Equal rights for perverts!

Here’s something that I think is a fundamental – or should be. The law should apply equally to all. The Heresiarch posted something this morning on goat sacrifice – well, it is a Tuesday – and the conversation drifted that way. It’s something I feel strongly about, and another news story today had already irritated me by breaching this principle. If it’s illegal for me to do it, it should be illegal for you. If it’s legal for me to do something, it should be legal for you. Even if you’re a paedophile.Oh yes.

I know, I know, the notion of granting any kind of rights to a paedo seems repellent, but please note, I’m not suggesting special rights, merely some level of equality before the law – I’ll explain. A couple of years late the media have discovered sexting – the cops, in the shape of CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and yes, for those following this closely they *are* the cops who work with the IWF) , are naturally eager to grab their share of the bandwagon, and so are merrily warning of the dangers of trusting your BF or GF – wow, really? Still, thankfully the police here aren’t quite as lunatic as many in the US who have been actively prosecuting children for photographing themselves. CEOP’s new-found level of rationality is rare in the child protection industry, but here it exposes a rather nasty double standard. And when the people upholding a double standard are police and prosecutors, I think we need to worry a little.

Here’s the deal – Helen Penn of CEOP is keen to stress the police’s pragmatism, humanity, and awareness of the roller coaster of developing sexuality: “When the police look at this kind of offence, they are going to take it in context.” Good. Fair enough. Well done Helen. But then, it all kinda falls apart: “So if it is two 17-year-olds and they are in a consensual relationship, they will probably not prosecute those people. But it will look at people that sent on these images and hold lots of them for ill intent.”  Eh?

Let’s unpick that. Two 17 year olds take snaps of themselves and each other, swap the images or videos, have a high old time, all consensual, all pleasurable, nobody hurt. But… if an evil ol’ paedo gets hold of these images with “ill intent” – having a wank, “ill intent”? – the police will investigate and prosecute? Why? Why, when they have already accepted that no one has been harmed?  The police have discretion in all matters; Penn had already stated that despite it being a crime – oh yes, a 17 year old posessing or distributing “indecent” images of themself *is* committing a crime in Labour’s Krazy Britain – the cops wouldn’t be interested, because they can see no harm is being done, so why chase after anyone else who comes into posession of the pics?

Now, there’s an argument that this might be an invasion of privacy, perhaps a breach of copyright, even a breach of contract – but is that within CEOP’s remit? It is not. And does one normally get put on a sex offender’s register for breaching copyright? I bet the MPAA would like that, but not so far. No, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the crime you’d be committing is viewed as a sexual offence; you’d be nicked for looking at consensually produced photos of people *above* the age of consent, where the photos original participants, distributors, and intended recipients would not be viewed as having committed that same offence. AND YET they too would, presumably, have been aroused by both taking, sending, and looking at the photos. What kind of bloody baffling country is it that criminalises fancying somone you’re not in a relationship with?

Maybe a country like Saudi Arabia, the Taliban’s Afghanistan, some other fucked up hell-hole that views sex as the rightful province of lawmakers, and women as property to be covered and hidden away. Interesting to see our that our own sexual ethics are as convoluted and tortured as theirs eh?

Loathe as anyone might be to defend the right of a paedo or near-paedo (neardo?) to wank over pics of teenagers, it’s a fucking lunatic system that punishes them for something that’s tolerated in others. It’s not only lunatic, it’s immoral.