* If you were a rape victim*
Porn is fiction and there's no victim. A depiction of a real illegal act is not what you would call porn, it's snuff video perhaps, and distributing it is already or should be prohibited under different laws.
Porn is fiction and there's no victim. A depiction of a real illegal act is not what you would call porn, it's snuff video perhaps, and distributing it is already or should be prohibited under different laws.
This is an unreasonably strong statement, and very likely untrue. There is no way for end-users of porn to reliably verify that performers in a specific video aren't under duress, aren't being trafficked, etc. Yes, if one knew that a crime was being committed, one could call it a crime, but this is effectively impossible for the vast majority of porn. At best one can hope that no one was harmed.
The parent's argument hinges on being able to clearly distinguish what people call porn from criminally-produced media. Essentially the No True Scotsman Fallacy.
My point is that it's basically impossible to do that, in practice. Sure one could imagine a conscientious porn consumer who only goes to certain trusted producers. Maybe that's what you're getting at with your PG reference?
The ancillary crimes happen when the core product is criminalized; that is, you get drive-bys and chemical plant and pharmacy robberies when drug production is illegal such that the only way to compete in the drug world is to commit other crimes to defend your market and get raw materials.
When the product is legitimized, as happened with alcohol in the US in 1933, the criminal element moves out because it can't withstand the scrutiny a legitimate business is put under as a matter of course. Any legitimate brewing or distilling operation is being looked at from too many angles related to food regulations and taxes and OSHA and so on to be able to risk having undocumented workers make bathtub gin in a basement while killing off their competition.
From this, we can predict that outlawing porn, or making some kinds of porn illegal, will only serve to make the production of that porn a nastier, more illegal business which does more overall harm to society.
In short: Crime breeds crime.
An analogy that comes to mind is the trade in animal parts from endangered species. If we legalize the trade, there is more of an incentive to kill the animals, even if the killing is outlawed.
This can be replaced by simulations using acting and special effects. Porn is about the fantasy anyway.
> An analogy that comes to mind is the trade in animal parts from endangered species. If we legalize the trade, there is more of an incentive to kill the animals, even if the killing is outlawed.
This can also be replaced by simulations, to some extent, but not like porn can be, because it's easier to tell fake ivory from fake porn, for example.
Ultimately, there will always be violence. Some of it will even be recorded for others. But outlawing stuff will just cause more and worse illegal acts to occur.
Although I believe that it's harder to detect fake ivory than it is to detect fake child porn, below a certain age.
And I also believe that legalizing videos of illegal acts encourages the illegal acts, provided the videos are willingly being made by the criminals and they are being used for entertainment as opposed to journalism or analysis. But this is really just a belief, and I do understand that you have the opposite belief.
I remember reading some articles about sex trafficking and porn production, but would have to dig them up to find some actual data.
I somehow doubt porn industry works like IT; I don't think you get to dump your video studio because the formerly free sodas you used for refreshment after the act now cost $.50.
It would be the same case for Nike shoes made by underage children, harvested donor parts masqueraded as ethical donations, fur mantles made with illegally hunted animals, black tuna fished from illegal waters etc. The product is not the problem, the process is to be condemned.
I understand there are some product more prone to abusive behaviors than others, and porn is not the industry with the cleanest image. But assigning the abuses on the products/industry itself is not looking at the root issues (the scumbags doing illegal/immoral things for money. They'd just do other scumbaggy things if porn wasn't worth it).
PS: for clarity, I think less stigma around porn would make it a healthier industry, and I believe there should be more checks to minimize the abuses we see today. It's unfortunate there's so many of them, and I wish porn could become a simple subset of entertainment contents in every way. For now game and anime porn would be the closest to this ideal, with people just doing their jobs in a professional matter with lesser social stigma.
Perhaps the focus on movie recordings is misleading. It's the same issue as photography, and on the still image side it has been and still is discussed to death: should image of victims be banned ? What can be broadcasted and what can not ? Shouldn't a rape victim's identity be always protected ? Or is it OK if he/she agrees with the publication of convicting pieces ? Or what if he/she kills the assaulter afterwards ? Is it OK to have private shots of events other people don't want published ?
There's hundred of questions we could think of in the lapse of a conversation, just making 'films' illegal won't answer them all.
Edit: skipped a word in last sentence