This is a deconstruction of "child pornography" through an analysis of media images of
child spanking and their relationship with the criminal law and cinema, video and
broadcasting regulation in Britain and Canada. It suggests that the law's primary concern
is not the protection of children but the elimination of the heresy that children are
sexually attractive.
Chapter 1 introduces the phenomenon under discussion, namely internet sites that collect
stills and clips from mainstream movies and television showing children receiving
corporal punishment. The chapter postulates that these sites are for sexual gratification
and explores what society understands by "sexual exploitation of children" and "sex"
itself.
Part I considers whether the web sites are child pornography under English or Canadian
criminal law. Chapter 2 looks at Canada's definitions of obscenity and child
pornography. Chapter 3 asks whether the images might be indecent according to
England's law. These chapters examine the law's understanding of child spanking as a
sexual act, exploring what constitutes "sex". While Part I declines to state definitively
whether such web sites are illegal, it argues that the movies and television from which the
images originate are tolerated for the reasons that give the images sexual appeal.
Part II looks at the regulation in Canada and Britain of the movies and television from
which the images are taken. Chapter 4 deals with cinema and video regulation, which
prohibits eroticising violence and children, and asks how films are nevertheless rife with
images of child beating used for sexual arousal. Chapter 5 similarly examines
broadcasting regulation and asks whether the ban on sexualising children might be
unconstitutional under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Part III concludes by looking at how society permits the eroticisation of children, while
condemning the "paedophile". It suggests that the web sites may arise from childhood
trauma over corporal punishment, compares the harm of that practice with that caused by
the web sites and concludes that if there be prohibition, then it should be of child
spanking, rather than the sites, which are non-exploitative testament to ingenuity in the
face of a hypocritically censorial regime. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/10525 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Baker, Roy |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 21047366 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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