The British Columbia Child Pornography Debate: A Discussion

Earlier this year Canadian media and government was in an uproar over a British Columbia Judge's ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Canadian child pornography laws. While there is always reason for public concern on such an issue it is my belief that the judges decision was misrepresented and in fact was actually for the best, both legally and psychologically. Let me explain the decision as I understand it.

The Canadian child pornography laws explicitly forbid any usage of the image of an individual under the age of 18 in a sexually explicit manner. Now this seems fair enough agreed. But the Canadian laws include real images (i.e., photo's), written materials, and drawings. Now at first this doesn't seem like a big problem and that these materials should be illegal. However, the written materials do include some freely published material (i.e. the classic book Lolita). What this means is: If you had this book and the police really wanted to charge you with possession of child pornography they could. This was the main reason the British Columbia judge struck down the law. The law was created to protect children, which of course we all want. However, it covered areas that put children at no risk and therefore was going beyond the purpose of the law (which in the legal realm is a big no no). Had the judge not made an issue with the wording of the law it would go unfixed and maybe many other cases would end up slipping through a constitutional loop hole.

What I want to talk about and question is the judges secondary issue with the law. The judge suspected that possibly artificial recreations of child pornography such as art, drawings, and written texts might act as a buffer for pedophiles. What this means is that a pedophile who has urges to molest a minor would possibly divert his/her urges by fantasy behavior with these buffer materials. Is this possible? Because if so, I think many people would agree that this may be the best of two evils. Anything that prevents a child from being molested would seem better. The truth is no one knows if this would work or not. Why? Well for one an experiment that tested this hypothesis would be highly unethical. It is difficult to identify non-imprisoned pedophiles. We cannot do a public experiment because it is unethical (obviously) to put children at risk if we are wrong about it acting as a buffer. And we cannot work in the prison system because we cannot provide incarcerated pedophiles with illegal material (that which we would use is illegal under current laws). Is there a solution then? Yes, I think so.

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