[DoctorOetker]

Yes I see what you mean, but that was never the intended message, note the ellipsis!

So just to be clear, I think it is obvious you, me and nearly everybody regards the making of childporn as a crime, without making any statement on how we regard the crimeness of watching child porn.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Well, I believe you that you didn't intend that message. But I think the way you put it still reveals how you think/thought about it, and you are almost certainly not alone with that, that seems to be an expression of a sort-of societal consensus--which is actually why I found it disturbing. Noone would ever even get the idea of putting murder into the "cyber crime" category, but somehow that seems to be a natural thing to do for sexual child abuse for many people.

[DoctorOetker]

The real proble is that I classified subjects, instead of counts of crimes:

It should read:

* meatspace (a count of murder, a count of rape, ...)

* cyberspace (a count of distributing murder films, a count of distributing rape films, ...)

The reason nobody thinks of "actual" snuff murder films in cybercrime category, is because we are heavily bombarded with images of people dying: soldiers getting shot in the news are not considered snuff, cops and robbers shooting each other in movies are not considered snuff. But naked children are not that regular in news or movies (perhaps french/european movies, but thats just nudity in general not specifically children).

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Nah, that's just another effect of the same underlying cause:

Sexuality is something that religions have very restrictive rules about, and anything that doesn't fit within the bounds of those rules is considered immoral. Which is why homosexuals were and still are oppressed, and which is also why pedophiles are oppressed essentially just like homosexuals once were. Being a pedophile is widely considered to be a moral failing, just like homosexuality once was (and by some still is). This taboo leads to people not rationally looking at the actual facts of the situation, not considering the actual consequences of what is happening, instead anything that is in any way associated with pedophilia is seen as equally objectionable, which in turn leads to a general lack of distinction.

"Child porn" is just a generic label for "terrible immoral stuff done by immoral people involving the idea of sexual practices involving children" in the public discourse, and a terrible label at that, given that it either tries to use a negative view of pornography to evoke an emotional reaction to an essentially unrelated topic, or trivializes the experience of abuse victims whose agony is documented by suggesting that it's in some way similar to consenting adults producing erotic works for the pleasure of other consenting adults to look at. It's a bit like using the label "child horror movies" for snuff videos depicting children.