Legalization of child pornography?

[Red Celt]

It's not an easy question to address without people getting (rightly) upset. I didn't read the article, but I've long held the view that possession of the images themselves shouldn't be a criminal offence. The creation of them sure as hell should, but once they're created, the child isn't being harmed each time they're viewed from a position of anonymity. Well, there's the argument that the existence of the images - and knowledge of their existence - can cause psychological damage, but if that knowledge isn't there...

I'm not trying to be all nicey-nicey to people who possess child porn. My concern is that, if they have it, they're less likely to go out to create more of it. I'd sooner that any paedophiles in my locale were behind closed doors having their sick fantasies realised through existent media... than going out trying to create their own.

I mean, hell... radical idea, but how about the authorities create an image database of every child-porn photo ever seized... allow access to it (for those who have the need) and that, perhaps, every sick scenario is already provided... and no other child need ever suffer at the hands of a paedo with a camera?

Or I could be talking bollocks. I really don't know enough about the subject.

Paedos tend to be the adult victims of childhood abuse... the abused becoming the abusers... so, in that sense, having a mind slightly less-narrow (than the mass-media like to portray) might leave us in a situation slightly less bad than the one we currently have.

Or it might not.