Missouri Man Pleads Guilty To Possession of "Cartoon" Child Porn

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

What you did there, I see it.

I'm a little disappointed that everyone else was too busy arguing to see it until three pages in. "The Treachery of Images" is so amusingly appropriate for this story on more than one level.

I don't get it.

Well, it could be very literal and based on the title of the painting ("The Treachery of Images"), in the sense that the images the guy had on his computer sure were treacherous in this case. You could also take other interpretations, like the "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." message being a commentary on the images themselves. The original painting with the text saying "This is not a pipe." was a commentary that while it looks like a pipe, it's only a representation of one; it's a symbol that we recognize as one, but it isn't the real thing. It made the art world angry, and philosophers had fun debating it.

To be really direct, take one of the images from guy's computer and write "Ceci n'est pas une fille." on it. Debate the merits of it. Oh wait, that's effectively this thread and every one like it. Heh.

 

[Nikolaz72]

America people, land of the free. . . . . *sigh*

 

[newwiseman]

Yet another case of law enforcement and the criminal justice system in this country avoiding real work because arresting and convicting actual criminals is dangerous...

Really? I'm surprised to hear that they've removed all police from the beat so as to better pursue pedophiles. Cops go out and risk their lives every day, and it grinds me gears to hear people complain about cops not chasing "real criminals", as though cops have switched to exclusively handing out speeding tickets or whatever. They can do both.

I was just being contemptuous in my post but actually they can't.

There was a paper just released the other day with all the details; ignoring all the funding for police departments being cut across the nation and most jails having to release 100's of people a day because there is no more bed space. Basically for every arrest they make, especially the trivial ones, they have spend time booking, time they have to show up to court, time turning in evidence, and time doing paper work. All told the average time a cop spends on a single marijuana bust ends up being around 4 work days. That is time that they are not on the street doing their actual job of protecting the public. As a direct result many precincts are pushing for more traffic tickets to be handed out because departments make money to keep cops employed and cops have relatively little work to do on those allowing for more of them to be on the streets.

It's not their fault, it's a broken criminal code and a system that has turned incarceration into a private and very profitable enterprise. We currently have more people in prison than every other nation including China ('Merica is still #1 at something at least).

When I was still in High School I had jury duty for a case that should never had gone to trial, the city had zero evidence and the defendant was a model citizen, regardless we all had to spend a day in court because a cop pulled a guy over for having a broken tail light and decided to arrest him for intoxicated driving because he didn't like the "defendants attitude". Including the day the defendant had to spend in jail, the money they gave us the jury for lunch and travel, and the judge, bailiff, and the court appointed attorney's time it was money and time well spent all around. Not to mention the hour and half I had to listen to the officer prattle on like a twat about how the defendant was disrespectful but passed the field sobriety test. I also found out the the local department can't afford dashboard mounted cameras.

Being a college town the police shut down 72 parties this month, and arrested 38 people for public urination last weekend. I'm really happy knowing that our area has so little crime that they can devote so much resources to breaking up parties and arresting guys that need to pee we're there are no restrooms /sarcasm. Our county has a very serious meth problem, and we've had at least 5 fatal gang related shootings since summer with no arrests). Not to mention all the drug farming that takes place in our forests that millions every year are spent fighting since the 1980's.

To further my point of time and money wasted, a couple towns over (City of Central Point, Oregon population: 13,000) just got a large amount of federal money to devote police officers to troll IRC for copyright trade violations. [a href="http://www.disinfo.com/2012/10/local-cops-now-paid-with-federal-money-to-troll-irc/"] dsinfo.com[/a] I feel very safe knowing the MAFIAA is being protected.

 

[uchytjes]

Drawings, of any variety, =/= reality. As long as no living, breathing person is harmed by these drawings, this person should be innocent. Its as simple as that.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Snippage!

Let me take you through history mien dear. Once upon a time, you could marry folks below the age of 18. That time was around 50 years ago for us, perhaps a bit more before it was normal, still going on certain places in the west. And not unheard of in the rest of the entire world.

"All people attracted to underage (Under 18 i suppose, if we are going by most laws) is using said attraction as a stepping stone to real child molestation!"

No... Just... No... That statement was stupid, and i bet anyone who read it, is now dumber for having read it. I know I certainly am, I think I need to go get the bleach.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

A link to wikipedia; that's some serious research! Care to highlight anything that actually supports your claims?

Again you missed the subtle nuance. I said "obsessive compulsion," which-if you do a little reading-isn't the same as "liking something a lot." I enjoy Dr. Pepper, of course it doesn't mean I'm going to buy a palette load of it and drink it every day, rub it on my crotch and trade pictures of people having sex with bottles of Dr. Pepper. And yet, pedophiles invariably advance to wanting to live out their fantasies. That's called "taking the activity further and further to its maximum possible point, eschewing all rhyme and reason in the process," i.e. obsessive compulsion.

Yeah... Wikipedia doesn't say anything about that. What it does say is:

Spoiler

Pedophile viewers of child pornography are often obsessive about collecting, organizing, categorizing, and labeling their child pornography collection according to age, gender, sex act and fantasy.[72][73] According to FBI agent Ken Lanning, "collecting" pornography does not mean that they merely view pornography, but that they save it, and "it comes to define, fuel, and validate their most cherished sexual fantasies". An extensive collection indicates a strong sexual preference for children and the owned collection is the single best indicator of what he or she wants to do.[73]
73. Lanning, Kenneth V. (2001). Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis 4th ed. 86. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

This would lead me to believe that a serious child molester, an actual danger to society, would have a collection including real CP.

--

Not sure when I suggested that a pedophile would kick down the doors of a school and attack every child in sight, but that seems to be the idea you got from me. I apologize, I thought I was speaking to someone with some kind of common sense.

a pedophile is going to hang ..around a schoolyard with his junk hanging out

--

You say don't punish someone for something they haven't done, which in this context seems to say "don't stop him from looking at child porn until he actually does it himself." You might want to revise that statement. Pictures, cartoons: the fact that there is some kind of market at all for people like him should be enough to make you sick to your stomach.

I think you'd be misleading yourself if you thought everyone here supporting the guy is in favor of child rape. People are sickened by the prospect. However child rape != looking at drawings.

I implied you were stupid though.

Idiot.

I thought I was speaking to someone with some kind of common sense.

Stay classy-

 

[Cette]

What do you think is more likely; that a woman who enjoys a good spanking is going to point her ass at you in a public mall and tell you to go nuts, or that a pedophile is going to hang around an obscure chat room downloading pictures of children being exploited, or worse, hanging around a schoolyard with his junk hanging out?

Clearly you don't know some of the women I do.

Public spanking aside the charges are bullshit from the small amount of data that's been released and seriously not enough bad things can happen to his wife. Between the snooping to begin with and the running to the police rather than talking things out it's just absolutely loathsome.

Also looking at each others porn together as a couple is a missed opportunity that could have maybe saved some serious grief. Just saying sharing is caring and all that.

 

[peruvianskys]

Gotta love Obscenity laws, aka "You're guilty if I don't like it!". It's bullshit.

God damn annoying that people are still suffering from stuff like this.

It's not that the police didn't like it; it's that he was masturbating to images of a child being raped by a family member.

Look, I don't think we should have police busting down doors looking for pornographic drawings, children or otherwise, but can we stop pretending that this poor man is "suffering" because he can't jerk it over hand-drawn child abuse? There are about a thousand free speech issues in this nation and abroad that are worth our time; defending the ability of a pedophile to put graphic depictions of his sexual deviancy down on paper is hardly the reason we have the First Amendment. So sure, defend his right to do whatever, but don't act like this is a case of an oppressive police state destroying the enshrined freedom of predators to depict child abuse, don't act like it's crazy that someone might think such images warrant government involvement, and don't act like restrictions on the ability to circulate fake images of incest and rape are somehow going to be the death of American liberty.

 

[Tiamat666]

Busted by his own wife. Wow. That must have been one happy marriage.

She could have at least talked to him about it first. I'm not entirely sure what child-pornography we're talking about here, but it seems it was just painted comics, so nobody got hurt. I don't think its right to put someone in jail for a fetish that he privately cultivates, without hurting anyone.

I mean, most of us here are publicly cultivating a fetish of murdering people in videogames and nobody goes to jail for that either.

 

[Tiamat666]

What you did there, I see it.

Do you feel like explaining it? Because I sure don't see the connection.

 

[Ashley Blalock]

This is kind of tough call not having more than just the most vague description of the drawings. There are websites that get away with the whole parody thing for underage character so we don't know if it was some weird Powerpuff Girls fan parody art. Is it art from a country where the legal age is under 18 because I've seen Japanese stuff where a character's age is changed to 18 for a US release. Sometimes the art styles are different between cultures so a character might look over 18 in one culture but under 18 in another culture. Or was there no parody or no cultural elements but just an attempt to make child porn without having to use actual children?

It's really a sticky question because if you drew Strawberry Shortcake having sex with one of the ponies from My Little Pony Friendship is Magic you could claim it's all just parody meant for a laugh. But if was just a random generic girl and a random generic pony then someone could claim it must be bestiality.

 

[Epona]

So this what we get with "traditional conservative values" a man can't fap in peace in the comfort of his own home.
And why does this feel like another case of : just accuse a man of having child porn, will sort everything out

I'm not sure what you mean. They're not convicted based off someone's word, they searched his house and found virtual CP on his computer.

but they didn't search his house because they spend month building a case against him, they searched his house because his wife said "dude has loli porn" and they immediately sprang into action.
now, i don't know what the situation was like and i highly doubt she did something like this, how hard would it be for a wife who wants to get a divorce to plant some loli porn(which i am certain is a lot easier to come by than actual child porn) onto his computer?

Didn't think of that. Although maybe if the wife did that he would've plead not guilty and blamed his wife, maybe not if they scared him enough.

Oh well he is pleading guilty, so that's the path he chose instead of going to trial.

He could be innocent but plead guilty to avoid a trial, seeing as how sex crimes are a guilty till proven innocent type of thing.

The police can and do lie to suspects to get them to confess, it's a dirty practice that I think should be illegal. They could have told him they had evidence they didn't have, how would he know what they found on his computer if HE didn't put it there? They probably intimidated him with stories of what would happen to a pedophile in prison and then offered him a better deal just to confess. It's getting so that police are as bad as the criminals. I wonder how many beatings are dished out that aren't caught on tape.

 

[Entitled]

*This is not a pipe*

What you did there, I see it.

Do you feel like explaining it? Because I sure don't see the connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

"This is not a pipe", because it is just a visual representation of the pipe. It's not real, just a piece of drawing. Just like the children protected by laws like this.

 

[DrOswald]

That's a very subtle way of calling me a pedophile, well done.

You missed the part where I implied you were stupid though, but it's okay; I was a little more sly about it.

Oh, of course. If someone likes something, they must necessarily take that activity further and further, to its maximum possible point, eschewing all rhyme and reason in the process. That's why paraphilias in general are the greatest threat humanity faces.
Obviously, since this is such common knowledge, you don't need any kind of data to make such wild statements.

Again you missed the subtle nuance. I said "obsessive compulsion," which-if you do a little reading-isn't the same as "liking something a lot." I enjoy Dr. Pepper, of course it doesn't mean I'm going to buy a palette load of it and drink it every day, rub it on my crotch and trade pictures of people having sex with bottles of Dr. Pepper. And yet, pedophiles invariably advance to wanting to live out their fantasies. That's called "taking the activity further and further to its maximum possible point, eschewing all rhyme and reason in the process," i.e. obsessive compulsion. Idiot.

I'm sorry, but I ran out of sarcasm.

Feel free to read a book on the subject in the mean time. You might come back with a credible argument.

Homosexuality was considered a mental instability not that long ago too. We used to (some sick fucks still do) send homosexuals to mental facilities, gave them shock therapy or forcibly drugged them because we were afraid they'd be a threat to society because they were different. Now society has realized that was some sick fucked up shit we used to do and don't do it anymore because we've stopped considerin it a mental instability.

That same thing needs to happen when it comes to pedophiles. We can't punish people for what they might do and what they think about because the mere act of thinkin about somethin is not a crime.

A lot of things were considered mental instabilities back in the day. Women expressing emotion was considered a form of hysteria. Black people trying to flee from slavery was considered a mental illness. What's your point? That because some things turned out not to be insanity, we should disregard them all?

It has been established that pedophilia is a mental illness, not just a sexual "preference" but a compulsion. Chemically castrating a pedophile won't take away the urge. What do you think is more likely; that a woman who enjoys a good spanking is going to point her ass at you in a public mall and tell you to go nuts, or that a pedophile is going to hang around an obscure chat room downloading pictures of children being exploited, or worse, hanging around a schoolyard with his junk hanging out?

Its been established that homosexuality isn't an obsessive compulsion, or anything else but a simple sexual attraction to the same gender. I've yet to hear about a gay individual running out to kidnap unwilling heterosexual partners outside of a Quentin Tarantino film.

You say don't punish someone for something they haven't done, which in this context seems to say "don't stop him from looking at child porn until he actually does it himself." You might want to revise that statement. Pictures, cartoons: the fact that there is some kind of market at all for people like him should be enough to make you sick to your stomach.

Just like guys looking at MLP smut are time bombs waiting to burst into the nearest barn and have their way with all the unsuspecting equines.

Not sure when I suggested that a pedophile would kick down the doors of a school and attack every child in sight, but that seems to be the idea you got from me. I apologize, I thought I was speaking to someone with some kind of common sense.

For those of you still furrowing your brows in a vain effort to understand the situation, I never implied that a pedophile would go berserk and start molesting every child in sight. Like any predator they prefer to act in secret, keep their activities unknown for obvious reasons, and only consider acting out their fantasies when the compulsion gets to be too strong and opportunity presents itself.

So, we've heard what you've had to say and we've heard what I have to say. Now let's hear what SCIENCE has to say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia

There are a lot of big words, some of you might have trouble with it. But I encourage, nay, I demand you read it all before you try to continue this debate.

Or, in Obama's words, "Please proceed, governor."

An interesting point of information in the wikipedia article you linked:

"Pedophilia can be described as a disorder of sexual preference, phenomenologically similar to a heterosexual or homosexual sexual orientation because it emerges before or during puberty, and because it is stable over time. These observations, however, do not exclude pedophilia from the group of mental disorders because pedophilic acts cause harm, and pedophiles can sometimes be helped by mental health professionals to refrain from acting on their impulses."

What that means is that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, very similar to heterosexuality or homosexuality. It is classified as a mental disorder because acting on the sexual preference causes harm. It is not, according to your own source, an "obsessive compulsion."

You want to classify pedophilia as an "obsessive compulsion" because you know hating someone who has done nothing is wrong. So you wrap it up in sweet language. You convince yourself that this case is different. Except that is all a lie to sooth a guilty conscience.

You hate these people not for what they have done but because of what they have thought and what you have decided to think of them, evidence and logic be damned. And that is your right. Just understand what you really are. Know that you do not have the moral high ground for irrationally hating people with a mental disorder and spreading lies about these people. Know that you are a liar and a hate monger.

 

[Entitled]

Gotta love Obscenity laws, aka "You're guilty if I don't like it!". It's bullshit.

God damn annoying that people are still suffering from stuff like this.

It's not that the police didn't like it; it's that he was masturbating to images of a child being raped by a family member.

Or maybe he was masturbating to the images of family members being raped by children. Or children being raped by each other. Or high school students having consensual sex with each other. (children by law). Or to some ordinary manga porn, that was drawn in a chibi art style, that looks somehow childlike on a surface level.

Or not masturbating at all, just collecting some gross parody drawings of cartoon characters, for trolling on 4chan. Or reading a long narrative that randomly had a plot point of children graphically having sex (Japan sometimes does that, for example).

The thing is, that we don't know. And that's why obscenity laws suck. As long as anything has naked people in it who could arguably be children, that's enough for a court to declare them obscene based on their own opinion, and put it in the same category as your worst ideas of a seres of comics about child rape.

 

[Tiamat666]

*This is not a pipe*

What you did there, I see it.

Do you feel like explaining it? Because I sure don't see the connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

"This is not a pipe", because it is just a visual representation of the pipe. It's not real, just a piece of drawing. Just like the children protected by laws like this.

Well, actually, it's not a piece of drawing, it's a collection of colored pixels on your computer screen, but yeah, I get the idea... It's about lingustic nazism.

Thanks for the hint.

 

[Entitled]

Well, actually, it's not a piece of drawing, it's a collection of colored pixels on your computer screen, but yeah, I get the idea... It's about lingustic nazism.

Thanks for the hint.

That's not about lingustic nazism, that's about cognitive dissonance, the act of thinking about drawings as if they were real, even while also knowing that they are drawing.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Let me take you through history mien dear. Once upon a time, you could marry folks below the age of 18. That time was around 50 years ago for us, perhaps a bit more before it was normal, still going on certain places in the west. And not unheard of in the rest of the entire world.

"All people attracted to underage (Under 18 i suppose, if we are going by most laws) is using said attraction as a stepping stone to real child molestation!"

No... Just... No... That statement was stupid, and i bet anyone who read it, is now dumber for having read it. I know I certainly am, I think I need to go get the bleach.

It was a stupid statement, and I'm glad I didn't make it. Don't put your words in my mouth, I don't know where they've been.

A link to wikipedia; that's some serious research! Care to highlight anything that actually supports your claims?

The whole article speaks for itself. What's more, you sound like every teacher you had ever telling you not to use wikipedia as a resource, and tell me, what was your response to that?

Yeah... Wikipedia doesn't say anything about that. What it does say is:

Spoiler

Pedophile viewers of child pornography are often obsessive about collecting, organizing, categorizing, and labeling their child pornography collection according to age, gender, sex act and fantasy.[72][73] According to FBI agent Ken Lanning, "collecting" pornography does not mean that they merely view pornography, but that they save it, and "it comes to define, fuel, and validate their most cherished sexual fantasies". An extensive collection indicates a strong sexual preference for children and the owned collection is the single best indicator of what he or she wants to do.[73]
73. Lanning, Kenneth V. (2001). Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis 4th ed. 86. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

This would lead me to believe that a serious child molester, an actual danger to society, would have a collection including real CP.

That whole quote you read shows all the indications of increasingly obsessive behavior and enhanced risk for committing the act. Ask a criminal psychologist sometime what the warning signs are that pedophiles, stalkers, serial killers, etc. are about to act out their fantasies. Go ahead. I'll wait.

I think you'd be misleading yourself if you thought everyone here supporting the guy is in favor of child rape. People are sickened by the prospect. However child rape != looking at drawings.

Hey, I've got the perfect way to settle this. What's the LAW say about it, with all of its hundreds of judges, lawyers, psychologists; you know, lots of smart people with good educations and a clearer understanding of how pedophiles work. What say you, law

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120225-Missouri-Man-Pleads-Guilty-To-Possession-of-Cartoon-Child-Porn

Oh. Right.

Stay classy-

I work with what you give me.

Clearly you don't know some of the women I do.

Public spanking aside the charges are bullshit from the small amount of data that's been released and seriously not enough bad things can happen to his wife. Between the snooping to begin with and the running to the police rather than talking things out it's just absolutely loathsome.

Also looking at each others porn together as a couple is a missed opportunity that could have maybe saved some serious grief. Just saying sharing is caring and all that.

Wow. You really went there. So from your perspective, it's the WIFE'S fault that he had illegal pornography on the computer they both use. It's LOATHSOME that she was sickened by what her husband has been doing and immediately reported it to the police.

"Missed opportunity?" Your speaking privileges are revoked.

An interesting point of information in the wikipedia article you linked:

"Pedophilia can be described as a disorder of sexual preference, phenomenologically similar to a heterosexual or homosexual sexual orientation because it emerges before or during puberty, and because it is stable over time. These observations, however, do not exclude pedophilia from the group of mental disorders because pedophilic acts cause harm, and pedophiles can sometimes be helped by mental health professionals to refrain from acting on their impulses."

What that means is that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, very similar to heterosexuality or homosexuality. It is classified as a mental disorder because acting on the sexual preference causes harm. It is not, according to your own source, an "obsessive compulsion."

The only similarities it shares with heterosexual and homosexual sexual orientation is that it emerges before or during puberty, and remains stable (i.e. it doesn't change) over time.

And like any obsessive behavior, they can be suppressed, but you don't do it by letting them stare at child pornography all day.

You want to classify pedophilia as an "obsessive compulsion" because you know hating someone who has done nothing is wrong. So you wrap it up in sweet language. You convince yourself that this case is different. Except that is all a lie to sooth a guilty conscience.

You hate these people not for what they have done but because of what they have thought and what you have decided to think of them, evidence and logic be damned. And that is your right. Just understand what you really are. Know that you do not have the moral high ground for irrationally hating people with a mental disorder and spreading lies about these people. Know that you are a liar and a hate monger.

Here's some "sweet language" for you. "It's just a cartoon! Not real porn! We're not doing anything wrong! I just like to wank off to pictures of that kid from Card Captors! Yeah, that kid who lives two doors down kind of looks like her, but I'd never do anything like that! I'm not a bad guy!"

So who, exactly, is trying to sooth a guilty conscience? Because one side of this debate is playing the victim card, and I know it ain't me. What's that? The police arrested you for owning illegal pornography? You poor soul. What's America come to? Oh wait, child porn laws are probably the only thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on these days. Imagine.

But hey, if you think I'm wrong, if you think I'm just a liar and a hate monger, feel free to take your computer down and let the police look over your porn collection. They'll let you know what's legal to own. You've got nothing to fear, right?

I'm done hosing down your bullshit. Please, BS amongst yourselves.

 

[direkiller]

Pictures, cartoons: the fact that there is some kind of market at all for people like him should be enough to make you sick to your stomach.

except in this case he is a Paraphilia not a Pedophilia. Which while an urge is not an urge that harms people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon
and the relvent section:
"Studies of lolicon fans state that lolicon fans are attracted to an aesthetic of cuteness rather than the age of the characters, and that collecting lolicon represents a disconnect from society"