All studies that have been done on the effect of legalizing child pornography possession show that it has led to decreased child molestation rates. Some studies on individuals who consume child pornography show that it can in some individuals trigger molestation, but in nation wide studies on the effects of legalizing child pornography viewing, it has in every case resulted in a decrease in child abuse rates. We can assume from this that although viewing child pornography may lead some people to molest children, it reduces the probability that others will, and the net effect is a decrease in child molestation rates.
Feel free to make counter arguments to any of the points I've made, but I don't see why I need to argue against myself for you.
@zrm, what's your opinion on virtual child porn?
Could you live with legalized 3D child porn and the age of consent just staying the same?
I've got to admit, I've read the same case studies as you have, because the pedofile problem fascinates me. On one hand it's absolutely revolting to me, on the other hand I can recognize pedofiles didn't chose to be that way either. Delving into these issues is like a decaying corpse on the side of the road to me, you know it's going to trigger a vomit reflex but. you. just. have. to. take. a. closer. look.
So yes, I've seen the reports that countries that (accidentally) legalize child porn (Hello post-Soviet Tsech Republic) suffer from less abuse (correlation and causation is still an issue, obviously).
But newsflash:
children are being abused for the production of child porn.
The only system that would be truly victimless and therefore in my opinion the only ethical solution:
Government mandated virtual child porn producers. We live in the age of CGI, we should be able to make realistic child porn. The government makes sure they don't sneak real CP in there, the producers supply the pedofiles with movie files and supply the government with a list of hash values of their files.
When the police raid a home, they can check all the files against the list of hash values automatically, so they don't have to watch that shit to make sure it's legal. Changing the files changes the hash value, and makes it a crime to posses it to make sure they don't hide real CP in those images.
No victims of the production process, less child abuse victims, pedofiles can jerk all they want and the cost of government involvement you can earn back by taxing those producers extra. Everybody happy.
Age of consent stays where it is, and dividing by two plus seven as a minimum becomes law, because seriously. 30 year olds have no business going after girls half their age.