[flylock shox]

Lots of interesting issues arising out of this.

If we all accept (and consensus shouldn't be too hard) that the actual molestation of children is horribly damaging to the child and among society's most condemnable crimes, that leaves us with a number of different questions as to where the next line should be drawn:

- if the act is filmed, is anyone who views the film for their own purposes essentially contributing to the offence or re-victimizing the victim?

- does it matter if they paid for the film (thereby encouraging the "industry") or not?

- what counts as child pornography? Do people's pictures of their kids in the bath, if used for nefarious purposes, count? What about cartoons, where no actual people are involved? How young does a person have to be to count as a child?

I think a lot of Canadians would be very surprised by our country's laws on child pornography. Strictly speaking, if you've ever possessed a pornographic image of a person depicted as being under 18 years old (even if it's a 30 year old pretending to be in Catholic school, for example), you've fallen afoul of our Criminal Code and could be prosecuted.

The issue is made increasingly complex by the now-easy dissemination of photographic images in the digital age - the phenomenon of "sexting" among teenagers being an example of how easily the apparently straightforward rules prohibiting possession of such images can become complicated.