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The term child pornography usually means works that center around sexual behaviour of children. Because production of child pornography is a crime in many jurisdictions, the decision on what constitutes it often needs to be done in each separate case by experts, judges or community members. Because the laws and community standards vary greatly, there is no consensus on precise definitions of pornography and child, which results in further confusion.
"Pornography" is often defined to be the depiction of actual sexual activity. Nudist magazines with depictions of nude underage persons may not fall in this category and are widely available in some countries.
The United States of America covers all materials aimed at "prurient interests", even if no nudity is involved. In at least one case, nude pictures of small children in bath tubs have been declared to be child pornography, while in another case, females under 18 exposing their breasts has been found not to be child pornography because there was no physical contact (see Girls Gone Wild).
Under United Kingdom law, a "child pornography" image is an "indecent photograph of a child" - there is no requirement for "sexual content". Nudity is sufficient for an image to be indecent. Similarly, "bikini" shots might be considered indecent. With the 2003 Act, the word pornography is used for the first time, defined as meaning that "indecent images are recorded". Indecent photographs are defined in the Protection of Children Act 1978.
In Germany the definition for child pornography does not differ from that of conventional pornography. Sound and text can also be considered pornography.
In Canada a written text that advocates or counsels sex with a child is included in the definition of "child pornography", although parts of that law have been successfully contested in court.
In most countries materials dealing with underage sex are usually exempt from the legislation when they have artistic value. Some prominent examples of this principle are Romeo and Juliet (the play and films), and Lolita (the novel and films), even though this Vladimir Nabokov's novel about a man's obsessive affair with a teenage girl introduced the name that later became a common codeword for child pornography (lolita) and sexual attraction to underage girls loli-con). Not only classical works qualify, of course - many modern photographers create child erotica, including David Hamilton and others.
Production and sale of child pornography is generally illegal in most developed countries, although national regulations vary widely. Some countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, outlaw mere possession.
Still, in some countries, the situation is different. For example, in Russia there is no special legislation regarding child pornography. Production of child pornography is usually prosecuted as child abuse. Illegal distribution of pornography is prohibited, but there is no law governing distribution of pornography and child porn is not singled out. Downloading and possession of child pornography is legal.
The production of child pornography may involve child sexual abuse. However the depiction can also just show natural sexual play among children or masturbation. In some jurisdictions depictions of posing children or nude children are considered child porn as well. The production of simulated child pornography (see below) does not involve real children. In some jurisdictions production is explicitly prohibited regardless whether there is a risk for children being harmed in the actual case.
The prohibition of distribution reduces the availability of child pornography. This also serves the protection of the actors, who do not consent to distribution, or can not give informed consent. Commercial trade in child porn is an incentive to its production; however, most jurisdictions outlaw any kind of distribution.
It has been suggested that the consumption of child pornography causes pedophilia and lowers the threshold of a person's willingness to engage in sex with a child, and, in the case of the additional crime of showing the images to a child, also conversely. This is an argument for banning simulated child porn or porn with young-looking actors above the age of consent.
On the other hand it might be argued that these materials potentially give pedophiles a sexual outlet, thereby lowering sexual frustration and the risk of committing abuse. Experience with the liberalisation of conventional porn in many countries indicates that the availability of porn reduces the number of sex crimes. In Japan, where art (not photographs) involving minors in sexual situations is legal, the instances of child sexual abuse are extremely low; however, Japan's crime rates are low in general, so this may not be correlative: see loli-con.
In many countries, including the US, the UK and the Netherlands, "children" are defined to be persons below the age of 18.
The European Union recommends the harmonisation of the age limit to 18 years. The Netherlands raised the age limit of a "child" to that number in October 2002. The UK Sexual Offences Act 2003 did the same. It was compulsory to dispose of possessions that became illegal. The age limit in Germany is still 14 years.
Images of legal activities are not always legal. For example, in the U.S. child porn defines anyone under 18; however, many states have ages of consent lower than 18. Therefore, it is legal to have sex with someone under 18 but not to take pictures of them in sexual situations. The young person is not even allowed to make such a picture of him- or herself for personal use. The different age limits can be justified with the same arguments as for outlawing simulated child pornography.
The question has arisen whether materials which appear to, but in fact do not involve actual under-age persons (for instance because adult actors or computer animation were used) should also be treated as prohibited child pornography.
Proponents of such a prohibition argue that these materials might encourage child molesters, and that the availability of simulated child pornography would make the prosecution of true child pornography much harder. Opponents of the prohibition claim that simulated child pornography does not harm children and should therefore fall under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.
The United States Supreme Court decided in 2002 that the American prohibition of simulated child pornography is unconstitutional ().
UK law has dealt with simulated images since 1994, when the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act introduced indecent pseudo-photographs of children. In the Netherlands from October 2002 seemingly real child pornography is treated like real. In Germany real and realistic depictions were never treated differently by law.
Production and distribution of child pornography generally separate from other forms of pornography, and the adult film industry has taken extremely strong efforts to separate itself from and oppose child pornography.
The majority of internationally available hardcore child pornography is produced in developing countries in former Soviet Union countries, South-East Asia and Central America. Germany was one of the main sources of naturist child erotica in the past. Japan was and still remains one of the leading producers of softcore pornography, which was outlawed there only in 1999, after much international pressure; enforcement remains somewhat sporadic. A lot of modern legitimate softcore pornography (so-called Lolita art) is also made in Russia and other ex-USSR countries.
Unlike most European countries the US broadened their definition of child pornography during the 1980s. However if one sticks to a narrow definition of child pornography like the one in Germany, content predominantly originates from private production as well as commercial production in the 1960s and 1970s. Indications of commercial production of child pornography in noteworthy amounts could not be found despite careful investigation. The same applies to commercial distribution of child pornography, for that only isolated cases could be verified. The loss of anonymity by payment as well as the supply of free depictions inhibit commercial distribution. Media reports about child pornography-rings almost exclusively refer to private, non-commercial exchange of child pornography, but are meant to create the impression of a widely spread organized crime group trading child pornography.
While up to the 1980s child pornography to a limited extend was sold under-the-counter, non-commercial distribution significantly increased by the advent of the Internet. Internet child pornography is usually shared in private circles by the use of file sharing, IRC and Usenet, giving copyright agencies ammunition to try and close down file sharing networks. In Germany there is just one case of investigation for possession of child pornography per year among 20,000 people, and the number remains constant. Only 2.7 percent of them are commercial or involve organized groups. The vast majority of suspects acted on their own.
Organized gangs of child pornography users and facilators do exist, however. Many child pornography networks are operating in more than one country, making it harder for any single law enforcement agency to shut them down. An international sting operation aimed at a child pornography network called the Wonderland Club resulted in more than 100 arrests in 14 nations.
Some sources claim that much or most of the commercially offered material found online is actually bait deployed by law enforcement agents as "honeypots". The NAMBLA newsletter once warned its readers that most of the solicitations for child pornography are actually sting operations. Judith Levine cites two sources in her book Harmful to Minors on this. One is researcher Lawrence Stanley, who in an 1980s study "concluded that the pornographers were almost exclusively cops." And sources in the police agreed:
Not all child pornography viewers are pedophiles - many of them prefer sexual relations with adult partners, but still enjoy sexual fantasies involving children. Some are just exploring their sexuality. This became especially prevalent with the Internet, where child pornography can be easily, quickly and anonymously acquired.
Available studies show that the majority of viewers are male and many of them are adolescents themselves.
According to Japanese publishers, among the mainstream audience child pornography (legal softcore materials or simulated hardcore) is often much more popular and more commercially successful than plain vanilla porn.
There is stigma associated with child pornography and most people in the United States don't want to be perceived as defending it. This sometimes leads to overreaction and legal and innocent forms of expression are being attacked on the grounds that they may be child porn. Although the number of such incidents is small, they are often sufficiently bizarre to raise concerns.
In the late 1970s Jacqueline Livingston, a photography professor at Cornell University, was accused of child pornography. She wrote: "I was scorned by my friends, accused of child pornography and fired from my teaching job after exhibiting photographs of my son, my husband and my father in law in the nude." (, sexual abuse of children, possession and dissemination of child pornography. .
Anti-piracy hologram on the Windows 95 box had an animation of a baby sitting next to computer and then pointing to the computer where Windows 95 logo appeared. The model, who was the infant son of the photographer, wasn't wear a shirt, which led some people to the belief that he wasn't wearing pants either, even though he was visible only from the waist up. After government complaints, Microsoft had to change the hologram to one that didn't feature "naked children".
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