Yes a young girl may be nervous and freightened but so may an adult. An adult may also feel pressure from herself or her husband on their wedding night to have sex for example. Are these cases of abuse?

Feelings of being freightened or scared are less likely if they are with someone who they care about, also only if they have sexual hang-ups whether those hang-ups are justified or not. Even willing 12/13 year olds bave (or try to have) had passionate consentual sex. Should they be locked up and EACH one put on the sex offenders list?

Western discussion of the role of sex as part of life is wtill quite taboo. So pre-16 girls may be have high levels of sexual ignorance about them and would likely be scared and freightned in a sexual situation. If however you were a native of Borneo or the Amazon, from a people that openly discussed and knew about sex and had eagrely awaited ceremonines marking the turning of sexual childhood into adulthood then such girls are likely to be quite unphazed by it all, in fact they probably get tips on what to do and things to use so that any pain when biting the cherry could be avoided or minimised.

My Dad used to take me to the dentist where not only was I scared but petrified! I experienced a lot of pain at one particular dentist, yet my father was alloed to put me through that – becasue it was for my benefit? Well, sex within the famework of certain societies and the family, like between a man and wife is for the benefit of that social structure.

I guess all these arguements demonstrate that Child sex abuse and child exploitation should really be considered individually and in contect of society. If of course that society prohibits as we have in the UK then fine, but each offence still should be considered individually.
That would inevitably slow down judicial proceedins which is perhaps why there is no flexability on the matter.

So it seems like current western perceptions here are clouding judgement on this case. Why are the people of the Pitcairn Islands doing something bad when their society accepts it but some people thousands of miles away decide it shouldn’t be done.

Not that I advocate marrying any earlier than 16, but there are cases of girls as young as 11 becoming pregnant. Over history different societies have had different perspectives on marriage and age of consent, in a technical sense, marriage at 11 couldn’t be that evil if the girl was fully developed (and I realise this would be very few cases).

6 years old is way too early though, I’m not saying that it’s evil either, but I just think 6 years old is wrong- no girl could be fully developed (both body AND mind).

Interestingly there was a case in the UK courts recently about a little Island in the pacific(?) that we own, where girls were indeed being married at the age of 12 I think. The reason it caused controversy is that it is a practice from 100s of years ago adopted by the British who settled there continued to present day. It is also an even that the whole family is happy about and is expected- girl reaches 12 she gets married and she has sex with older suitor.

Doubtless the 12 year old girl is bound to be frightened and nervous, but when it’s basically a social/community appointment, they probably feel much different about it than we do.

Maybe I shouldn’t entertain this thought any further now, but I’d like to say how I dealt with this in the past…

I used to argue that if she was 6 when she got married, that does not mean there was sexual relations between them, to which they had no arguement and then just reverted back to their nasty claimes.

And even if there was sexual relations, then unless God declared it forbidden, then legally speaking, it would not have mattered becasue then it would have been a civil matter and if it was accepted by society then, then it would have been ok. Plus we would not know about whether the child was fearful or willing, eagre or what have you. We is also a point that we would be imposing a current western definitions of rape and so forth on the situation, although the definition of rape across the globe will have very little deviation.

One more thing is that if the death rate then was very high (I believe in the UK at one time it was about 30+) then of course it meakes sence to get married early. Just how early and to make the appropriate ‘booking’ depends on the societies acceptance at the time.

In future, when I hear the accusation I will continue to ask them for HISTORICAL reference and put your defense to them. Thank you for the reference.

Best wishes bro…
Salam.

Talking about child porn reminds me of the decades of attack by the orientalists accusing the Prophet Muhammad of being a paedophile by marrying Aisyah at the age of 6.

Did he really marry her at such a young age?

Well thanks to the work of an Indian sub-continent scholar called MAULANA HABIBUR RAHMAN SIDDIQUI, it was discovered that the age of Aisyah at the time of marriage was in fact 16 and not 6 as alleged by Shiite historians.

The Prophet was slandered as paedophile ‘thanks’ to those historians who called themselves Muslims but untrustworthy in carrying the historical truth.

This scholarly work by Sunni historian is very worth reading:
http://www.darulkautsar.com/pemurniansejarah/teks/umreaisyah.htm

Please get your wife to translate that.

Ahmad.

I am glad someone has commented on this post and given an honest opinion. I too have come across various “types” of porn, and I share your opinion that most men, especially young men, would have looked at it in some form or another (even if just leafing through the ladies underwear section of the GUS catalogue) at some stage in their lives, but for reasons we can guess at, they may be reluctant to say so.

It should be banned, there really is no need for it. It doesn’t bring anything beneficial, and just lowers one’s standing as a person, trying to live a good life. But perhaps I’d have had a different opinion had I never have bitten that particular Adams apple as it were – As we know, it’s easy to be wise after the event.

Anyway, I’ve never seen child porn – frankly, the prospect of it offering sexual stimulation or awe or whatever you want to call it, has simply never occurred to me, and really I’d say looking at a kitchen cabinet would probably give me more of sexual buzz.

Re: pop up blockers. I agree. Once at work a very respected Lady colleague sat next to me and we were chatting away. she opened IE and up came a porn home page with a spread-eagled (?) woman in the centre. My colleague was frozen to the spot! It was as if she was looking at it but wasn’t expecting to see such an image that she wasn’t really able to process what it was that was on the screen.
“Hummm… It looks like you have a problem I said and fiddled around with homepage & cache settings). I heard stories of other colleagues suffering a similar problem.

As regards to Lingham (or Townsend), we don’t know the evidence I guess, but really what they did I don’t think merits punishment. The social stigma they will carry now will be infinitely worse. They will be forever looked at as being pedo’s which is incorrect.

Kid porn should obviously be banned and I agree severe punishments should befall those who produce it / do it and distribute it. If all porn was banned, it would only be beneficial, and I’d say the best way to ‘ban’ it would be to have a strong social society which supported a culture of good moral standing amongst it’s members as well as being backed-up on the the legal side.

Self policing is IMO the prime and greatest defence against all crimes and needs real and honest education (inc. parental education and guidance) to achieve that. Young people (men) shouldn’t live in a society where it’s very easy to stumble of the straight path, but the canonised “libertarianism” provides nothing but banana skins along that path.

P.S. Did you read about the man who ended up the sex offenders list for “having sex” with his bicycle in the privacy of his own room (he was interrupted by some cleaners). I think that is terrible. I really feel NOTHING negative should have befallen him. And can you imagine how embarrassed the bicycle must have felt?

– Bike sex man placed on probation –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7095134.stm

Natural curiousity, yes I can believe that, I am a naturally curious person myself. I’ve even seen porn where women have been made to look young or wear school uniforms. How many girls of 16-18 years appear in anything from porn to page 3 of The Sun? Some of these girls look far younger and are sometimes even made to appear younger.

I too felt Langham was genuine in what he said. It’s hard to judge what the evidence actualy was against him, but I certainly think that the offenders who create the stuff should be prosecuted, people who pay for it also, people who store the images on their harddrive- prosecuted/fined. But if they are simply relying on internet history then could it really be a safe conviction? After all before the invention of the pop-up blocker, how could any of us stop vile images from appearing?

I think Langhams served his time and learned a lesson, but I can’t help thinking that if they ever do invent a machine to read people’s minds, almost every male in the UK would end up on the sex offenders register!