The Claptrap Over Child Porn

Kiddie porn is the most contentious and controversial issue revolving around the subject of sexually explicit material. It's something everyone talks about but few people have actual seen. Concerns seem based more on rumor than reality. Attempts to find child porn are doomed to very little success.

What does seem to attract attention in the US and England is not child porn per se. The bulk of the material that arouses the ire of the anti-porn crowd, and the US Justice Department, is not actually child pornography. I obtained a list of the material that the US government confiscated as child pornography which had been mailed to recipients in the States. The titles of the publications in question were actually quite common in Europe and quite legal. The difference came about because of the American definition of "child".

What is a Child?

Previously US federal legislation defined a child as anyone under the age of 16 years which corresponded with European definitions. The US Justice Department, under Ed Meese, argued that some 15 year olds looked 16 years old and to protect them the age limit should be raised to 18 years of age. With the increase in the age of consent for publication purposes, the United States placed itself out of line with the rest of the Western world. And by raising the age they substantially increased the number of publications which could be legally defined as child porn. The list I obtained of confiscated "child porn" showed that almost without exception, they featured individuals who were 16 or 17 years old and not considered children in Europe.

Because the term "child porn" is used to mean any publication featuring models under 18 years of age, the number of such publications substantially increased. But the number of publications which actually featured young children remained almost nonexistent. The US government, by unilaterally changing the definition, created what appeared, on the surface, to be a sudden increase in the product. In fact virtually all of the illegal material were items previously allowed but now made illegal by a change in definition.

Don't Allow Your Children to Bathe Naked

The other cause of alarm is material which can only be called child porn by very broad definitions. Europe has many nudist publications and it is these which are deemed obscene by the US government. The assumption is that any publication with nude children is "child porn." The world-wide hysteria regarding child porn is virtually the creation of American politicians and bureaucrats. But the American definition of child porn, is so broad as to include a huge amount of material that most reasonable people wouldn't classify as pornography. Attorney Lawrence Stanley who did considerable research into this issue noted that:

... law enforcement officials have exaggerated the incidence of possession of child pornography by including depictions of sixteen- and seventeen- year-olds and by labeling as 'child pornography' a wide range of materials, including sex education books such as Show Me, artwork, postcards, naturist magazines and films, and other material depicting nudity rather than sexual conduct.

But what exactly is the magnitude of the "child porn" crisis?

With the American-generated hysteria claims have been that child porn is produced in huge quantities and distributed via efficient and effective networks throughout the world. The bulk of production allegedly takes place in Europe with the publications and films being smuggled world-wide. Some exposes, such as the book Child Pornography, have included claims that kiddie porn is a multibillion dollar business encompassing millions of children and organized conspiracies which include the US military, police officials, organized crime, the Catholic Church, Satanists, Freemasons, and a host of other unlikely participants. A Chicago television station distributed a brochure as a "public service" which claimed: "Nearly 2,000,000 children in this country disappear from their homes each year. Many end up raped, forced into prostitution and pornography. Many are never heard from again." When the US government tried to verify this claim they could find no proof. In fact, FBI statistics showed that about 70 children are abducted a year by strangers. The 2,000,000 figure seems to include every child who was ever unaccounted for, even those missing just a short time. It includes runaways and children taken in custody disputes. No evidence in this context was ever found of children being forced into prostitution or pornography.

[Note: This does not mean there are not significant cases of systematic exploitation of children, sexually and otherwise. Examples include Boys Town, Jon Benet Ramsey, and (apparently government-approved) mind-control groups such as The Finders. Perhaps this is why the U.S. government feels the strong need to manipulate the statistics—both to cover its own activities, as well as to acquire more power by a "moral" crusade to "save the children". —Zola]

The Political Bandwagon

The American hysteria began with a crusade launched by Judianne Densen-Gerber, a founder of a drug rehab centre. The book Child Pornography and Sex Rings by Ann Burgess, described the origins of the crusade: "In early 1977 a moral crusade began in America... The crusade attained national status with the April 4 issue of Time magazine. An article entitled 'Child's Garden of Perversity' introduced a large segment of the public to the issues and to two of the principal moral entrepreneurs: Dr. Densen-Gerber, who was reported to have said she had become a raving banshee over child pornography, and Sgt. Lloyd Martin of the Los Angeles Police Department, who one month later was quoted as rating child pornography "worse than murder".

Densen-Gerber, who was closely allied with Lyndon LaRouche and some of his organisations, made the claim that "264 child pornography magazines [were] being produced monthly and sold in adult bookstores across the country". She also claimed that some 1.2 million American children were involved in child porn and prostitution. The General Accounting Office of the United States Congress, to whom this claim was made, investigated Densen-Gerber's accusation. They found:

Estimates... are based on general perceptions. The author of the book For Love or Money: Boy Prostitution in America, published in 1976, used a working figure of 300,000 boy prostitutes, a figure he described as a 'gut hunch.' Using this 300,000 figure, the president of the Odyssey Institute [Densen-Gerber], a child advocacy organisation, reasons that the number of teenage female prostitutes at least equals the number of male prostitutes. The Institute's president estimated that only half of the true number of prostitutes is known, thus bringing the total to 1.2 million. On top of that, it was estimated that the figure nearly doubles when 16- and 17-year-olds are added, making the total number of juvenile prostitutes 2.4 million. (The Institute's presidents assumed that this age group was not included in the 300,000 estimate.)

Rev. Donald Wildmon, a radical advocate of censorship, jumped on the bandwagon and repeated the claims that large numbers of children were being forced into pornography. He said: "Each year 50,000 missing children are victims of pornography. Most are kidnaped, raped, abused, filmed for porno magazines and movies and finally, more often than not, murdered." NBC television news also repeated the claim: "It's been estimated that as many as two million American youngsters are involved in the fast-growing, multi-million dollar child-pornography business."

Politicians were quick to join the band-wagon. Congressman Mario Biaggi charged:

There is a highly sophisticated and organized child pornography industry operating in this nation. It has already captured an estimated 300,000 children nationally as victims. It has produced 264 different publications sold nationally depicting pornographic activities involving children as young as three years old. The industry is both national and international in scope. Large quantities of pornographic materials are imported each year, primarily from Europe. Hundreds of children from Mexico are smuggled into this nation each year to engage in child pornography.

Representative John Murphy said kiddie porn "has become a multimillion dollar industry. By recent count, there are at lest 264 different magazines being sold with sexual between children or between children and adults." Congressman Robert Young claimed that child porn "has become a virtual avalanche that must be stopped." He also said that child porn profits "are enormous.... near the billion-dollar range." Rep. Robert Dornan referred to the "booming billion-dollar" child porn industry.

Child Porn Results from Masculinity

Left-wing Congressman (now Senator) Barbara Mikulski not only joined the mainly Democratic chorus singing the horrors of the massive child porn industry but she also tossed in a healthy dose of feminist theory as well. She said that child porn "is neither sexual nor a perversion. It is one logical, inevitable result of raising boys to believe they must be in control or conquer others as a measure of manhood, and producing men who may continue to believe that success or even functioning — in sex, as in other areas of life — depends on subservience, surrender, or some clear tribute to their superiority." She also asked, "...how different are the profiteering producers of child porn from other socially accepted pushers of the male-dominant drug? From all the media creators who confuse sexuality with a 'masculine' need for violence, superiority, and power?"

Hearings on child porn were then used by left-wing Democrats to attack Reagan budget cuts. They brought a stream of biased witnesses to Capital Hill to exaggerate the problems of child porn and child prostitution. After the witness would assure everyone that these were major problems involving hundreds of thousands of children they would then attack the Reagan administration. Biaggi asked one social worker "How is your agency funded?" The answer was that it was through federal funding and then the eternal lament of bureaucrats was uttered: "We are in a very precarious position and I don't know what the next 3 years will bring for our agency." Biaggi asked: "What will happen to your agency if the present concept of the Federal budget is adopted in Reaganomics 2?" Sufficiently cued the answer was: "If that is adopted and there is nothing on a State or local level to replace it we will be out of business." The implications were obvious: Reagan's fiscal policies force children into pornography. It seems that at least some of the hysteria was purposely created by Democratic politicians to attack the Republican budget.

Witch Hunt for Federal Funding

In the Illinois these claims sent off a witch-hunt to locate organised child porn/prostitution rings. The largest newspaper in the state, The Chicago Tribune, ran a series of exposes on the alleged availability of kiddie porn in the state. Banner headlines created a near panic among parents in the Chicago area as the paper pushed the story of massive child porn rings. Quoting crusader Lloyd Martin the paper reported, "police have found evidence that Mexican children are being smuggled into California in specially constructed cars. 'They lay eight children under the floorboards and fender wells,' he said, 'They stuff those kids in. Then they take them across the border, put them into a hotel, and clean them up.'" The article then claimed that these children were smuggled in for use by sadists "who can only achieve sexual gratification by torture and killing."

Martin is fond of quoting Densen-Gerber, who in turn quotes him. She says foreign children are smuggled into America "primarily for the purpose of killing. An American youngster has a school record and a family. But if a child has been taken off the streets of Guadalajara or Acapulco, it's much easier." Forgetting the problems of American bureaucratic paperwork that she mentioned Densen-Gerber has also claimed that American children are being sold to rich Arabs because "in their world, blond, fair-haired children would get a higher price."

So concerned was the state legislature that the Illinois Legislative Investigating Commission (ILIC) tried to find the proof to back up these claims. They came up empty handed. During their three years of investigation they were able to question Densen-Gerber about her claims and reported that she "had no concrete evidence or personal knowledge" to support the charges she made before the US Congress. As the GAO report noted, Densen-Gerber took a "gut hunch" from a writer and simply exaggerated it several fold because it seemed reasonable to her to do so. There was no valid statistical reason to multiply the figure and the base figure used was also highly suspect and invalidated.

The ILIC report noted that: "there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that 300,000 or more children ever have been involved in these exploitative activities; that very few parents ever have offered their children to pornographers as models...that there never was a nationwide movement of children for sexual purposes; and finally, that organized crime is not involved in child prostitution and never was." The GAO report, which investigated the issue nationally, and separately, from the ILIC came to virtually the same conclusion. They reported that because of "the decline in commercial child pornography, the principal Federal agencies responsible for enforcing laws covering the distribution of child pornography — the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Postal Service — do not consider child pornography a high priority.

Studies, and law enforcement officials, agree that much of the child pornography in existence today is produced and distributed underground through an informal but close-knit network of pedophiles. Their pornography is homemade, rather than commercially produced, and is traded, rather than sold.

Unemployment in the Child Porn Industry

The GAO contacted cities with populations exceeding 500,000 (smaller towns were far less likely to have any organised distribution of the material). The police in 19 of the 22 cities responded. Out of these police departments, from the largest cities in the United States, a total of 136 children were taken into custody in regards to pornography and there is no indication that any of these involved the commercial distribution of porn. This is a far cry from the figure of 1.2 million. The GAO reported that in Los Angeles "commercial child pornography has almost disappeared." US Postal Inspectors reported that they found only "14 pieces of child pornography" during a nine month period. The US Postal Service also reported a low incidence of child porn in New York City and the GAO reported: "Few children are believed to be involved in pornography in New York City."

As for the alleged connection between prostitution and child pornography, the US Department of Health and Human Services did an investigation into the issue. The executive summary of their "Study on Juvenile Prostitution" found that the majority of prostitutes "appear to be at least 16 years old. The number of younger adolescents involved in prostitution, those 13 through 15 years old, appear to be few." They also concluded "that reports suggesting a well-organized, nationwide traffic in younger children for sexual purposes may well be exaggerated." They found that younger children were rarely involved in prostitution and that only a few of the older prostitutes were involved in the production of pornography.

In 1980 the FBI tried to locate child porn. To stamp out any systematic commercial production and distribution they raided 60 warehouses used for the distribution of pornography. The ILIC reported the result of the raids, "none of the 60 raids resulted in any seizures of child pornography even though the raids were comprehensive and nationwide." The then Chief Postal Inspector, Charles Clausen, admitted that while he thought child porn would be "potentially lucrative" the few attempts at commercial distribution they managed to find "were relatively minor in scope" and "did not enjoy the financial success often achieved in the adult pornography business."

Judith Ennew, in her book The Sexual Exploitation of Children, published by Oxford University noted:

Many publicists of child sexual exploitation, whether taking the perspective of family morality or feminism, assert the existence of profitable vice rings and an international traffic in children, often using unsubstantiated accounts and anecdotes to build their powerful mythologies. Over the past year I have had the unpleasant task of sifting through many reports of vice rings and traffic. I have no doubt that some cases exist, although I have seen none which are conclusively proven. But I have no doubt also that they are not vast, they are not hugely profitable and that exaggeration about them does a disservice to the children in petty, sordid relationships which are the day-to-day reality of the majority of cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Joel Best, in his study Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims supports Ennew: "Research suggests that highly organized exploitation of children is very rare. Sex rings typically consist of a single adult and a few children, and most child pornography involves pictures taken for the offender's personal collection or traded with other collectors, but the network news invariably emphasized commercial child pornography."

From 1978 to 1984, the time when child porn hysteria seemed to grip America, a total of only 69 people were convicted of creating, mailing, importing, producing or exchanging child porn. And many of these convictions were the result of the individual purchasing a single magazine from Europe. The only major case — and we use the term advisedly — to arise in the last couple of decades was that of Catherine Sutbblefield Wilson of Los Angeles. Wilson allegedly sold some quantity of child porn from the late 70s until her arrest in 1982. During that period police officials estimated that Wilson was responsible for 80% of all US commercial sales of child porn. Stanley notes: "If, as law enforcement officials claim, Wilson's activities constituted eighty (80%) percent of all child pornography activity in the United States, then that 'industry' generated under a million dollars during the ten years Wilson ...[was] in operation. The Wilson case also demonstrates that only several thousand individuals nationwide were 'involved' in this industry — as consumers, not producers and distributors." Stanley notes that from December 1973 to December 1983 a total of $556,182 ran through Wilson's bank accounts.

If the estimates made by law enforcement are correct, then the maximum commercial sale of child porn in America during a ten year period would be about $700,000, well under a million and no where near the hysterical claims of being a multibillion dollar business. In fact the numbers are actually probably much lower as Wilson also distributed large amounts of adult pornography. Of the $556,182 only a fraction was generated from sales of child porn.

Recycled Pictures

Even the relatively low numbers of child porn magazines and films available exaggerate the number of children involved. Because of the nature of this small and selective business no copyrights were sought for the material produced. Producers regularly copied material from each other. One police investigator reported, "the same publisher may publish the same photograph on six or more occasions in magazines with different titles, mixing the pictures so that a complete duplication of a magazine does not occur. The various publishers also appear to freely plagiarize [sic] each others' material as well." Judith Ennew also found the same result, "many sequences and stills are used over and over again in different outlets. It is clear from the quality of print or costumes and style that many child depictions are up to fifty years old. Magazines and distribution companies are short-lived and material is thus reproduced monotonously. But the customer is in no position to complain to consumer councils if he or she is dissatisfied with the product."

Not only are the same photos used over and over again in the relatively few publications that have existed but in a single "child porn" publication a good percentage of the photos are not pornographic. Stanley said: "Even of those images published in commercial 'child pornography' magazines during the 1970s and early 1980s, only a small portion depicted adults performing sexual acts with or on children. A survey of images in commercial child pornography magazines by Schuijer and Rossen shows that only 14% depicted children engaged in sexual conduct with adults. An additional small percentage of images depicted children posing with other children (but not necessarily engaging in sexual acts), while the majority of material (61%), merely showed children nude at play or posing erotically. "

Ed Meese's Obsession

The tenure of Ed Meese as Attorney General changed things considerably. While child porn had virtually disappeared before Meese took office he was obsessed with the issue of pornography, and child porn. The unavailability of child porn was no obstacle. If a crisis doesn't exist then just invent one. In May, 1984, the US Congress submitted to requests of the Justice Department and redrew the boundaries in some significant ways.

• First, the age limit was raised from 16 to 18 placing the United States outside the Western mainstream. An entire class of publications, which previously had been legal, were now illegal. Publications which were purchased legally in the United States became illegal overnight without the bulk of owners being aware of the change.
  
  
• Second, Congress dropped the requirement that something be "obscene" before being classified as child pornography. Now the law was so broadly written that family snapshots of a nude child playing in the bath, could be prosecuted—and were!.
  
  
• Third, it was no longer necessary to produce or distribute the newly banned material. Mere possession was now illegal.

With these new definitions in place prosecutions skyrocketed. From 1978 to 1984 the number of prosecutions for child porn totaled 69. In a four year period, after the law was rewritten, almost 650 prosecutions took place. From an average of 1 prosecution per month the number rose to one every other day, an increase of about 1,000%. Yet, in spite of this radical increase in prosecutions, the production and distribution of child porn had not increased to any noticeable degree. What changed was how people were arrested and for what.

[Part Two of "The Claptrap Over Child Porn" will cover exactly what new categories of crimes were created and how they were prosecuted.]

Jim Peron is the owner of Aristotle's Books in Auckland, New Zealand, and the executive director of the Institue for Liberal Values, Auckland (www.liberalvalues.org.nz). He can be reached at esteem@orcon.net.nz.