Emotionally I agree with most of what Cleo671 has said. It is interesting to note the difference in tone between her posts and KallieÕs replies, in which the argument is caught up in often vituperative emotion.

Alebeard42 raised an interesting issue, asking whether censorship really makes a child safe. I donÕt know the answer, because much of the opinion does not seem to be founded on sound evidence. Do people that way inclined regard kiddy porn as a substitute for the real thing, or does it just intensifies the obsession, or does it depend on the individual, and if so, what determines which it is? Could it be IQ, or is it having been abused, or is it related to the ability to see fantasy as something separate from what happens in the real world? All of these might be part of the answer.

Asking whether people Ôthat way inclinedÕ regard kiddy porn as a substite for the Ôreal thingÕ is actually a question full of pre-judgements. Are people Ôthat way inclinedÕ, if they have no interest in Ôthe real thingÕ? Is it possible to answer questions like this if all of the research is always based exclusively on offenders? Surely offenders represent the wrong kind of minority here. We need studies that show why large numbers of people who might like the porn have had no inclination to offend, and that applies to every kind of erotica, literary and otherwise.

The big problem for anyone trying to keep children safe by locking up everyone who is interested in porn is that due to inadequate research and worse argument they are creating a problem much too big to solve. The only way to make it manageable is to understand a lot better what distinguishes offenders from those who have no inclination to harm children. The wrong distinction to choose is an interest in porn.

Personally I find the abuse of young children disturbing, whether the abuse is physical, sexual or psychological. What characterises the kind of thing that disturbs me is that it is centred on the pleasure of the perpetrator of the abuse. There is little or no attention given to the thoughts, feelings or wishes of the victim. I cannot see such writing as in any way erotic, but I cannot exclude that there are some who do find it erotic and have no inclination to do something similar to a real child. It does seem counterintuitive to me, but there is simply not enough of the right kind of evidence to be sure.

Looking at this from the perspective of a writer, my own writing was more violent when I was younger. Writing was an outlet for my feelings of aggression and sexual frustration. None of this reflected my actual behaviour.

Getting back to what is acceptable in fiction, this leads on to a point that has not previously emerged from the discussion. Having fantasies about doing harm to children is very different from having fantasies about being a child that has sexual feelings, and an inclination towards submission, masochism or even incest. We have all been a child, and it is idiotic to pretend that because there are age-based legal restrictions on sexual activity, these also apply to sexual development. What is in ourselves I feel that we are fully entitled to explore, especially in fiction.