I'm glad the discussion has gone the way it has. Although I don't think many studies have been done on this, I think it's very likely that pedophilia is as 'natural' as homosexuality, or heterosexuality. That doesn't mean that the act itself isn't wrong, of course. Forcing anyone to do stuff of a sexual nature against their will is a horrible thing to do, and I tend to agree with the general sentiment that doing it to pre-pubescent children is even worse.
So yes, being a pedophile must be really awful, especially if you're exclusively a pedophile, i.e. children are the only ones who turn you on. I don't think it's a valid excuse for child abuse, no more than having had a violent childhood should be a valid excuse for being violent yourself later on in your life. Both urges must be really hard to resist (the former more than the latter), but 'hard' doesn't mean 'impossible'.
That said, what does this have to do with the mere possession of child porn? Screwing a kid is bad. Producing child porn is bad. Being aware that someone is producing child porn and not denouncing that person to the authorities is bad.
But I don't see why some random guy jacking off to pictures of a naked 10-year-old girl spreading her legs is considered a crime. Yes, I find it repulsive, but so what? The fact remains that it doesn't hurt anyone. That was the only point I was trying to make with my question, "Do you guys send people to jail for having butt sex too?". Not so long ago anal sex was considered repulsive and immoral, and people would actually get arrested for it. The rationale used to get rid of anti-sodomy laws was that no matter how icky it seems, it doesn't hurt anyone, doesn't impinge on anyone's rights or freedoms. How is possessing child porn any different?
I can see two objections to my point of view. First, that what is immoral here is the act of 'supporting' child pornographers and child molesters by owning the stuff.
It seems to me that such 'support' is entirely immaterial, and therefore completely irrelevant. What actual consequences does it have that a pedophile has a few hundred child porn pictures saved on his hard drive? None whatsoever. The only ones that are likely to be convinced by this argument are hard-core moral absolutists.
In addition, it could be argued that there is a real-world consequence: the child porn producers get money out of it. In that sense, I agree that it could be considered slightly more immoral than buying a product you know has been crafted by virtual slaves in a third-world country. But of course, I'm fairly certain that just as most people don't pay for their 'regular' porn, pedophiles don't pay for their child porn.
Second, some people probably think that it's the spreading of child porn that must be prevented (as opposed to production). This opinion is based on the assumption that child porn promotes pedophilia, which is nonsense, as pedophilia is probably mostly genetic in origin.
Or it could be based on another, more likely assumption that child porn encourages the actual act of molesting a child. This is the only argument for the existence of laws against the possession of child porn that may be worth something, in my opinion. However, as far as I know, there's no evidence that this is the case. I think it's far more likely that the effect is the exact opposite. After all, child porn (whether real or not) is the only way for a moral, 'non-practicing' pedophile to get off. Isn't it possible that child pornography actually prevents the molesting of children?
If anyone can provide a study done by reputable scientists that addresses this question, I would very much like to see it.
By the way, here's a related question for you guys: Are there laws against the possession of pornography depicting the real rape of an adult? Would you say that owning this kind of stuff is immoral too?
