I can't read their minds or determine what their motives are for doing so but I perhaps can conjecture that they might not want to make the issue even bigger than it already is, perhaps advised by some professionals who might see a greater number of "possible" parties interested in such material. Perhaps they are simply overwhelmed by the scale and futility of trying to control this issue. The Internet has been a game-changer in this regard. Kincaid in Erotic Innocence dismissed this issue much the same as it seems some here do but his comments came before the Internet exploded into life and 2012 is rather different even than 2002.

We aren't "dismissing" the issue, we are putting it in its proper perspective and making it clear that the public has every right to demand proof of the cops' often outrageous claims, a point that Kincaid, Levine, and others who are actually concerned with civil rights--and who are fully pro-youth--have made in the past. I gave a good amount of explication in one of my other essays as to the many motives police would have in lying about this, as well as examples of their long and colorful history of lies:

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_Child_Pornography_Should_Be_Legal

We do hear from a few of the victims but I would think that shame surrounding the issue might cause many not to want to make themselves the subject of public scrutiny. You might ask yourself that question - would you make it public if you were such a victim?

You routinely see parents of kidnapped kids and adult victims seeking public sympathy and starting organizations dedicated to combating child sexual abuse, so yes, I do not believe that if it was true that hundreds of thousands of children have been victims of forced participation in sexual activity on camera, with all types of horrific torture and injuries thrown into the mix, that just about none of them have ever come forth, and that almost every single one of them have not done so out of shame, especially when lawyers have recently proven how lucrative it can be for these alleged victims to sue any individual who was caught looking at their pics, and how such kids will be treated almost like royalty if they went public, as did the many phony victims of the Satanic ritual abuse nonsense of the 1980s (who received personal visits from celebrities, among many other perks). Hence, I think we have every right to demand tangible evidence in the face of what I call the Great Silence, especially with the history of dishonest activity practiced by law enforcement agencies [LEAs] in regards to this, and the consequences this mad witch hunt has on our society from a civil rights point of view.

Also, lee, unlike you, I do not believe that there are literally millions of MAAs all over the world that enjoy watching pics and vids of children actually being tortured with cigarette burns and subjected to authentic sexual abuse, because the vast majority of my fellow MAAs I have met have a conscience and the ability to empathize with others, and there is no evidence that this attraction base has a stronger connection to sadistic desires and behaviors than does adult attraction to other adults. There aren't thousands of teleiophiles seeking authentic torture porn of other adults who were kidnapped and forced to participate in such films, and no multi-billion dollar market for such material exists anywhere in the world (despite lies to the contrary by police during the early 1980s, thus creating the urban legend of the "snuff film" epidemic), so why does it make sense to believe that there is a sizable market, or simple desire for, such material in such huge numbers involving children?

Well you can safely sleep at night Diss since I will not be telling you this but I will be telling you that it doesn't take too much knowledge to locate the sources of much of the material and they are not about to suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke. That is one aspect that the Internet does mostly ensure - the survivability of data.

Mmmhmmm, which is why millions of people stumble upon that material every day, right? If such material was pervasive on the P2P networks, then there would be much more tangible evidence that what the cops continually say is true, which is an illusion thanks to the fact that they consider so much material to fall under the "CP" umbrella.

It has nothing particularly to do with my abuse that I have formed my views but with regards to the overall picture. Of course abuse should be countered wherever it happens but my views with regards to paedophilia comes from my thinking as much as my experiences. The people here might have one particular view with regards to sexually interacting with pre-pubescents and I have a different perspective. As pointed out we can argue or just get on with life. Yours/theirs views will not likely change and probably neither will mine - that is life.

And of course, showing you contrary evidence that actually backs up our views won't alter your own, which suggests that your belief is based not on empirical data, but on an emotional need to believe a certain thing. And sorry, but I do not believe that both the matter of your abuse, and the fact that the consensus view is such a powerful and entrenched one, had nothing to do with forming your views and their unshakable rigidity, especially considering how you repeatedly ignore evidence that counters it.

I think "vulnerable" might be more appropriate and you must know I always refer to pre-pubescents when meaning children so I doubt vulnerable is objectionable.

To your credit, yes I know you always mean pre-pubescents when you use the word "children." And I would argue that their vulnerability is largely the result of the fact that we give them no civil rights, and consider them little more than the glorified property of their parents. This is by whom they are subject to the most instances of genuine abuse, and that is something that society--including yourself--should not be so dismissive of.

Well Dissident, either you truly do not know the scale of the problem and are just repeating what you have been told or you do and are simply being evasive but there will undoubtedly be many on this forum who do know the truth but I would hardly expect them to put their hands up and say "yes, he's perfectly right on this issue." Please don't mention stuff prior to the Internet, as I've said it is a game-changer and has enabled world-wide dissemination of this material. When in the 1970's all pornography was made legal in those two Scandinavian countries there was a relatively minor explosion of child pornography, what has happened since the arrival of the Internet might be seen as a nuclear explosion in comparison.

And yet many of these sources say that the "explosion" of such material is not composed mainly of newly created material, but older grainy material of adolescents left over from the '60s and '70s when the material was legal in many countries. Also, with the huge legal broadening of what constitutes CP, including cartoon drawings and CGI generated material, is it any wonder that the "problem"--largely a problem due to its illegality and the continual broadening of the definition--has "exploded" like it has?

I don't think that unless it is all in the open then it doesn't exist as I am well aware of what I hid from my parents during my childhood Diss, but from what I have seen and from my own experiences these cases are not necessarily that common before puberty.

And the fact that what you have seen and your own experiences differ from what so many others have reported seeing and experiencing cannot possibly mean that perhaps you were unusually sheltered as a child, and grew up in an area where such was common. I'm not saying this was definitely the truth, but it's a possibility you do not seem to consider for a second. The pervasiveness of terms like "playing doctor" and the severe "problem" of kids "acting out" sexually often reported in the media, as well as the Symantec study that showed the high degree of sexual curiosity that children have regardless of whether they experiment with the activity or not, does not seem to offer credence that your experiences are the dominant ones in society.

Stop trying to be dismissive, Diss, I may not be the sharpest cookie around here but I know when I am using my emotions and when I am using my head. I have done sufficient reading over the years to form what I consider a balanced opinion on many topics - some not so I will admit - but on this one I am reasonably sure, perhaps just as you are.

I disagree, because so many of your opinions and positions are based on what amount to moralizing attitudes rather than empirically provable facts, this I believe shows that your emotions are working far more than your reasoning faculties when it comes to this subject. And the fact that you believe so much that has no observable evidence that the average person or even many journalists are allowed to legally verify offers a lot more evidence that your positions are based on strong emotionally driven beliefs rather than verifiable evidence.

That is not true as pre-pubescents do have access to cell phones - can't lay my hands on the data but it is a significant proportion - in the UK at least.

http://www.gfkmri.com/PDF/MRIPR_010410_KidsAndCellPhones.pdf - I think it is at least 50% in the older categories by now.

But these "kids" are still largely in the age group of 9-11, and rarely younger than that. Age 9 may be pre-pubescent, but it's often on the cusp of pubescence.

Of course I do. NOT. Exploitation is the name of the game and there is plenty of that occurring. I have no exact idea as to the spectrum of images and videos available since I do not want to search for such material and do not need it. I do, however, know how to find it if I so desired and I do know to some extent what is available, how much and what much of it entails - descriptions of which will not be allowed by the rules.

And many individuals conveniently consider non-nude [NN] underage modeling sites, most of which are fully legal if problematic in many cases, to be CP, as well as the fact that the law have declared large amounts of NN pics illegal on the basis that they poses might possibly arouse a "pedophile." Also, simply nudity is often automatically considered "sexual" when it happens to involve anyone who is underage. I strongly doubt large proportions of that imagery is of kids tied up against their will and covered head to toe with authentic cigarette burns and skin lacerations from whips.

I have browsed many forums that deal with issues of abuse and perhaps the most striking comments I have come across are those below from a young woman who suffered sexual abuse as a child but who has trained as a clinician and who came across as quite sympathetic towards paedophiles -

What you believe to be a consensual and acceptable sexual or romantic relationship between a young child and adult is the very part of the abuse that is most likely to make them want to kill themselves later in life’ and ‘I do not believe it is possible to truly love someone and yet be so selfish with them that you could take such a big risk about ruining their life.

These statements are so obviously cliche-ish that they come off as caricature-like of an abuse victim. It basically commits the common act of emotional blackmail by telling someone that if they love another, they will not take the risk of hurting them by becoming involved with them, which is pretty common for anyone to say to someone if they get involved with another person that the first party disapproves of. Do you know how often people entering into an interracial relationship were told by a parent of someone who disapproves of race mixing something along the lines of: "Considering all the problems that can result from an interracial relationship, including all the intolerance my daughter will be subjected to if you get involved with her, and how 'confused' any children you may have will be over what they 'are' and how they fit into both our differing cultures, if you truly love her as you say, then you won't get involved with her and put her through that risk"? Calling someone selfish for expressing a love that society at large disapproves of by claiming that the risk is just too great is one of the oldest forms of emotional blackmail in the book. Try to quote something that all minority groups engaging in unpopular relationships in any given era haven't heard a hundred thousand times before, because this one is just too old.

And the idea that large numbers of kids who had relationships that they feel were consensual at the time later try to kill themselves after getting older and reflecting on it--that is an even more tired trope than the above, and has likewise never proven to be factual! If children do look back on such relationships and start feeling shame over it, who is of the greater fault in that, lee? The pedophile who was so "selfish" as to honor the desires of the child, or the people in society who later willfully inflicted sociogenic harm on the now older person by telling them how ashamed they "should" be for enjoying the experience, and how "damaged" they are for having experienced it? And how about the iatrogenic harm inflicted on that younger person if they are forced into therapy against their will and told over and over again they are a "victim," and that they are emotionally "wrong" if they feel good about the experience? That is a mere variation of the shame inflicted upon so many girls and women for having sexual experiences with male peers and enjoying it, when they are called "sluts" and "whores" should said experiences be found out or shared.

Yet the fault is on the boys for not refraining from these relationships with the girls, right? Does this mean that the girls' relationships with boys should be declared "retroactively non-consensual" if the girl is later shamed for having the experience and saying she enjoyed it, and the boy penalized for it accordingly? Don't get me wrong, I am NOT encouraging any MAA to break the law, and I do agree that the fact that such relationships are illegal does make a difference in the amount of damage that can be caused to both parties, but the social dynamics of the situation is the same as the other I mentioned: society imposing shame on individuals who belong to a certain group for enjoying mutually consensual and mutually pleasurable sexual activities because it happens to go against societal mores of the time, and then blaming all of it on the "selfishness" of the individual who society considers the "dominant" partner in the situation (be they the male; the white person; the "child," etc.). Yes, sociogenic and iatrogenic harm are genuine forms of harm, and I refrain from activity with AGs as a result of its possibility, but the fact that it's against the law exacerbates the problem a hundredfold, and the huge impact that societal attitudes has on making it a "problem" in the first place, should not be ignored or overlooked.

And btw, sympathy for the "sinner" but loathing of the "sin" is another common cultural trope, and it was commonly expressed by many loved ones of homosexuals for the past several decades.

{...}

You want to think a 10-year-old can consent to sex? I have been that 10-year-old; one time I even initiated my molestation.

I am willing to bet this woman had her relationship "found out" when she was still a minor, and forced into therapy, where she was inundated with negative propaganda about her experience, and after being made to feel like she was "damaged goods for life," she was encouraged to blame the experience and her older partner for everything rather than those agenda-ridden and irresponsible "therapists" who work for the "system." How could you initiate your own "molestation"? Using the word in such a loaded fashion makes the above scenario even more likely than it already was; the typical telltale signs are all there. This statement is another classic mainstream cliche'.

Maybe he had convinced himself that my consent made it ok and positive ... and it was the fact that I had been so disgusting as to invite him to use me that caused me so much shame and self-hatred, the fact that I was so untrustworthy to myself, and worst of all the fact that my body betrayed me by feeling involuntary pleasure ...

Um, and you seriously believe that this woman just decided for herself, in a total vacuum, that an experience she initiated herself and found enjoyable years earlier, was "disgusting" and resulted in self-hatred and shame for daring to enjoy it when society says she "shouldn't" have? No, you know quite well that she was very likely told this by peers whom she shared the story with; conditioned to believe such by any social worker she spoke to day in and day out after being forced into "therapy" following the discovery of her illegal relationship; and the very ubiquitous amount of negative, hysteria-driven literature on the subject and the near-total absence of the various studies countering that literature being represented in the media due to the constant censorship of the non-mainstream view. Is it any wonder she felt shame and self-hatred for daring to have feelings and enjoyment? How many people who are genuinely raped actually have involuntary orgasms? There is no shame in being abused, but our society heaps plenty of shame and guilt for not feeling abused and enjoying certain experiences that you may have wanted at the time. Yet you see intergenerational relationships in general rather than societal attitudes and the way the system treats both older and younger people who consensually participate in such experiences as the main culprit here?

I would find it difficult to place myself in the mind and body of a child experiencing such events - would you?

I would find it far more difficult to place myself in the mind and body of a now much older child or adolescent who revealed to the wrong people that I initiated and enjoyed such an experience, or if my relationship was found out by the system and I was bombarded with such negative propaganda about my experience, or if I saw an episode of a typical talk show dealing with "pedophilia" and telling me that people with such an attraction base could be nothing but evil and selfish monsters who couldn't possibly love or respect a child whom they reciprocated the advances of. Note how this woman repeats all the typical use of language and emotional tropes that you routinely hear on such shows, and read all over both the print and online media purporting to cover the subject "objectively"? You seem to swallow all this stuff hook, line, and sinker, and I do not believe you read any sizable degree of non-mainstream, well-researched material on the subject.

Bias/Truth, Bias/reality, who knows who has the true picture? I can tell you that how she described what happens between adult and children in such sexual situations as I quoted from her book is how I perceive them. It may not be what happens in some cases but I am willing to believe it happens in far too many and although many of these cases will be put down purely to child-molesters much the same will be happening with those paedophiles who refuse to look at what is actually occurring because their sexual desire interferes with their thinking.

As opposed to the majority of society's conflicted and derogatory emotional attitude towards sexuality interfering with their thinking on the subject? Including the common societal bias that anyone who acts on natural sexual desires in a certain situation are always morally inferior to those who do not act on them? It's pretty easy to feel that way if you happen to have sexual desires and preferences that fall into whatever the norm of society happens to be at any given time, or if you happen to be a minority who is no longer out of favor with the majority of the mainstream--which is the case with gays today, but wasn't the case for them a few decades ago. I guess gays who act on their feelings in Uganda are inherently in the wrong due to the matter of homosexual behavior being very illegal in that country, and the literally lethal consequences of being caught breaking that law.

I don't and never have said so - please Diss do not ascribe views I do not have - something you seem to constantly accuse me of doing. I agree with her interpretation of what occurs between adult and children in such sexual situations.

So you don't consider her an authority, and you basically admit that you agree with her interpretation simply because she says what you want to hear? And this will be why you will dismiss the contrary statements of researchers like Rind, Tromovitch, Franklin, Greene, and Okami--because they do not say what you want to hear, despite adhering to objective scientific methodology much more stringently than Goode does?

If this is true then as I commented in another thread the "baggage" surrounding paedophilia will not help towards any progress that many want to see so either they ditch it completely or accept that what you describe as a "typical paedophile" is not true and the larger picture will remain and ipso facto the status quo.

No, what constitutes a typical pedophile contrasts with what the status quo wants and needs to believe in order to justify the continued demonization of us, and the continued oppression of any possible expression of youth sexuality. This makes it clear that the arbiters of the mainstream view have a strong need to lie and make extortionist demands of us over the long run in order to preserve this status quo. That says volumes about the nature of the current status quo and those who would seek to preserve it, not about this community for refusing to adhere to the views it tries to impose on us.

Just a few recent indicative ones - not sure why I added them really.

[...]

I will buy books though and have done so over the years, many relating to issues surrounding paedophilia so no they were hardly the source for my views.

And how many books or articles with a contrary view to Dr. Goode's have you read? I am more than willing to link you to a few articles by some of the researchers who have expressed contrary opinions for your objective consideration (not intending this to be a war of the links, as you called it), and I can even show you where to very affordably acquire copies of Lancaster's Sex Panic and the Punitive State and Bowers' Full Service, both of which are must-reads.