Are we looking at kiddie porn?

“Am I a pedophile?” A Google search employing this phrase brought people to my blog again and again. When fed this term, Google produced in the results a post on my now defunct blog which I had written about Mark Foley, and how I thought calling him a pedophile was both incorrect and foolish.

Just lately, the search term that has been bringing people to wikifray is “emo porn.” That one produces my post of Chris Crocker’s impassioned plea to the Britney-haters, but a cursory Google test of the term returns as a top result a link to the Suicide Girls site, which appears to have a new category entitled “Emo Porn.”

I consider what such a thing might look like, and I imagine sad, pale girls having sex with sad, pale boys—and indeed, clicking on that link produces a pair of naked breasts—but this is not what I have thus far understood the term to mean. In my mind, the etymology of “emo porn” can be traced back to the old Best of the Fray, where, attempting to describe the wailing and rending of garments that took place on that board following the New Orleans flood, switters employed the phrase “emotional pornography.” I responded by abbreviating it to “emo porn,” and we congratulated ourselves on our cleverness.

But the idea that people are coming to wikifray on that search term has given me pause for thought. “Emo porn”, hmm? What do you think of when you hear the term “emo”? More specifically, what age group do you think of? I think of “emo” as a youth culture sub-type belonging to twelve to fifteen year olds. So what are those people looking for when they search for “emo porn”? What sort of images do they expect to see?

On another board recently, I took offence to the claim that half of adult American men were viewing underage porn on a regular basis. The author of this blog post presents a poorly reasoned, rambling diatribe which includes the following:

The child pornography industry is so voluminous that, even taking into account the reality that most consumers may be repeat consumers, more than half of adult American males are taking a dip in this world.

So, the broader definition of pedophile includes more than half the population. The more focused definition -- those who have these desires and choose to act on them, either with physical contact or, as is far more common, with suggestive but non-physical interactions between themselves and those younger than them or as voyeurs and exhibitionists -- are a smaller but still significant category, perhaps 10 to 25% of the population. For these people, pedophile is a sexual orientation, in the same way that heterosexual or homosexual is a sexual orientation. It is compelling, it feels like a core identity, and suppressing it is difficult. [emphasis mine]

I’m sure you’ll agree that these statements are idiotic. Half the male population indulges in kiddie porn? 10 – 25% are outright pedophiles? Please.

I believe I can speak with some authority here. I’ve been an avid porn consumer. At one time, I considered writing about the variety of porn products on the internet, and the mysterious appetites which they serve. I also know a number of men who look at porn. In fact, I assume all men look at porn. They are not pedophiles: not half of them, not 10% of them. They may occasionally view an image of an underage girl, but surely we cannot classify as pedophiles porn consumers who are unwitting participants in such activities?

Nevertheless, the responses to my objection got me to look a little bit closer:

Most people who use porn don't have any idea how old the "actors" are. And they don't care. So 50% may be way off base, or it may not be. It may speak more to how many under-age girls are being used in porn, than to how many men knowingly choose child pornography. I don't think that's really any less disturbing. The fact that they don't care who they are using to get off is what makes it so bad. Most men would jerk off to a 16 year old just as fast as they would a 25 year old.

I made another assumption about the 50% referenced without a cite. I thought of all the porn that references 'Barely Legal!' and the schoolgirl fetish. […] That is a huge part of the porn market and it is mainstream. At some levels internally I just assume that the mid-teen age girl as the ideal sexual object is the norm for men.

Is it true? Is viewing “Hot Asian Teen Sluts” equivalent to buying sneakers made in Asian factories that employ children for pennies a day, or is it worse? Someone else said this: Porn tells lies about women, but it tells the truth about men.

Young nasty sluts! Nude teens and busty young sluts! Young Asian sluts! Shoot on my Face .com - Where dirty young sluts get showered with … Watch these two naughty little teen sluts showing off their tight shaved pussies… Teen Cum Dumpsters. Cute teen faces full of cum. Little virgins fucked hard. Petite teenie lesbians in steamy kitchen fucking action. Schoolgirl's First Sex. TAMED TEENS fresh young girls gagged, fucked and cum fed!

I still believe that whatever consenting adults choose to do together in the bedroom (or even in public bathrooms) is fine, but I no longer look at porn, because I can’t be sure I’m viewing images of consenting adults, and even if the porn model is an adult, chances are she didn’t begin in the industry as a consenting adult, and “model” is of course a euphemism, because a woman being photographed having sex for money is first and foremost a prostitute, and the all-too-real fact that in the United States the average age of entry into prostitution is just thirteen.

But if we don't look at porn, what's all this got to do with you and me? Well, if you think this isn’t spilling over into mainstream culture, you’re kidding yourself. BBC: Sexualisation 'harms' young girls Try doing a Google search for preteen. If the collective results don’t disturb you, you lack imagination.