Here's what I wrote on CP earlier with some slight modifications:
Only pedophiles who cause the children harm should be prosecuted. Ergo no, crime, no victim, there should be no prosecution. I'm willing to admit that possession and distribution of "real CP" (the production of which involved child molestation) can lead to harm so should be prosecuted.
However the harm caused by "child abuse" is usually not the physical variety most associate with the act. It's psychological 'cause they imprint the children with a very skewed view of sexuality where they must forever be the submissive and on the receiving end. However that's not all - they view sex as a form of "love" and tend to believe that anyone who has sex with them is "loving them".... which may be true, but misses the whole point. On its own, sex isn't about feeling it's act of the body. What it expresses is up to the participants but these children's view is already skewed.
Two, no make it three things that piss me off about this whole deal:
1) The moral panic over pedophiles has actually put a lot of innocent people behind bars and modern witch trials were conducted with impossible charges. Read up on this here:
http://www.geocities.com/jgharris7/witchhunt.html EDIT: Since geocities died, here's a mirror:
http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/witchhunt.html2) The above moral panic and witch-hunt has actually retarded the cause of anti-molestation and child welfare. Most of these molestations and rape is done by relatives. The child services were finally on the right track and could do some real work... except over eager agents who saw molesters everywhere, fear struck parents and eager to please authorities (whose actions against pedophiles provides really good publicity) has gone into a insane fervor and destroyed this progress.
Now we're back to stranger-danger once again, the candyman you must beware of... which mostly bull****. Yes there are a few monsters out there, but very few. The sad truth is most child molestation is domestic, done by someone who the child trusts by people who may indeed be upstanding citizens in any other aspect and they indeed "love" the children...
...which most of the time doesn't "directly hurt", but harm the child in hidden and really sinister ways.
3) What makes the issue even more murky is that children aren't the "innocent angels" the media and American (blind) stereotypes make them out to be. Even as young as 8 they already have notions of sexuality and 12 years are guaranteed to have taken the first steps on sexuality - which is natural, they are teenagers by then! So instead "the corruption of pure little angels" what really happens is really young curios teenagers are co-opted into a games of "pleasure".
The pressures that try to suppress sexuality in teenagers doesn't help this at all, especially the religious pressures that equate masturbation and sexuality with sin. Along comes a cool "uncle" who not only dismisses the child's fears, but actively encourages them to go on, release their pressures. He may even smuggle them some porno... or show them how it's done. The child naturally gravitates toward the sole figure who (seemingly) supports them.
When they finally figure out what's happening they don't know what to do. It wasn't a strange man who abducted them and did painful things to them, but a known person they trust who slowly brought them into a relationship that's growing ever more strained and uncomfortable for the child. They're out of their league and they don't know how to get out or steer it in any direction.
Finally when things come to head everyone assumes that it hurt that they were practically "beat and literally abused". They could be. There are cases like that. Those are easier to solve (which is squicky). However in a lot of cases that child also enjoyed the sex to a degree. It offered them pleasure, but the relationship itself was very straining and put them under pressures that were ever mounting.
However everyone tells them it was WRONG! They must have SUFFERED! ...what if it wasn't painful and there were parts that they enjoyed? The stereotypes of child abuse afterwards cause a different strain on the child. Their actual experiences may differ wildly from the painful and sodomizing debauchery that everyone just "KNOWS MUST HAVE HAPPENED"... and speaks and handles them with the assumption.
Pedophiles often use the above argument to validate their "relationship". They are right to a degree: the children are rarely abused in the manner that the stereotypes assume. But the whole issue is still very damaging and the situation is fright with danger from the get go as the adults ego will inevitably leave a very strong impression on the child.
So no, I don't see how this legislation (or prosecution of lolicon material
1) helps at all.
It fans the fires of the witch hunt, it draws the attention from what the real issues should be and finally it restricts the traditional freedoms of expression and press and puts more hands into overzealous authorities to bother and oppress people under made up charges.
1- Lolicon is a) drawn (no people involved or hurt) and b) usually depict teenagers (so it's ephebophile not pedophile material).
