Sudden wave of online child pornographers? :/

I'm not going to name names since I don't want to encourage anyone else to view the images (which I have chosen not to view and tried to prevent my younger brother from doing so) but it has just been revealed that two of the victims of the celebrity naked photographs leak were underage children at the time the photos were taken, both of them being 16-year-olds.

As such, anyone who looked at the photos has now witlessly and illegally looked at child pornography and are, legally and morally, child abusers. I've already got into a big argument over this on the other forum I use where lots of the members have admitted to looking at the images and who clearly don't want to see themselves as guilty of child pornography offences.

But it's objectively true! Almost universally, a child is defined as a person under 18 and child pornography is defined as any real or generated (i.e. drawn / C.G.I./ etc.) images of a person under 18 (i.e. a child) that are sexual, explicit, or sexually suggestive in nature. I mean, these are facts that can't be argued with.

I feel like lots of people who say they would never hurt a child, or that all child abusers should be tortured or killed, or don't consider themselves criminals or perverts, have just tainted themselves forever by looking at child pornography taken and stolen without the consent of the victims. I hope they are ashamed and come to realise the gravity of this abuse.

Legally, people that are in possession of such images could be charged with crimes that would possibly see them becoming permanent registered sex offenders. It's a very good reason to avoid such things. That said, the FBI isn't going to come down on every person that browsed the wrong search results over this. It's just not feasible or good return on investment for the organization's time.

Categorizing them as "child pornographers" or "child abusers" may not be the best rationale. Federally in the US, there is a difference between a minor child and a minor. The pictures are supposedly of a girl who was a minor, but not a minor child (<14).

If you're going to focus on terminology, make sure your terminology is absolutely accurate.

That said, morally what these people did wrong varies wildly depending on context.

I guess that's true. I'm just sick of seeing people blaming the victims in this case and make excuses for themselves.

I'm sure that the vast majority won't be charged (the images must have had millions of views at this point) but this doesn't mean crimes haven't been committed.

I just hate how lazy some people are about morality - decrying paedophilia in one breath, while doing something like this in the next. Sometimes I feel like the only reason humans don't do horrible, abusive things all the time is that they're scared of being found out.

Causal motiveless abuse / violence perhaps disturbs me more than the actions of a pathological figure like Charles Manson. At least in those cases you can think 'he's utterly sick and delusional'. With people looking at these leaked photos, they're doing so out of vague interest and horniness and boredom. What mediocre reasons to commit evil. It's like care home abuses and bullying. People that flick the ears of a patient with dementia simply because it passes the time. Or guys who shout lewd comments out of car windows at young girls for a quick power trip and then moments later forget it ever happened. It's depressing.

People will always make excuses and try to justify their actions even if deep down they are truly ashamed. It's a very common form of double-think, but as long as they feel and face that remorse there is hope to reprogram the mind.

The apparent hypocrites are trying to protect their pride and their self-made identity as a "good person". They need to see their own fallibility staring back at them and use it to free themselves from this unconscious and potentially harmful behaviour. It's not like pride was ever that useful anyway. Be humble and let it go.

sprock wrote:Causal motiveless abuse / violence perhaps disturbs me more than the actions of a pathological figure like Charles Manson. At least in those cases you can think 'he's utterly sick and delusional'. With people looking at these leaked photos, they're doing so out of vague interest and horniness and boredom. What mediocre reasons to commit evil. It's like care home abuses and bullying. People that flick the ears of a patient with dementia simply because it passes the time. Or guys who shout lewd comments out of car windows at young girls for a quick power trip and then moments later forget it ever happened. It's depressing.

This is interesting. I have to disagree though, in that I believe pathology is a sliding scale and that Manson, while in a "league of his own" so to speak, is still just another slave of conditioning.

We live in a society where even the best intentioned of us, with a perfectly clear conscience, vote in leaders who have an appalling track record of causing suffering, albeit indirectly, but through policies that show a certain definiteness of purpose. I'm not saying we all mean to cause harm by proxy, but we are clearly on some level unconscious of the kind of collective mindset that passes for "sane" in what can only be described as an unsane (not a typo!) world.

Charles Manson could be considered delusional (I prefer unconscious - unconscious of his own perverse impulses that is), but those who viewed the photos were also clearly overcome by impulses that rendered them unconscious. These people genuinely believed that they had to satisfy those impulses.

My issue is when people accept the impulses that drove such behaviour were perhaps overwhelming, yet claim "they should have had more self control". Well, yes, of course. But these "should haves" roll off the tongue a lot more easily than they surface in the brain at the moment the impulses are bombarding their conscious reasoning.

Perhaps in some cases it is pure laziness. I'm prepared to accept that some people are given numerous opportunities to "catch themselves" yet fail to put in the necessary effort to detach themselves from the impulses of mind. But you could also question whether it is merely lack of effort, or the capacity for that effort simply did not exist at that time. It cannot be proven or disproven and is not as clear cut as a mental illness, yet still as pervasive.

Words will never do the complexity of the human mind justice. If people are a danger to society, then I can only hope they are conscious and remorseful enough of how necessary it is to segregate them. Ironically, if they are truly awakened by their remorse, the danger is eliminated. If they remain unconscious to their impulses, punishment is fruitless, they become resentful, ego-protective and they remain tied to the arbitrary whims of their conditioned pathology.

That is very true... free will is always a fine thing for a calm and rational mind, seen in retrospect.

I must admit to finding Manson quite fascinating. He seems so lost in fantasies of his own creation, I find it... not *innocent* because that wouldn't be right and I think he is a devious man... but I guess I find it hard to judge someone by society's standards when he seems so extraordinarily cut off from society. I'm glad he's contained / locked away, but I don't hate the man (I'm never really sure if I hate anyone... probably not really. Bad things just make me sad and anxious.)

I guess it's the seeming cavalier cruelty of this whole incident that makes me gloomy. There was an interesting article about it on Vice, of all places:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/roisin-kiberd-fappening-332

We can’t feasibly expect everyone to ignore clickbait, though the news that McKayla Maroney’s images depict her while underage is a horribly grim twist to the affair, rendering the images child pornography, and definitely not OK to be shared.

I agree that the fact that some of these images are child pornography is a 'horribly grim twist' but I don't think think the statement also functions as a 'get out of jail free' card by implying that those people who looked at the images were all regular non-criminal non-perverts simply lured by clickbait (against their own better judgement) who are now horrified by the revelations of child pornography since they would never knowingly find a child attractive or seek to exploit one.

This may be a controversial opinion, but I actually find the existence of Maroney’s naked images less disturbing than the unconsented sharing of them. While a 16-year-old taking naked photographs of themselves to share with a peer or boyfriend certainly is an instance of child pornography, if those photographs had remained private, I don't necessarily believe that if they were taken and sent without pressure or coercion, that they represent a terrible traumatic pornographic occurrence. It's not ideal that kids under 18 mess around sexually but in a society where the average age of loss of virginity in 16, it is hardly unexpected. If we are not horrified by the idea of two 16-year-olds having sex (which, being legal in Britain, presumably we are - as a nation - not) then I don't see why we should be horrified by the idea of a 16-year-old taking naked photographs of their own volition or find this horribly grim... within the confines of a loving relationship between two peers, I don't really find the existence of those photographs horrifying.

What I do find horrifying is the photographs (and the photographs of adult women) being stolen without consent and then viewed by hundreds of thousands of individuals out of curiosity, horniness or boredom. Abuse is never justified... but such reasons make me even gloomier as it makes the whole thing seem so pointless and petty and banal. People just foolhardily partaking in the grievous crime of child abuser without even identifying themselves as abusers. It's bleak.

sprock wrote:If we are not horrified by the idea of two 16-year-olds having sex (which, being legal in Britain, presumably we are - as a nation - not) then I don't see why we should be horrified by the idea of a 16-year-old taking naked photographs of their own volition or find this horribly grim... within the confines of a loving relationship between two peers, I don't really find the existence of those photographs horrifying.

What I do find horrifying is the photographs (and the photographs of adult women) being stolen without consent and then viewed by hundreds of thousands of individuals out of curiosity, horniness or boredom. Abuse is never justified... but such reasons make me even gloomier as it makes the whole thing seem so pointless and petty and banal. People just foolhardily partaking in the grievous crime of child abuser without even identifying themselves as abusers. It's bleak.

I have to agree with this distinction. It's a gross invasion of privacy at the very least and has the very real chance of resulting in psychological problems for the victim. People have turned to drugs and drink over a lot less.

I imagine some people simply justified it to themselves by thinking "the pictures are out there anyway, what harm is one more person looking at them?". The mind will find cunning ways to justify satisfying these baser impulses.

Take violence - people who need to satiate their violent urges will flock to the comments section of a story detailing the conviction of a rapist or murderer and just let it rip. The commenter's pride isn't damaged, because they haven't actually caused any additional harm, but perhaps the saving grace is that they have released what would probably have surfaced as a far more dangerous impulse if left swilling around their unconscious mind.

That's not to say we should act upon every impulse we have in order to release it before it explodes, but there is something to be said for acknowledging fully that these impulses exist rather than letting the impulse itself pull you along unconsciously, which is what I fear happened to a good number of the people who viewed the images.

People follow their mind rather than watch it, because they believe it is showing them the way to happiness. If you're unlucky, it may just lead you off the edge of a precipice.

Talking of foolhardy...



“We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.” - Carl Jung

It's been a wretched few days but I feel maybe I've broken through something just a little bit.

I guess the fact that so many, many thousands of men seem to be happy to partake in this abuse, when it wouldn't even have crossed my mind to do so suddenly made me realise how much more enlightened and gentle and moral I am than I was 6 years ago.

Which isn't to say I forgive myself... but it's started to seem less important that I forgive myself, I that makes sense. I don't think I'm ever going to 'get over' having committed statutory rape against a 16-year-old, nor having pressured her when she wasn't in the mood... but I'm starting to care less about the matter of what I 'deserve' or 'don't deserve'. I'm ok with not being ok.

Like, I wanted to write a book detailing how hundreds of thousands of men commit abuse without labelling themselves as abusers; how people commit crimes without seeing themselves as criminals. But my purpose for writing would only to have been to make people feel as bad as me. And what's the point in doing that? How's that going to help anyone?

Likewise, all my brooding over suicide and writing suicide notes just feels like it was trying to have some last grab as redemption... some kind of purging act to prove to everyone that I'm not a monster or a heart-less rapist, but really do care about what I've done.

But why do I even care about trying to prove to others that I care?

I think Epiphany was write when he said that he important thing was to let go of pride. Don't think about how you can go out with a bang or prove to everyone how reformed you are. If you do that, you're still putting yourself dead-centre and talking over others.

People talk about suicide as 'giving up' and in a way it is and in a way it isn't. I totally understand why people want to commit suicide - my best friend has attempted several times and I've spent serious time planning and working out logistics. I think suicide does come out of a place of despair and no hope... but I think it is also one last desperate grab for power / control. A means of putting that final bullet point in place so you can define your own life. I don't think abusers should worry about defining their own life. In a way, we've already failed... but then again, there was never a contest to begin with.

My ex told me when we last spoke two years ago that she felt I no longer owed her anything and that I should channel all my anxious energy into doing good, productive work. In the year and a half since we spoke I have done quite a lot of volunteering, but I don't think I had really internalised her meaning. My guilt doesn't do anything for her. I've asked her if she wanted to press charges. She had no interest in doing so, nor saw the matter in legal terms. What she wanted is for me to start constructing things, rather than just destroying myself. I can't change what I did. But I can help change the future.

I think that the best thing that people who have acted can do is to step back. Feel honoured and privileged that you're still granted a space in society (while also acknowledging that no-one has the God given right to deny you the right to life, with the air and the trees and water and all of those things of the non-human world). You don't need to be centre-stage anymore. Try to help when you can... but abandon your role as protagonist (without like being epically 'I AM ABANDONING MY ROLE AS PROTAGONIST' about it).

I still think that redemption is a never-ended process, not a goal. But that doesn't mean that all is lost. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You wouldn't chuck out the Mona Lisa because someone put a slash through it, even if that person was you... you'd repair what you could and try to make peace with the fact that no, things won't be back as they were, but life does still go on.

Beautifully put, Sprock. This pretty much sums up the only sane way to deal with it...

I'm ok with not being ok.

Yes, and we don't just need to try to be ok with it, we already ARE ok with it, we just think we are not

There is enough space within our consciousness for this thought-feeling cluster (not being ok) to exist freely. There's even enough space for the accompanying thought "I don't like not being ok", and the infinite regress of not being ok with not being ok with not being ok ad nauseum.

But as soon as those thoughts arise, at any time, we can just rest back into a pure and peaceful state of watchfulness, the primary source of all experience. It's in this state that you may realise you have been watching a film reel called *insert your name here*. You may even come to realise you did not actually write much of it.

When the credits finally roll, you'll see "genetics" and "environment" as contributing writers. Some philosophers and scientists would argue these are the ONLY writers.

Now ask yourself who or what is it that has been watching this film since it began? Whether you can objectify or put the answer into words or not doesn't matter. What matters is you see how fragile, malleable and illusory this notion of self is. Many people have reported laughing uncontrollably when this realisation hits them.

Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, puts it better than I ever could:

There is no discrete self or ego living like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is—the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself—can be altered or entirely extinguished.

http://www.samharris.org/waking-up

If this is correct (and it is by no means a new concept), then we are allowing ourselves to be imprisoned and hurt by something that does not actually exist, except as a loose connection of ideas (thought patterns) and accompanying narrative about "my self".

Sprock, you mentioned you've had a rough few days. Do you find that these darker moments come in waves, and that you come out of each one that little bit stronger and clearer? Maybe it feels like you take two steps forward and one back. The point is observing this pattern can help you see the futile impermanence of these thought patterns.

Lightness or darkness, pain or pleasure, thought or no thought, life is happening to you right now. Just let yourself be here, completely and without judgement.

But even if you're not quite ready to let go of your story of self...

Some people refer to dreams as our brains "sorting out" fragmented data. A bit like de-fragging your hard drive. I like to think our minds are working on our problems in a similar way when awake - we just have to allow it to happen.

The pain we feel is the conscious result of this background "work". Naturally we try to avoid pain, whether physical or mental, but it is there for a reason. It is our body's way of telling us "something's not right here". But just as our body heals without us having to do anything, so too can our mind heal, as long as we don't "pick" at the scab or deepen the wound by continuing what caused it in the first place. Just have faith in the healing process.

There may be a scar to remind you (this is probably a good thing), but it won't hurt any more.