Once child sex dolls are outlawed, what is stopping them from outlawing stories or drawings? Once the pattern is established that you can outlaw things that hurt nobody, without any empirical evidence that there is even just some remote indirect harm there is no reason not to apply this to other things.
This is why I believe it’s important to stop this kind of thinking as early as possible. The pattern must not be established in the first place. People who want to outlaw any kind of virtual sexual gratification for pedophiles will of course start with the things that gross out the most people. But allowing them to win this argument without a fight means that it will be much harder to fight against them when they come for the things we actually care about, because then they will be able to point to existing precedents.
Apart from that, from a more idealistic standpoint, I believe that the doll ban is unfair towards doll owners, who often describe a deep emotional connection to their dolls akin to the connection you might have to a family pet. For some exclusive pedophiles it may well be the only way to experience some form of emotional and romantic relationship that they can otherwise never have. Taking that away from them without a reason is downright cruel and unjust – like enacting a law that requires everyone to shoot their family dog. I feel that alone is reason enough to speak out against it, even if we may not be affected (yet) directly.
Looking at the situation in Germany, where dolls where outlawed a couple of years ago, it seems like it is mostly political opportunism.
Dolls are definitely not a new thing and have been the subject of some biased documentations and media reports designed to elicit emotional responses of disgust and outrage here before. Yet no political action followed from that until the summer of 2020.
That the doll ban was possible is probably due to a combination of factors that were present at this time:
There was a huge CSA case made public in the media just a few month prior which caused the German population to be extremely angry and hostile towards everything connected to CSA or pedophilia
A big German newspaper started a very public campaign against dolls which was supported by several child protection agencies and a public petition
It was the high time of the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning that many people were generally very frustrated and aggressive. The doll ban gave them the chance to feel like they could finally “do something”
It was also summer break, so there were not many other topics filling the void
Maybe most importently there were also elections coming up, meaning that many politicians were looking for opportunities to get more voters on their side – and banning those “disgusting perverted dolls” gave them just that
If those factors had not all been there, the outrage may have died down after a while like it did before without any meaningful consequence. But that also means that it can happen at any time in any other country. The more countries outlaw dolls, the easier it will become for the remaining countries to also ban them. For instance, Austria is currently also considering a ban because Germany enacted it as well.
And that imho is another reason to take a stand against a ban. We must not allow politicians to think that they can do with us whatever they want without any backlash, and that making laws targeted against pedophiles is a good way to secure some votes if you need them. The first step in that direction has to be met with as much resistence as we can muster.
This I think conceives of “us pedophiles” as a political force that is opposite to reality. No one said, “Uh-oh, if we ban the dolls we’ll suffer a political price since the pedophiles are opposed.” Likely they said, “Hey, look, if the pedophiles are publicly opposed so much the better for us! An added benefit!” Followed by, “Hey, that worked so well, let’s go after stories and drawings too!”
If your outlook is, “We need to make a stand on principle, whatever the consequences!” it might make sense. I have this idea of actually trying to improve our situation, a little at a time, and based on that there are some battles I think it’s better not to fight.
You have far more detailed knowledge of the specifics of the situation than I do – that I freely and humbly admit.
Fighting for dolls is an important cause to me, and not just because I own dolls. If these bans continue to spread to more states without any legal challenge, artwork and text will be next on the chopping block. We cannot let the precedent to ban any object or media hinge on whether or not it subjectively involves the representation of a child or if you can stick a penis into it. Technically any doll from Barbies to Cabbage Patch could be used in a sexual manner and I have known people that are into this. Doll bans are pure insanity and must stop.
Criminalizing a harmless act and a harmful act renders the precious no more protected than a lifeless object from a risk of punishment perspective. Such strikes me as reckless. The only reason that remains for choosing the harmless act can be preference. Harm should never be protected against only by preference. Such also implicates that such laws reflect the idea that some would rather see a child harmed than miss the chance to punish.
From a risk of punishment perspective, laws need to make sense and reflect the disparity between what is valued and what is not.
You are right that this law is doing great to further the stigmatization. I did saw an article where the police found a CLSD that was disposed in a forest by someone (most likely because of the new law) and the article had comments like “GET THAT PERVERT” etc. I did also see comments that were very skeptical about this ban, but then ended with “but since this ban came through, the experts must know what they are doing” despite everyone being against it and asking for research instead.
Anyways, there was a pretty good talk from two scientists on the topic of pedophilia for the “Child commission of the Bundestag” and they were surprised that the majority of hands-on offenders are not pedophiles. They said “we learned a lot today” and were interested in who these offenders are and wanted to support research in that case. The experts also said that they need to differentiate between Pedophilia and Pedophilic disorder. They only treat the disorder variant in a way that “removes” the “disrupting” factor (feeling ashamed, consuming CSAM etc.) and not the attraction itself. People with “regular” Pedophilia are very stable according to them and do not need any therapy. While they argue that this can change it is very rare and similiar to other sexualities; a tragic situation needs to occur, losing your job, high stress and stigma. They really focused on the stigma part and that pedophiles wish for their attraction to be “normalized” (non-offending).
I am amazed that the commission has basically no idea on the topic, but yeah.
Here is the a little over an hour long interview (in german obv.):
Yes, but you also need to remember that only child-like dolls were banned, but not teen-like dolls. I find this amusing, because it essentially makes enforcing the law even harder in edge-cases. What I can say is that the biggest and most successful Doll company in Germany is also selling “Teeny” dolls with them wearing stereotypical school/college uniforms. It is hypocritical and nonsensical to be allowed to sell such products while there is a law against child-like dolls, but hey they do not need to use international definitions of “child”.
How does the “training” argument not apply here? Clown world.
Yes, but you also need to remember that only child-like dolls were banned, but not teen-like dolls
Well what does child like mean?
considering it is the 184l StGB you can presume that it is the same as in the 184b StGB. Hence anyone aged below 14.
Now 14 I would argue is already a teenager, but furthermore 14 year olds have a VERY WIDE range of how they may look. So arguably anything but GGG Sized Dolls are probably falling under this.
Butmost certainly any doll you would call teenager most certainly is.1
What does GGG mean? Also, no. Best defense; eighTEEN, nineTEEN. Also, many upper class school students are adults, because 13 years of school.
It is the same since it refers to “childlike” appearance.
Also;
In the opinion of former Federal Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries, a youth pornographic content is fulfilled when “from the point of view of an observer, it cannot be reliably ruled out that the performers are teenagers”.
However, this view is contradicted by the Federal Constitutional Court, which rejected the constitutional complaint of a video store owner against the change in the law in December 2008. In the opinion of the court, pseudo-teens only fall under the provisions of § 184c “if and to the extent that persons appearing in pornographic films are obviously not yet of legal age, for example if they still appear (almost) childish and the films thus already come close to depictions that fall under the criminal offence of § 184b StGB as (fictitious) child pornography”.
Without this differentiation it would be suicide to visit ANY porn site, really. This is also reflected in the law since “wirklichkeitsnah” is missing from the crimes of posession, so it needs to depict an actual teenager, or if too young it would fall under §184b and not §184c
Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court are binding upon the constitutional organs of the Federation and of the Länder, as well as upon all courts and public authorities.
Folglich ist kein Gericht in seiner Entscheidung an das Urteil eines anderen Gerichtes gebunden, selbst dann nicht, wenn es sich um ein Gericht höherer Instanz handelt.
Judges are independent in there conclusion and only subject to the law (ART 97 Abs 1 GG → again basic law)
Hence any court is not bound by a decision of another court, even whenm said court is of a higher instance.
There is one exception through that I was not aware. That of the constitutional court. However said court is not bound by it´s own decision.
And again the issue at hand is different so this case might not end up the same.