>> The odds, how unlikely it might be that someone would post seriously trouble-making imagery in a public gallery, do not mitigate the legal troubles if someone goes against the odds and actually does post a trouble-making image (or multiples, each multiplying possible prison term!) - when the danger goes vertical, as I think most people would consider 20 years in prison, then it is very sensible to minimize the risk to zero.

But that's not the point.

The point, pure and simple, is that it becomes "trouble-making" because someone else -- not you, not me, not most folks on this site -- says it's "trouble-making". Not because it has any inherent trouble-making qualities about itself, but because someone somewhere seems to think it might. Not does or has -- might. It's not the picture of the naked child, it's what someone else will make of it... even if that someone else has completely misread what someone else still would make of it. We're lapping all these layers of protection around ourselves, as though that's gonna help the situation -- sorta like the government slapping "In God We Trust" on all our money in the 1950s to somehow prove there were no communists in the Federal Mint.

See, that's the thing about applying common sense to all this. Rather than the blanket ban, which, when you cut through it, doesnt actually address the problem save in the most general of ways, it might make more sense to handle these on a case-by-case basis. It really is time to stop treating imagery like this in a pre-judgmnental way. All it does is turn the artists creating it into perverts by extension... and is that really what we want to say about those folks?

And I noticed no one picked up on the hypocritical stance about bondage and SM gear that we tie our virtual Barbies into. You dont think there's someone out there getting off on that? In some places, that would be considered sexual assault, just as much a crime as pedophilia. So one virtual crime is okay while another isnt?

Honestly folks, where does it stop?

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