn-purveyors will deny it, this abomination begins with a porn addiction. That’s the first stop on your way to ending up with a knock on your door and your life torn apart.
It seems like a large chuck of the British population are pedophiles
It seems like a large chuck of the British population are pedophiles
These women do need and deserve support. However, I don’t think I could maintain a friendship with a woman who gave her pedophile ex husband access to her small children. I would sincerely doubt her sanity and sense of responsibility.
That’s too simplistic. Children love their parents and can have no conception of the flaws which revile other adults. How do you explain to small children that you are are forbidding them from seeing a father they love when you can’t explain why? These women are in an impossible dilemma, no wonder they are so lonely when they get this kind of reaction if they are honest.
I am not defending these offenders, but many of them seem to be able to compartmentalise to the extent that they are loving decent fathers to their own children. The Internet allows them to distance themselves from the abominable crimes being committed upon other people’s children. It ‘s not logical or clearly supportable but it is possible to understand this. Our revulsion stops enough public discussion for them to suppress what they must know to be true, that these are real children being exploited and damaged.
I think that you are on to something when you say that these men are able to distance themselves via the internet; perhaps without thde ‘net they may never have been involved. Another negative aspect of the internet, for all the positive uses I still wonder if the negatives out-weigh them. If only we could put the genie back into the bottle.
That’s a really good point – these women really are in a very tricky situation. I also think you’re right about the internet distancing the viewer from the crime. I think it is unlikely that most of the men who view this stuff would ever act it out in real life – but the authorities need to act, as they can’t know who will or will not offend in real life. I also think that a substantial portion of them had those desires ‘woken up’ by general porn watching – after a while the endless vanilla does not excite so much and so more extreme images are required for the same dopamine hit.
I think that you are on to something when you say that these men are able to distance themselves via the internet; perhaps without thde ‘net they may never have been involved. Another negative aspect of the internet, for all the positive uses I still wonder if the negatives out-weigh them. If only we could put the genie back into the bottle.
That’s a really good point – these women really are in a very tricky situation. I also think you’re right about the internet distancing the viewer from the crime. I think it is unlikely that most of the men who view this stuff would ever act it out in real life – but the authorities need to act, as they can’t know who will or will not offend in real life. I also think that a substantial portion of them had those desires ‘woken up’ by general porn watching – after a while the endless vanilla does not excite so much and so more extreme images are required for the same dopamine hit.
That’s too simplistic. Children love their parents and can have no conception of the flaws which revile other adults. How do you explain to small children that you are are forbidding them from seeing a father they love when you can’t explain why? These women are in an impossible dilemma, no wonder they are so lonely when they get this kind of reaction if they are honest.
I am not defending these offenders, but many of them seem to be able to compartmentalise to the extent that they are loving decent fathers to their own children. The Internet allows them to distance themselves from the abominable crimes being committed upon other people’s children. It ‘s not logical or clearly supportable but it is possible to understand this. Our revulsion stops enough public discussion for them to suppress what they must know to be true, that these are real children being exploited and damaged.
These women do need and deserve support. However, I don’t think I could maintain a friendship with a woman who gave her pedophile ex husband access to her small children. I would sincerely doubt her sanity and sense of responsibility.