I just read all those mutlipage threads about child-porn you guys have started and I wanted to add something that seemed to need it's own space.

I know this is a really emotive issue and I'd be worried if it wasn't, but when Philo talks about his reactions to certain porn and that it sent him striaght down the rabbit hole into crazyland and made him want to kill himself, I can really relate, in a different way, because in reading that I had a sudden revelation.

It's this: I have been trying to find my 'perp' in porn. I keep looking for her.

The way porn is organised around specific triggers makes it difficult to see the whole, but it suddenly hit me, with an emotional intensity when I read with much grief and survivor guilt what Philo and all of you have been saying.

I suddenly scanned my brain and remembered 3 time I have stumbled across kiddie porn, but it's not my thing so I just reacted and shut down the computer and walked away cos it really scared me to find that crap.... but that's not my point....

What I found in my brain was that as I scanned those isolated cases I suddenly realised that one time I was looking for 'big ass women', another time it was 'mature women', another time it was 'hairy women', and another it was 'dark haired women'.

The wheels suddenly turned in my head and I saw the big-assed, mature, hairy-bushed, dark haried woman who abused me and recruited my cousin to carry on the abuse in her absence.

So I wonder, while I will never be jailed or anything for looking for my perp, is there that much difference? Triggers is triggers, wanting to kill myself is wanting to kill myself, digust is disgust and PTSD is pretty much PTSD.

Also I wanted to say where I have found kiddie porn, so either you can suggest how to report it, or you can avoid these places:

TGP's about miscellaneous stuff - tends to be the more 'hentai' sort of tgp's, I suppose most pics are dead links and the one kiddie picture there goes to an ip logger and reports you to the cops, that's what I assumed at the time.

Hotline: I quite innocently was looking for a crack for a piece of arcane software I actualy bought but couldn't register cos of a long story. In the software folder I saw a jpg entitled 'Olsen Twins' and I thought they must be a band, cos I had sort of heard of the name before, and it turned out to be two naked children sitting by a pool, and again I flipped out and swtiched off the computer and started thinking about how much of a typical pedophile I will appear to the jury when they sentence me - a textbook case they'll say, acting out his own abuse they'll say.

IRC: I don't know how to use it properly, but I discovered 'child porn' sharing rings. You'll find them if you list 'Undernet' or something. I was just exploring the web and trying to find chat servers. Again I don't know if they are real, or stings, but I have never heard anyone ever mention IRC, it's very tucked out of the way I think. And they say they are invitation only in the de>

One point - accidentally finding or stumbling upon (or in that one person's case, being shown without asking) child porn is a different ballgame from seeking the stuff out.

Next, law enforcement never, ever uses real child pornography. They may offer child pornography (for instance, in fake sting op webpages), and they may have school-photo-type pictures on profiles and the like; but they never actually show, display, or distribute the real thing. So all that crap the pedos like the spew about how cops "are the biggest distributors of child porn" is just that - crap. Even if they wanted to, they wouldn't be allowed to.

Thirdly, know that nobody goes to jail for stumbling upon child porn. Read the news - when people get busted for this stuff, it's because they've either made it, or have been caught with dozens - sometimes hundreds, or even thousands - of images on their hard drive.

And lastly, it's too late now, but - if you ever see child pornography online again, do the same thing you've done - get out of it, right away. If an image ended up on your computer, erase it right away. I'd HIGHLY ENCOURAGE notifying the NCMEC about where you found the stuff; of course, if you're nervous about giving your own personal information out, it's understandable if you don't.

Report child porn right here: http://www.cybertipline.com/

If you find the stuff, do not delete it, erase it with eraser, its free and easy to use,

ste

Thanks for your advice, but.... and it's a big but, I cannot lie.

When I loaded the fairly ineffectual looking form, I realised I can't remember any specifics, and I would need to go searching using key words to find that junk again. And that just isn't going to happen.

There are a few here who talk some pretty big talk and I was hoping one of them might be willing to take up the vigilante mantle and run with it, cos I just can't deal with that at the moment. Anyway, the offer stands, but it will take the effort of someone who is able and wants to do something about it and possibly has the resources. I've been saving the world my whole life and now I really need to just save me.

The other thing though, no one wants to talk about looking for your perp online. Am I really the only one who's done this? Looking for them in other people that is.

Hey, don't sweat it. I know there are people who want to be proactive by going out there and looking for the stuff, and I commend their intentions; nevertheless, I can't recommend that anybody do that. If you find it accidentally, that's one thing. I believe that actively seeking out child pornography causes nothing but complications vis-a-vis law enforcement, whatever your motive.

what would you feel if you found yourself on one of those sites? for some of us that is a real possibility ,its easy to report a site, it wouldnt be easy to explain why its on your hard drive. one way of fighting back is finding the perps websites and blogs then reporting them and getting them shut down, they are not hard to find . also they way those places work is they stay online according to how many hits they get ,so each time anybody clicks on their site ,it helps keep them running. downloading childporn is not the way to stop them .that pic that pops up by accident or on purpose could be me or others here.

I recommend not even looking.
Let the cops or feds do it,its their job, and if you report them, you could find yourself being part of it.

You only have to be on their site to have your ip snatched and then a knock on your door.
It will be hard to explain that you are a vigilante looking for them and not interested in porn.

Keep yourselves safe,

ste

Agreed Ste. Possession is 9/10ths of the law. Even if you are not found guilty you can be sure that everyone you know, and everyone in your neighbourhood will know that you were caught with child porn. There's not much that can help you then.

Get caught with child porn and it's all over.

I agree on this topic. Vigilanteism may seem like a good idea, but the road to hell is pved with good intentions. I have been through enough. I don't ever want to see pictures like that again, even if it meant busting the sickos that produce it. Eventually they will get caught, one way or the other. I do believe in universal justice. I would be horrified if one of us got into trouble trying to be vigilante about it. We have all suffered enough.

I know that I'm threadjacking but this reminds me of a great quote by Terry Pratchett (which is from whom I got the name Nobby Nobs):

"Some people think the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is not true. It is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen. The younger demons go skating on it sometimes."

Anyway, ditto what philo said. Leave the child porn to the cops. No need to risk yourself.

Post deleted by jacobtk

I remember when those laws came out there was a big controversy because some of them made Coppertone ads illegal.

Guys, I have been researching vigilante and watchdog groups for a while now. Be aware that many of these groups do NOT understand, and nor do they care about the behaviors associated with abuse. As I said, there are vigilantes out there that are in a different stage of recovery or are very angry about an event that happened to someone they know.

For example, if batcountry spoke on his incest issues and thoughts on a tagged site or an unsafe site, it could give these people cause to harrass, monitor, and/or whatever else they do.

It is somtimes insidious how they will entrap people. While their efforts may seem noble, many non-perpetrating survivors are getting shot in the crossfire.

These people are wanting to get rid of evil perps and sicko perverts, but they are and have screwed up several survivors and to me that is entirely unnacceptible.

When I said the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I damn well mean it. It is very true.

This site is safe but many are not.

I spoke with a group facilitator here in LA who told me of a recent story where some kid about 16 years old had inappropriate porn on his computer. This destroyed his life, then afterwards an investigation revealed that he had nothing to do with it. Apparently he went to a site, they hijacked his IP adress and screwed him over. Scott doesn't know if he was a survivor or not because the news article didn't mention if he was. He is searching for the article and when he finds it I will post it.

Be careful..


-philobat

For once PB, you and I agree completely. The "anti-child porn" vigilantes hurt as many people as they "help" with their attacks. And there is no oversight of their activities, so they can mess someone's life up, and then walk away from it.

Wow! Thanks guys. I was thinking of deleting my original post cos I thought 'it's so longwinded, get to the point man'. But you've taken this in a really interesting direction.

I'm really intrigued at what Philo is saying here about vigilante's, because I was using the term very loosely, I didn't mean actual vigilante's, but what you said has given me great pause, particularly as I am seeing you are not one to cast words to the wind.

I also like Nobby's more literary and abstracted reading of the whole idea too.

I have often thought about Bat, cos I relate to so much of his story and his background and that's why I agree with Philo too, Bat brings out the paternalistic in me, and I have to reign that in, because I just don't want anyone to hurt him, and that goes for others here too. I don't know Shadow too well or the others, but I am learning what their repsonses are indicating, the suffering that goes unspoken. I would hate anyone to rob these guys of their recovery.

And Jacob, thanks for pointing that out about the specifics of the law, cos I was podering looking at a nudist sites the other day, trying to wean myself off nudey women.... and again there were some tiny thumbnails of nudists, and what looked like kids perhaps, which I just realised I had seen at other nudists sites.... The other sites I had gone to as a nudist myself looking for info on beaches and societies and trying to decide whether I want to be a nudist and whether I am just trying to use a shock-treatment approach to overcome my body-image issues.

But this takes me in another direction. The more I think about it, the more I realise, Shit! There are pics of kids there. I never thought anything about it, other than rmembering some Anthroposophist friends of my wife who were nudists and that whole scene a la Confest, etc...

Look, I've gone on, but I'll post some links so you can see what I mean about Confest and hippies and 'Family Nudism':

http://www.dte.org.au/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturism

The worst part of it is that it is what I was trying to communicate all along and for whatever reason it was not coming out right. Probably because I have been so emotionally charged. This is the first time I have experienced anything like this (site) and I have been going a mile a minute. I forget to breathe!

I knew we'd agree on something!

maybe we should start another thread and debate vigilante groups heh?

That might provoke a war! I'd let it settle a bit.