It seems crazy to me but ive seen this concept floated on several different post. There seems to be a number of users here that think there is some way AI generated CSAM will reduce Real life child victims.

Like the comments on this post here.

https://sh.itjust.works/post/6220815

I find this argument crazy. I don’t even know where to begin to talk about how many ways this will go wrong.

My views ( which are apprently not based in fact) are that AI CSAM is not really that different than “Actual” CSAM. It will still cause harm when viewing. And is still based in the further victimization of the children involved.

Further the ( ridiculous) idea that making it legal will some how reduce the number of predators by giving predators an outlet that doesnt involve real living victims, completely ignores the reality of the how AI Content is created.

Some have compared pedophilia and child sexual assault to a drug addiction. Which is dubious at best. And pretty offensive imo.

Using drugs has no inherent victim. And it is not predatory.

I could go on but im not an expert or a social worker of any kind.

Can anyone link me articles talking about this?

  • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
    71·
    9 months ago

    Very good comment all around, I just have a nitpick to this section:

    Lastly, there’s a very troubling thing I’ve noticed the majority isn’t willing to talk about: there are so, so many people out there who are attracted to kids. Not prepubescent kids, but very few 14 to 16 year old girls will not have had men approach them with sexual comments. The United States of America voted against making child marriage illegal. The amount of “I’ll just fuck this behaviour out of her” you can find online about Greta Thunberg from even before she was an adult is disturbing; people with full name and profile pictures on Facebook will sexualise and make rape threats to a child because she said something they didn’t like. There’s a certain amount of paedophilia that just gets overlooked and ignored.

    Even worse, those people aren’t included in research into paedophilia because of how “tolerated” it is. The ones that get caught and researched are the sickos who abuse tens or hundreds of children, but the people who will marry a child won’t be.

    This is actually called hebephilia/ephebophilia which is in the general public treated very similarly and often subsumed under the term pedophilia. It is considered it’s own thing though. To quote Wikipedia:

    Hebephilia is the strong, persistent sexual interest by adults in pubescent children who are in early adolescence, typically ages 11–14 and showing Tanner stages 2 to 3 of physical development.[1] It differs from pedophilia (the primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children), and from ephebophilia (the primary sexual interest in later adolescents, typically ages 15–18).[1][2][3] While individuals with a sexual preference for adults may have some sexual interest in pubescent-aged individuals,[2] researchers and clinical diagnoses have proposed that hebephilia is characterized by a sexual preference for pubescent rather than adult partners.[2][4]

    My guess for why it is more tolerated than straight up pedophilia is that they have reached a more mature body, that shows some/most properties of a sexually developed person. So while it’s still gross and very likely detrimental to the child if pursued (depends on the age in question, 16-18 is pretty close to adulthood), there seems to be more of an understanding for it.

      • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
        61·
        9 months ago

        I do think attraction to pubescent kids is more tolerated than paedophilia because of the extra “adultness”, but that doesn’t make it any more right

        Being attracted to a pre-puberty or early-puberty child is not only considered wrong because they can’t consent, it’s also considered abnormal because they do not share any features of what a “normal” person would be attracted to, namely developed physical sexual traits. I don’t think there is anything being muddied here.

        The physical attraction part gets muddier the more puberty progresses. There isn’t really an age limit for this as puberty works differently for everyone. The psycological/consent part gets muddier the more the age progresses combined with the changes puberty does to your personality, but it also depends on a ton of other factors, like the kind of upbringing in terms of sex-ed. There is a reason that the age of consent differs vastly even between US states and even more so internationally, even if you only include western europe.

        A 12/14/16 year old kid is still just that, just a kid, no matter how much they’ll think they’ve grown up.

        So this might be your opinion, many other people would say otherwise, it’s not a hard fact. Especially if you go up to 16 where we allow people of this age to do all sorts of things. In USA you can drive a car, in germany you can buy and consume alcohol, they are sometimes already in an apprenticeship to get into a job. People generally start becoming people and stop being kids somewhere in that range.

        So while bringing this distinction up muddies the water, it muddies the water only so far as it is already muddy, and this needs to be part of the conversation if it should have a relation to reality.

        In the end, the problem is the same: an adult is attracted to someone who can’t possibly consent, and the only way they’ll get what they desire is through abuse.

        So in conclusion I don’t fully agree here. It’s not the same, one is way worse than the other. That doesn’t make it ok to get what you want through abuse from a 16 year old or wherever you want to set the age limit. Or from anyone for that matter, but younger people need to be better protected, because typically they are easier to abuse. Where that age limit is exactly, is somewhat a matter of opinion, as the different laws show.