A computer administrator has been jailed

[SallyAnne]

I do however think, and this is an aside to the central point, that having children is very good for the average human being in that it teaches us to love and understand beings that are weak and vulnerable.

If you needed to have children in order to love and understand beings that are weak and vulnerable, then I really feel sorry for you!

[SallyAnne]

Snuff ???

If you are saying drugs then watching a film about it is not necessarily promoting the use of it. Likewise watching a film about paedophilia does not necessarily promote the activity itself. There is a difference between learning and gratification. Pornographic pictures of children are gratification until they get used as say evidence.

Snuff film - films where people are killed.

Isn't that what they're called?

[ASB]

Snuff film - films where people are killed.

Isn't that what they're called?

I think you need to refine that a bit. Certainly "snuff films" as they were known 20 odd years ago were illegal to own, show, or view.

Now, you need to ask yourself "how did the film come into existence". Basically round up a few deadbeats, top 'em, film it (for others gratification) distribute it and bank the proceeds. The fact remains that without the consumption the original offences would not have occurred. So, it's probably right it should be illegal to own, possess, distribute etc.

But I don;t know if you mean snuff films in that original context. There is certainly a case that you could argue a lot of the crap that gets posted up on assorted sites - car accidents, allegedly random shootings that just happen to be videoed (or saddams hanging for that matter) come into this category. They don't.

So to make the comparison back to porn the problem isn't so much the material. It's the consent. People filming themselves banging each other, in the knowledge they are going to publish it is fine by me. People consuming it is fine by me.

Kiddie porn is clearly non consensual. It is therefore wrong. The argument that the material already exists so might as well be available is very thin.

Personally people acting out rape fantasies and publishing is the grey area for me.

[PAH]

Snuff films are where somebody is killed on camera for the purpose of creating the film. The Nicholas Cage movie, 8mm, covers the subject in the usual hollywood way.

So if it is illegal to view snuff films, then it could be argued that those Iraq beheading videos are certainly snuff and all of you that viewed them have broken the law! Fortunately (for my own sanity) I've avoided viewing them on advice of a friend who saw one online and wishes she hadn't. Too disturbing.

I remember watching those Faces of Death movies when I was a teen. Turns out they were fake (unless the report they were fake is itself fake!), but still disturbing non the less. The live monkey brain eating session was probably the worst of the ones I saw. I didn't appreciate the similar scene in Hannibal, closest I've been to puking while watching a mainstream move.

[DodgyAgent]

If you needed to have children in order to love and understand beings that are weak and vulnerable, then I really feel sorry for you!

Rather than take on your entrenched position I suggest that you ask anyone you know with children.

[Platypus]

Rather than take on your entrenched position I suggest that you ask anyone you know with children.

Oh come on!

Just because SA isn't screaming "off with his balls" with the rest of the frenzied herd it must be because she's cold-hearted / clueless due to not having children of her own.

She seems to me to be the only person on the thread who's trying to think about the issue, garner opinions and come to a reasoned conclusion for herself.

This is clearly very unreasonable of her given the nature of the issue

[SallyAnne]

Rather than take on your entrenched position I suggest that you ask anyone you know with children.

Ask them what? If they were unable to love and understand beings that are weak and vulnerable before they had children?

I think they'd either laugh, or slap me for being a patronising pr*ck.

[DodgyAgent]

Ask them what? If they were unable to love and understand beings that are weak and vulnerable before they had children?

I think they'd either laugh, or slap me for being a patronising pr*ck.

So you are an "I feel too" individual? So you felt the grief surrounding Diana just as William and Harry did? You feel and understand the loss of a child just as much as a mother who has lost one?

[SallyAnne]

So you are an "I feel too" individual? So you felt the grief surrounding Diana just as William and Harry did? You feel and understand the loss of a child just as much as a mother who has lost one?

You said that you have to have children to understand how vulnerable they are.

Utter sh*te.

You also said you have to have children to love and understand beings that are weak and vulnerable.

Uttersh*te.

Try and twist my words as much as you want hun - the b*llocks you speak will still come shining through.

[NotAllThere]

If you needed to have children in order to love and understand beings that are weak and vulnerable, then I really feel sorry for you!

SA is correct here. That's why AtW likes squirrels.