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Bernie Ward and the porn charge

Bernie Ward is a colleague. I've met him once in person, and I've worked with him on the air countless times.

I am also a reporter for one of the competing stations in the same market.

That said, since many folks are wondering about my view on the whole controversy, here it is.

I do occasionally come across porn in my radio work. Whenever I've done so, I've made sure my management knew exactly why I surfed onto a pornographic web site during work hours. Usually it's been in the form of "some local legislator or business let their domain registration lapse and a porn site grabbed it up." I obviously have to check the link to make sure it's real. Most of the times I've done this I've called over the station's owner so he could see for himself what was going on. Granted, I don't understand the appeal child porn. If I want to see a naked male, I want to see an adult, and I don't want to see him "doing it" with other women or children (eeeuw). Old issues of National Geographic work just fine, thank you!

I saw some of the transcripts in the Ward case. My first reaction was to think, "Bernie, you idiot, when an online dominatrix asks for pictures, she's not asking for pictures of other adults with children, she wants pictures that are allegedly of you so she can start cutting you down!" While folks may want to come down on her, while prostitution is illegal in every state except Nevada, there's nothing illegal about being a dominatrix. If Bernie was really doing research for a book on hypocrisy, he'd have had notes or would have told someone else involved with the book, such his publisher or editor. He'd also have covered the heck out of his butt whenever dealing with any kind of porn. He didn't.

That said, I don't agree that possessing or distributing child porn ought to be illegal, but doing the sexual acts to a child that create such porn ought to be (as opposed to using Photoshop to create it, which IMHO is art, albeit disgusting art).

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I can sympathise with a lot of what you say ... until the end.

One of the problems with child porn is that people are willing to pay for it. As soon as money starts changing hands, then it becomes "worth it" for someone to abuse more children (or the same children more) and make money from it.

And if you were the victim of child abuse, and discovered that people were trading pictures of you being abused, I would imagine it wouldn't help you to come to terms with and try to lead a "normal" life as you grew older, to know that pictures of you in that state were still being circulated.

And for better or worse, there's a definite opinion out there that those that start by looking at child porn are more likely to move on to being abusers themselves (I do not know how true that is, or what percentages), ditto real or real-looking sadistic abuse of women. Which is why both are illegal in many countries.

In an analogy, there are websites showing people being beaten up, mugged etc. the people distributing the videos may not be the ones doing the bullying, assault or mugging, but it certainly has lead to copycat crimes and "happy slapping" in this country. However I do not believe that showing such videos are a crime aside from the invasion of privacy aspects.

In the UK our laws are different, if a picture depicts an under-age sexual act (whether it is a true photo of such thing, a photo of an "adult" who is playing someone under the legal age, or a drawing/photoshop image/3D graphical image) then it is a prosecutable offence. I believe in the US that it is illegal if either participant is under age, but that a drawing/3D image etc. of that same scene would be perfectly legal.

Just my opinion, and I have no personal experience in either abuse or viewing such images.

I believe in the US that it is illegal if either participant is under age, but that a drawing/3D image etc. of that same scene would be perfectly legal.

In the US I grew up believing I lived in, you would be right, and I strongly believe that's how it should be. As things actually are, anyone caught possessing anything that appears to be a photo of a child involved in sex is in deep trouble.

[NODS] I remember the snippet of the Michael Jackson trial where the proescuting wossname made a big point about Michael owning copies of a magazine called "Barely Legal". And he repeated it with heavy, outraged emphasis: "*Barely*... Legal!" As if this were somehow proof that MJ was into minors, and had only bought this title 'cos it was the closest he coul legally get.

Of course, anyone who's ever walked into a newsagent in this country with their eyes switched on has seen "Barely Legal" right there on the top shelf, alongside Hustler and other members of the Larry Flint stable, and knows that if you're a guy who buys mainstream porn, then Barely Legal is one of the titles you might buy. The title is a pun; The models are of course all legal, albeit at the younger end of the spectrum... Some of them are actually in their twenties. The main selling point is really that they are new models on the scene rather than the same ones who've been turning up in Hustler for the last three years. And yes, many of the scenarios are "my first time"... Not the same thing at all as "I'm a child".

But I somehow got the impression that the folks in the court didn't want to know any of that. Even those that already knew it full well... =:o\

Thanks for the comments. I'm the same way about naked children, they do not interest me at all, they don't have the adult bits and shapes which attract me. Also agree that possession of child porn - or anything, for that matter - shouldn't be illegal. Just having something, especially on the computer, isn't proof of anything.

I didn't hear the dominatrix bit, all they read this morning while I was tuned in was that Bernie had some child porn which he said was research for a book, and he pleaded guilty when the judge refused to accept a First Amendment argument as his defense. Odd, since it would be strong grounds for an appeal if he kept to his not guilty plea.

I suspect this is an example of "witch-hunting."

However, hunting for "witches" (unfortunately) is not yet illegal. The description of a "witch" is simply changed. Fifty years ago, he probably would have been accused of being a "Commie" or "Commie sympathizer." The label may change, but the raw hysterical emotions (often described as xenophobia) really do not. Call it a "social hysteresis", if you will; sociologists refer to it as a chaotic phenomenon.

If he was doing "research", he was stupid not to have covered himself about this issue in the legal sense. However, people do make mistakes ... and the raw hysteria about "pedophiles" in this day and age did the rest. It would not surprise me that he felt he could not get a fair trial in the face of the hysterical emotions that are involved.

Hmmm, I gotta disagree with you on this one. Child porn should be illegal, fabricated or not.

For the reasons previously stated: people use the porn to convince children it's "normal", and the abuse that is required to make the porn, it should be damned illegal to make and possess. I was too close to people who really suffered through childhood sexual abuse to be detached about this, but I'm not going to apologize for that.

Lynn, I'm sorry if you knew and liked Bernie. He had the pics, some of which had pre-teen children getting sexed by adults. He was distributing the pics. He's a criminal. He's going to jail, when he's released kids and parents will be informed of his presence, and I feel good about that. Sorry.

I don't disagree with the outcome of the case. Lots of people who seem perfectly nice have dark sides. I was trying to suggest that if Bernie was really doing research he'd have covered his butt.

As for the child porn issue, what scares me is someone could slip some of that stuff into my email or sneak some into a software package where I wouldn't notice and I could get arrested.

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