Any mention of a potential rollback of prohibitions regarding child sex dolls?
The decision of the German government to impose a ban on these devices has drastically impeded the ability to actually research the effects of these on risk, and it aggravates me to no end that these intuitive, disgust-fuelled and morally-driven prohibitions are still being sincerely considered.
just minimum sentence reduction nothing more. So no they will not roll that back. Still have to wait for the supreme Court challenge.
Itâs unbelievable that politicians can have the stated goal of targeting a specific marginalized group and get almost no backlash for it. Perhaps they meant contact offenders, not pedophiles, but people who are making laws about a thing have a responsibility to understand that thing, and I refuse to give them the benefit of the doubt on something as simple as basic terminology
if their high court can be convinced that the prohibitions targeting this type of victimless material are invalid, then it would be so helpful to research and prevention efforts. Iâve already read up on a study whose works were impeded by these recently-introduced prohibitions, and it both infuriates and depresses me that the sciences are being forestalled from being actualized by way of primitive, unfounded prohibitions like itâs the god damned dark ages.
well these are child abuse laws we are talking about. Everyone is by definition a contact offender if you want to hand out a punishment via this law ⌠so yeah fing that doubtful âŚ
Isnât this about CSAM laws? Or did I manage to miss something?
Ah never mind yes it´s about csam my bad thought they would lower the minimum sentence for both that got raised but they only do it for csam cases. Then it COULD be about people who are also hands on offenders but I do doubt that. 
Buschmann (the minister of justice) already answered to an inquiry back in April that he will not even consider legalizing dolls again, because they âincrease sexual fixation to childrenâ and âlower inhibitions for child sexual abuseâ. You know, the usual, citing no evidence of his own other than statements of experts who in turn have no data backing them up, and ignoring all evidence to the contrary.
The draft also mentions the godawful word âpedocriminalâ that some people like to throw around to take up the appearance that they are using non-stigmatizing language (âwe did not say pedophile!â), when in reality we all know that people read this as âcriminals who are pedophilesâ.
Also according to the draft, when children take nude pictures of themselves as part of consensual sexting, teachers or parents should be able to distribute those against the childrenâs will among other parents to âwarnâ them without legal repercussions. This is really an example they mention. Apparently distributing child pornography is only bad if the offender is a pedophile.
But Iâm sure children donât mind when their private nude pictures are shown to the parents of all their classmates, as long as those are not sexually attracted to them⌠
The ministry of justice is the primary financial backer of the âDonât offendâ program, which has been preaching since 2006 that pedophile and offender arenât the same thing. In the questions from April, Buschmann himself shows an understanding of the terminology.
They know precisely what they are doing. The only way they can sell this new law is by making sure the public understands that the âreal badâ offenders will still be harshly punished (which is also why they did not readjust the maximum sentences). And the âreal badâ offenders in the mind of the public are pedophiles.
What evidence we have actually seems to demonstrate the contrary, especially when applied to other fictional outlets like drawings, CGI, stories, etc.
We need to divert more resources towards arguing this, otherwise people will suffer at the hands of useless and unnecessary legislation and children will suffer as well.
What the fuck??? This is why approaching this legislation with any goal other than preventing harm to children is so dangerous. Thatâs a massive privacy violation that carries a huge risk of making kids feel violated, exposed, and vulnerable. Yâknow, the same way that sharing CSAM of them wouldâŚ
IâŚI need a drink.
(I said that as a dramatic expression, I do not condone alcohol consumption as a response to stress)
This is based on a real case btw. An eight-year-old girl sent a close-up picture of her genitals to her friend (also eight years old). The mother of that friend found this picture and sent it to all parents of her class with the stated intention of punishing and shaming the girl who sent the picture. The judge refused to sentence the mother, saying that because there was no âpedosexualâ motivation the minimum sentence would be too high, and instead filed a constitutional complaint.
This case has become one of the prime examples of cases that supposedly donât deserve the high minimum sentence.
There were a few other cases as well that were refered to the Federal Constitutional Court over the last couple of years. Every one of them (that I know of) put special emphasis on the fact that the offender did not act out of âpedophilic motivationsâ, and argued that therefore it would be unfair apply the raised minimum sentences to them.
These people really only think that violating a childâs boundaries is harmful if the intent is sexual? Thatâs appalling
What resources are there? Even Donât offend, probably the most Pro-MAP organization in Germany, stated several times that they are against free availability of fictional outlets for MAPs because that would be âdangerousâ and incite MAPs to commit crimes of CSAM and CSA. And not only do they ignore all evidence to the contrary, they even go so far as to say that itâs impossible to do any ethical research on this question, making it easy for legislators to criminalize it all without prior research âjust to be on the saf sideâ.
Even the ban of child sex dolls for instance was legitimized by a statement by Prof. Klaus Beier, who years ago already argued that they should be banned. And as bitter as it is, he is still one of the most powerful somewhat MAP-friendly people out here.
So who are people going to listen to when it comes down to it? A well-established prevention organization filled with âpedophile expertsâ with academic titles, citing year-long âclinical experiencesâ as their reason for why they believe fictional outlets are harmful? Or a handful of anonymous MAPs who canât even use their real name for fear of violence and discrimination?
Not the full picture. Literally every expert was against the doll ban except state prosecutors (go wonder). One of their reasons literally being âso we can have more possibilities of putting such individuals to trialâ e. g. if suspected for CSAM, but there is nothing to be found.
Also, literally the only study that is currently available in the ministry of justice says this about fiction:
The majority of the members of the Reform Commission were in favor of excluding clearly fictional child and youth pornography from the criminal code. In particular, the danger of an imitation effect in the case of writings etc. that are clearly recognizable as comic drawings should be disregarded. A sufficient reference to the legal interest is not apparent in this respect. In practice, it is difficult to decide whether a comic figure is underage.
Source: BMJ | Bundesministerium der Justiz | Abschlussbericht der Reformkommission zum Sexualstrafrecht
Also, on October 2023 some IT expert was called to give advice on another draft law (âStore IP addresses in a legally compliant manner and protect children from sexual abuseâ) regarding CSAM and they said:
It is equally questionable to place drawn or AI-generated images, even if they are only similar to child pornography and show fictional fantasy creatures, on the same level as actual child abuse and tortured children. This trivializes the crime and takes away the opportunity to highlight the seriousness of the crime.
Source: Deutscher Bundestag - Mittwoch, 11. Oktober 2023, 12:00 Uhr - IP-Adressen rechtssicher speichern und Kinder vor sexuellem Missbrauch schĂźtzen, Hadmut Danisch
I find it very refreshing to hear this in combination of mass surveillance systems, because it highlights the absurdity. People keep justifying these systems saying they will only be reserved to the most serious crimes. Breaking everyones basic rights for stick figures is hilarious, because that is what the current definition of CSAM allows.
EU asks its member states to limit such invasive systems to crimes that: âharm the national security such as terrorismâ. Should that be put in place then I do think that it can be fought and, at the very least, forced to exclude fictional content.
Not true. As I said, Prof. Klaus Beier came out in support of a doll ban, and he is regarded as the expert on pedophilia in Germany.
Of course, if you look at it objectively, the empirical evidence that we have so far is quite clearly on our side. People like Beier also have no evidence other than vaguely defined âclinical evidenceâ â which also lead Beier to claim multiple times that female MAPs donât matter because in his âclinical experienceâ he almost never encountered any, which should tell you all you need to know about how much this âclinical experienceâ is worth. But that does not matter if the ones making the laws choose to ignore everything opposing them, instead following people like Beier who tell them what they want to hear, and if there is no group powerful enough to loudly call them out on their bullshit.
This is really not a good source unfortunately. The author is a right-wing nut and the statement is full of xenophobia, sexism, transphobia and mapmisia. He claims that women in tech are the reason for sinking software quality, people with a migration background in political offices are the cause for bad political decisionmaking and acceptance of transsexuals is child abuse because it provides âpedophilesâ with a steady supply of easy victims â just to mention a few highlights. His homepage is even worse.
Yeah, pretty much the same with any professional working with humans. They only get to see those who come to seek help and thus already have problems, or are forced to go to them by court.
Scuffed/biased experience.
A semi-popular german e-commerce started a new site where they now also sell sex toys. Very prominent ads on their âmainâ website.
They sell body parts that clearly represent lolis and thus should fall under the new doll ban.
I am amazed how uninformed people are and sorry for those who went and purchased these items. Must be at least a couple since they were featured on the main site and marked as âhotâ items. This law is fucked up esp. because it targets body parts. Is every replica supposed to be huge in size now? What a joke of a law.
Canât wait for those customers to get their life ruined over some anime looking toys 
Don´t know which one you are talking to but for quite a while after the ban went through even amazone sold some ⌠at the least borderline items. And especially given that I am a bit surprised how low the numbers are. There somehow have only been 29 People comiting that crime in 2022 (granted the law was only active for half that year). And yes every case is one to much but it seems it is not a high priority for the police.
On another hand. Depending on what images they use to âadvertiseâ the items the platform might also be in for Distributing child porn since sharing images that contain sexually suggestive things about minors (even if they are not real) is punishable as crime in germany. Under the same law even (through potentially not under the same part of that paragraph) as csam. And of cause if the images are to realistic buying / owning these the container with the images printed on them is a crime too.
And either way selling a child sex doll (or a part that is made to be like a child and meant for sex) is illegal in germany too. In other words the platform is on the hook for a crime here too.