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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I think it is likely that no-one here condones major unlawful acts. In that list I would include robbery, assault (including rape), and other similar acts.
I would not be including parking offences, failure to keep off the grass, etc.
There is a vast difference between discussing them and participating in them. I am content to discuss child pornography until the cows come home. I do not condone the making of it, and I am ambivalent to the viewing of it where money does not change hands between the viewer and the creator (ie no profit is made) unless the viewer actively encourages the creator.
I expect there is a "truth" about desensitising versus encouraging.
Certainly the authorities whose job it is to view the materials do become desensitised to it, but that does not encourage them to create it or to recreate the acts they see.
My view is that if someone is going to hurt a child then they will hurt that child. No pictures (etc) are likely to make that person have a different sexual or power appetite. But what do I know? I don't prey on anyone, let alone kids! So it's just a view.
Why didn't I approach the 10 year old friend of my son's who flirted with me outrageously? He was cute, after all, and seemed to know what he was "doing".
The answer is because I view it as wrong. This is my personal morality which happens to be congruent with the law.
What I do find bizarre is that I can lawfully have sex with a 16 year old, but may not see pictures of him naked!
So, at what point is the offence against morality? The law is clear, but morality is not.
[Updated on: Thu, 30 October 2008 15:32]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Morality still comes in degrees.
I draw the absolute line at harm, not hurt. Taking an action that risks hurting another is still morally wrong, but far less so than one that deliberately harms them.
The actus reus and the mens rea are critical elements to absolutely immoral acts. If only one is present the wrongness diminishes.
As for sleeping with a 10 year old friend of a son that flirts with you? Well...
It's deemed immoral to lie and cheat on one's wife (despite both being legal). It's often deemed immoral to sleep with the ex of a best friend. It's deemed awkward, if not immoral to sleep with one's own friend (it can ruin the relationship!) I find it awkward when my mum sleeps with guys that are my age, or younger.
I'd say the specific situation you mention- that you, a married man could potentially sleep with a 10 year old that was friends with your son (that I assume was also 10) is immoral in large parts because of the situation as much as because of the age of you and him.
What about when I was in Japan, as a 19 year old, being asked by a 10 and 13 year old how big my western penis was? Then being asked to show it. Personally, while that action would have been illegal I don't think it would have been immoral.
With pre-teen kids I think sexual contact is rarely moral, or required. It's like telling a pre-teen Santa isn't real. Or discussing their mother's death to lung cancer in vivid medical detail. It's just not needed and engaging a pre-teen like that is likely immoral.
But if a 10 year old wants to look at an adult penis, touch it, feel it, potentially even make it ejaculate. They are satisfying a curiosity. I don't think it is immoral to satisfy that curiosity. But it shouldn't become "now I fuck your arse, kid".
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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My morality differs. In my morality I do not accede to the child's putative request. I simply do not think it is right. But I understand the points you are making.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Dear Timmy,
'major' begs the question. What exactly are the 'major' things in the list?
For example there are 'assisted suicides' which the law would class as murder. So that wouldn't be 'major' then! And if you or a 17-year old had penetrative intercourse with someone who was under 16 that would be rape. So that wouldn't be major then. And I still have some felt tip pens that I stole from my last employer and I don't even feel guilty about it. So robbery isn't major then.
I'm afraid I can't think of what might count as 'similar acts' that are 'major'. [But if I could I bet I could find some that you would agree aren't major.]
The problem with putting prohibitions into laws is that what comes out is what the courts interpret the words to mean and so the anti-terrorist laws were used to freeze Icelandic bank assets in the UK and to prosecute protesters at the Labour party conference.
They say that they want to be able to lock up 'terrorist suspects' for 42 days incommunicado and without showing cause and without redress. What they don't say is that they can suspect ANYONE and so they can lock up anyone. [At present for only 28 days - but if they did they wouldn't have to tell anyone - not even your relations so they could simply remove you from the scene and your friends and relations could worry their heads off for 28 days.]
When Franco came to power, among his first acts were making laws that more or less every citizen was bound to break occasionally. That gave him the power to lock up anyone he liked. That gave him such a weapon that he had really no effective opposition. And so he stayed in power!
This government - at least the home office - is worse in some ways than the fascists. Bring back habeas corpus, I say.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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We could also add Stouthrief and Hamesucken if we were in Scotland. The point is that many things classified as major are not. Your theft of a pen is trivial, but robbery of a bank is major. In all things it is the degree that is important.
Even though TATP cannot be made in an aircraft toilet (research it and you will find this to be impossible), the alleged plot to bring airliners out of the sky is major, precisely because it created terror, not because any realisation of the alleged plot was in any way practical or likely. But a group of kids suggesting the same thing in a schoolyard is entirely another matter, and is trivial.
Ross and Brand's radio show was trivial, but appears to be major now, whereas it was just a couple of idiots being tasteless and creating a very poor show.
Governments do what we, the populace, delegate to them. Unfortunately the populace as an entity is too stupid to know the real difference between right and wrong.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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