Political CV

THE DAMAGING EFFECTS OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
by Diana E.H. Russell, Ph.D.
Written September 2004

DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT OBTAINING MY PERMISSION.

Introduction and Background:

I sent this manuscript to my editor at Routledge Publishers in September 2004. Unfortunately, I was very late in meeting my deadline for many reasons, especially my intense involvement in initiating a campaign against the richest landlord in Berkeley (after UC Berkeley) for his 15-year exploitation of minor sexual slaves imported from India -- among other crimes.

My editor had just quit her position at Routledge to accept a job at the New York University Press, so my manuscript remained unread while Routledge searched for a new editor. By January of 2005, a new editor had still not been hired, so I wrote to Mary McGinnis, the Vice President of Routledge to ask her what I should do about this. I feared if I revised the manuscript before I had an editor, she might well request that I revise it yet again. Ms. McGinnis told me to go ahead and revise it. Meanwhile, she said she would also like to see my manuscript.

Less than a week later, she called me and declared that, "There is no way that Routledge will be associated with a book of this nature." "Why not?" I asked her. "It's the branding issue," she replied. "What do you mean?" I asked her, but she didn't explain. I interpreted her statement to mean that she didn't want Routledge to become known for publishing such a shocking book. It included many sexually explicit child pornography stories written for pedophiles, as well as descriptions of child pornography, including gross cartoons, all of which were legal.

I told Ms. McGinnis that I was willing to remove the material that bothered her, but she insisted that she had discussed the issue with members of the staff, and she wasn't willing to reconsider. She resolutely held to her position despite my continued pleas. Since my manuscript was late, I had broken our contract, so I knew she would have this excuse to disregard it. Of course, this wasn't a genuine concern for her, since she had told me that I should go ahead and revise my manuscript. She said that she would help me find another publisher for this book. However, she did not follow through on this promise.

I contacted my previous editor at New York University Press to ask if she and this publishing house would be interested in publishing Stolen Innocence. It so happened that New York University Press had published the major social scientific book on child pornography in recently. So she said that there would be no interest in publishing a book that would be in competition with this volume.

I considered suing Routledge for breach of contract, since the lateness issue was obviously not the real reason for refusing to give me a chance to revise my manuscript. A respected colleague advised me not to, because she believed this would make it next to impossible to find another publisher, as well as jeopardizing publishers' interest in future projects of mine.

Stolen Innocence: The Damaging Effects of Child Pornography
Chapter 14: Child Pornography and Sexually Misogynist Cartoons in Mainstream Men's Magazines

"A picture is worth a thousand words." I am a firm believer in the validity of this quotation. This is why I included approximately 120 cartoons and pornographic pictures in my book, Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm, rather than having to resort to descriptions of these materials. However, it proved impossible to obtain permission to publish most of these pictures, and, even had permissions been possible, the fees to publish these pictures would have been astronomical. Therefore, no publisher that I approached was willing to risk being sued for my failure to obtain permissions to reprint.

My determination to include the pictures no matter the lack of permissions, necessitated my having to self-publish Against Pornography -- an experience I do not wish to repeat.* [*Footnote: See Russell (1998?) for an article on the trials and tribulations of this self-publishing experience.] This put me at risk of being sued. Nevertheless, this experience taught me that any attempt to obtain permissions to reprint sexual cartoons about children or child pornography pictorials in future was a futile exercise. Hence, written descriptions of this material in Stolen Innocence is my only option.

This chapter begins with descriptions of cartoons in pornographic publications. Cartoons do not meet the Federal government's legal definition of child pornography because they do not use minors. In addition, unlike computer-generated child pornography, the cartoons in mainstream men's pornographic magazines do not look like real children. Most of these cartoons also do not qualify as child pornography by my definition because they are not intended to sexually arouse or gratify viewers. Nevertheless, cartoons are included here because they are excellent indicators of the pornography magazine owners' or managers' attitudes to sexualized children and/or child sexual abuse. Cartoons trivialize and reinforce myths about child sexuality and/or child sexual abuse in ways typical to pornography. Humor is used to disguise the harmful consequences to children and adolescents of many of these myths.

According to Gail Dines and Elizabeth Perea (no date provided), who have written a fascinating analysis of "the ideological function of the cartoon in pornographic literature," research suggests "that the pictorials and the cartoons are the two most widely read [looked at] sections...." of mainstream men's pornographic magazines (p. 3). Dines and Perea also maintain that "both Flynt and Hefner see the cartoons as embodying the philosophy of the[ir] magazine[s]" (p. 9). Therefore, the kinds of cartoons they publish are very different. Children are rarely featured in Playboy magazine whereas they have been a regular feature in Hustler magazine. For Hefner, cartoons are "the visual and humorous vehicle for transmitting the key element of the magazine which is the 'combination of sex with status' (Dines and Perea, p. 9), whereas Flynt "used the cartoons to promote the image of Hustler as 'outrageous' and 'provocative'" (p. 10).

One common feature between Hefner and Flynt is that they both devote considerable time to selecting the cartoons for their magazines. This indicates how important they both consider cartoons to be in their publications. Dines and Perea report that Hefner

"ran the cartoon department for over twenty years until he promoted his assistant, Michelle Urry, to cartoon editor. Urry (1990) discussed the procedure the editors use for choosing the twenty or so cartoons a month from among the thousands that are submitted by amateur and professional cartoonists. She highlights the importance that 'the cartoon speak in the same voice as the rest of the magazine..." (p. 9)

"The cartoons play a key role in marketing Hustler since the form and comedic license allows them to depict 'outrageous' scenarios such as torture, murder, and child molestation which may, in a less humorous form such as pictorials, deny the magazine access to the mass distribution channels. Flynt, recognizing that '... we can't just rely on top-notch erotic photography to sell the magazine' (Flynt, 1984, p. 7), has marketed Dwaine Tinsley, the cartoon editor of Hustler, as the most daring cartoonist of his time. He is described as creating '... some of the most controversial and thought-provoking humor to appear in any magazine (Hustler, 1983a, p. 7). One of the marketing tactics is to suggest that Tinsley is so 'outrageous' that he is in fact out of step with the magazine's editor because some of his cartoons have been 'so tasteless that even Larry Flynt has had to think twice before running them" (Tinsley, Hustler, 1983b, p. 65).

When doing slide or transparency presentations to audiences on cartoons of children and child pornography visuals in mainstream mens' pornographic magazines -- primarily Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler -- I have been struck by how frequently the audience is overly preoccupied by the dates when the material was published. They are often critical of the fact that many of the visuals shown were published in the 1970s and 1980s. Were my analysis of these materials to be focused on trends in their content over time, their publication dates would of course be crucial information. But the dates and/or the age of the material are irrelevant to an analysis of the dangerous messages that are conveyed by pictorial pseudo-child pornography and cartoons in pornographic magazines.

In addition, in several instances, the dates of publication are missing or incomplete. When I sought permission to reprint visuals portraying adults in mainstream men's pornographic magazines, I discovered that the individuals responsible for granting permission were often unable to locate the publication date. Hence, I decided not to include the dates of publication in this chapter.

This is a line drawing by a named artist of an older, balding hunched over man driving a young girl in an open-roofed convertible. Empty cans and shoes are tied to the rear bumper of the car. A large banner reading, "JUST MOLESTED," is attached to the trunk.

Comment: "JUST MOLESTED" is a take-off of the phrase, "Just Married," that frequently announces to pedestrians and the people in passing vehicles that a couple has just tied the knot. The message of this cartoon is that being molested is cause for celebration, and that there is nothing exploitive about the enormous age disparity that exists between the couple in the car.

The following six cartoons have been selected from the Chester the Molester cartoons -- a regular feature of Hustler magazine for many years. The cartoons in this series repeatedly joke about child molestation.

Dwaine Tinsley, the creator of Chester the Molester cartoons, was convicted of sexually abusing his young daughter in 1990. His conviction was later overturned on a technicality. Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler and many other pornography magazines, has also been publicly accused by one of his daughters, Tonya Vega-Flynt, of sexually abusing her from the age of 10 until she was 18. Tonya reports that her father also sexually abused her older sister.

Since it was Flynt who decided which cartoons to include in Hustler, he is responsible for these pernicious pictures. That Chester plans to sexually abuse the girls is implicit in all the cartoons in the Chester Molester series. By making child sexual abuse into a joke, Larry Flynt conveys approval of, and amusement with, this heinous crime.

This cartoon from the "Chester the Molester" series depicts Little Red Riding Hood walking nonchalantly down a wooded path carrying a basket to her grandmother. Ahead is an arrow sign "To Grandma's House" nailed on a tree trunk. Chester is behind this tree with a devious expression on his face and a baseball bat in his hand -- poised ready to attack. Behind Chester hangs a dazed and dying Big Bad Wolf from a tree, defecating onto the ground.

Comment: Tinsley has twisted a classic children's story with Chester replacing the frightening Big Bad Wolf as the dangerous threat to Little Red Riding Hood as she walks through the forest.

It appears that Chester has strung up the wolf to a tree branch so that he can capture his prey without competition from the dangerous wolf of the story. Chester's name -- Chester the Molester" -- suggests that he is about to hit Little Red Riding Hood with his baseball bat prior to molesting her. Tinsley hereby conveys to Hustler's readers that violent assault and sexual molestation is an appropriate source of mirth. This cartoon condones these two criminal activities.

In this cartoon a poor, pitifully skinny, bedraggled girl with a bandaged arm and hand, is trying to sell matches to a leering Chester the Molester. His large erect and naked penis protrudes from his pants with a big j-shaped piece of candy hanging on it. He is offering the candy as payment for a box of the girl's matches. Chester's arms are behind his back making it evident that he requires her to remove the candy from his penis. Whether or not he intends to go beyond copping a feel from the girl is unclear.

Comment: Here Tinsley makes a joke out of an adult man trying to take advantage of the desperate circumstances of a poor distressed-looking girl. He evidently feels his baseball bat is not needed in this case. Many men in the real world target poor, lonely, neglected, and vulnerable girls and boys to exploit sexually and also to coerce or manipulate them into being used in child pornography, prostitution and/or sexual slavery. Joking about such exploitation belittles its seriousness and destroys or undermines empathy for the victims.

Another cartoon from the Chester series shows a stereotypically Jewish-looking mother, father, and little girl -- all with very large noses -- at the corner of a city sidewalk. The little girl, who is wearing a Star of David, eagerly chases a dollar bill that Chester is pulling towards him like a fishing line as he stands poised around a corner to attack her with his baseball bat. Little does the girl know that Chester is using the dollar bill as bait to entrap her. He has a malevolent expression on his face and sports an arm band with a swastika imprinted upon it.

Comment: This cartoon reinforces the harmful anti-Semitic myth that Jews are particularly avaricious about money. This long-lived and ubiquitous stereotype has been used to justify anti-Semitism. It has been a handy rationalization for anti-Semites to explain the disproportionate success of many Jews in many cultures -- despite the extreme discrimination to which they have so often been subjected. Besides being a manifestation of jealousy, this myth has contributed to the evil consequences of anti-Semitism, most noteworthily in Nazi Germany.

Tinsley intends his audience to laugh at this anti-Semitic cartoon as well as the violent assault and sexual molestation that Chester clearly intends to perpetrate on the little Jewish girl. The swastika is included in several Chester the Molester cartoons, thereby portraying Nazi anti-Semitism as a joke, along with violent assault, and child molestation. By publishing this cartoon, Flynt chooses to minimize the devastating consequences of all these dispicable violations.

This cartoon shows Chester as a voyeur, masturbating noisily while he watches a little girl on the toilet over a partition. She looks bewildered as she wonders what the repeated "thwacking" noise is about. A flag imprinted with a Nazi swastika hangs over a large penis-shaped object above Chester's head.

Comment: Minimizing the seriousness of Peeping Tom behavior is clearly dangerous since the notion that Peeping Toms are harmless men who never perpetrate more serious sexual crimes, is a serious myth. Moreover, although the girl in this cartoon does not know that an exhibitionist is masturbating to the sight of her, many young girls find this a frightening and shocking experience.

In another "Chester the Molester" cartoon, a young blind girl wearing dark glasses is seen running down the street with a seeing eye dog, who has spotted a large piece of meat on the sidewalk ahead of her/him. Chester, in his familiar "lying-in-wait" position, is hiding around a corner, his pants below his knees, his naked penis erect, and a smirk on his face as he holds the string attached to the meat, waiting to entrap his prey and get his "treat."

Comment: This cartoon makes a joke out of Chester's strategy to entrap a vulnerable young blind girl. Given the title of the cartoon and the fact that Chester's pants are down and his penis is erect, the expectation is clear that he plans to sexually assault her. This is Flynt's idea of an appropriate joke for adult men. As with all these cartoons, this minimizes the crime of child sexual abuse and the resulting trauma for the victims.

This cartoon takes place in the bedroom of a middle-aged, heavyset Chester. Clad only in his Jockey shorts and with a pair of girl's panties on his head, he is shown sitting on his mattress with a big smile on his face, writing in his notebook. He is flanked by two young girls on either side of him, their arms and feet bound. One girl is completely naked, the other is wearing only her panties. A third girl is seated on the floor with her arms and feet bound. Various sexual paraphernalia are strewn across the mattress and around the room, including a baseball bat and several dildos.

Comment: Chester's violence or threat of violence is implied by the presence of his baseball bat, and the immobilizing bonds on the girls convey an impression of violent or forcible abductions. The three young kidnapped girls all have frightened expressions on their faces. The sexual overtones in this cartoon are communicated by the girls' nakedness, by Chester's wearing female panties on his head, by two large dildos nearby, and by the title of the cartoon. By making child kidnapping, bondage and child molestation into a joke, Flynt conveys his approval of these reprehensible crimes.

This cartoon take place in the office of a middleaged male teacher. The desk in the center of the room is piled with books. The teacher is sitting at his desk as a young bespectacled girl with a large smile on her face, eagerly reads a copy of Paradise Lost. The teacher's pants are down to his knees and the girl's skirt is hiked up. Her left hand is between his legs, suggesting that she is either masturbating him or touching his scrotum as he penetrates her. The teacher's head is thrown back in ecstasy as he cries out, "Thank you, Milton... thank you, Keats...thank you, Shelley."

Comment: Playboy artist Raymonde's cartoon conveys that there is no victim here; the girl appears totally absorbed in her book and detached from what is happening in her and her teacher's genital areas. In contrast, the man rests his book on his chest and concentrates on the sexual activity. His gratitude to the authors of the books suggests that he knows he would not be engaged in sex with his young student if he wasn't able to provide her with such engrossing reading.

The sexual harassment of female high school, college, and university students, as well as other types of educational institutions, is a very serious and widespread problem in the United States. This cartoon suggests that the young girl is not being exploited; indeed, she is portrayed as indifferent to being penetrated by her much older teacher. Hence, this cartoon contributes to the delegitimization of sexual harassment -- a very common practice in institutions when they can get away with it.

This cartoon depicts a young girl with her back to the viewer and an old balding man crouched below a puppet stage performing a puppet show at "Uncle Fred's Puppet Theater." The man is working an alligator puppet while the girl works a pirate puppet confronting the alligator with one hand and the Judy puppet with the other. Behind the stage, unbeknownst to the audience, the man has his free hand up the skirt of the little girl who is not wearing any panties. The little girl, both her hands full, continues with the show," while manipulating Judy below the stage to swipe the molester's bald head with her club.

Comment: The little girl's lack of panties turns her into a temptress responsible for Uncle Fred sliding his free hand under her dress to feel her buttocks. Since she has to activate two puppets, and since she doesn't want to interrupt the show, she shows her anger about the old man feeling her up by manipulating an angry-looking Judy puppet to swipe his head. In contrast to the former cartoon (#8), this one at least portrays the girl as fighting her molester as best she can in a difficult predicament rather than as enjoying or being indifferent to it. Presumably the molester's taking advantage of a situation in which a young girl is helpless is supposed to be the "joke" here.

This Erikki-created cartoon shows a little girl sitting on Santa's lap. Her right hand is underneath Santa's coat, presumably masturbating him. Santa has a dazed and ecstatic expression on his face as the little girl says, "... and then I want a new bicycle and a dollhouse and a new dress and ...."

Comment: The little girl in this cartoon is portrayed as a little prostitute, masturbating Santa in order to get the many gifts she wants. Conveying the casual attitude this young girl has toward performing this sexual act suggests that it is no big deal for girls to have sex with old men. In fact, making the young girl into an initiator of sexual behavior, especially with a much revered adult, is perpetuating a myth since exceedingly few young girls would ever initiate sexual behavior. The few girls who do so have typically learned to behave in this prostitute-like manner from one or more sexually abusive experience(s) in their pasts. Unfortunately, most adults misinterpret such sexually precocious behavior of previously victimized girls as indicating that they enjoy sexual encounters with older men.

This cartoon shows a young blonde girl standing outside the front door of the apartment of an older balding man. She is wearing a short red dress and red Mary Janes, and she is fastening her belt after a sexual encounter. The man is standing at the doorway smoking a cigarette in his bathrobe. His reddened face and shocked expression reveal his embarrassment and humiliation as the girl exclaims: "You call that being molested!" implying that she is disgusted by his inadequate sexual performance.

Comment: This cartoon reinforces two harmful myths: that young girls are very sexually experienced and thus, appropriate sex "partners" for men; and that young girls expect to be sexually gratified by sexual molestation. This makes a mockery of the reality of child sexual abuse in which girls certainly do not have the upper hand. Adults always have the real power in adult/child relationships which is why it is impossible for an adult to have a consenting sexual relationship with a child.

This Dwaine Tinsley cartoon shows a teenage girl, dressed sexily and displaying a lot of cleavage, talking with a boy on the phone. Her father is standing behind her with his protruding tongue in her left ear, his left knee in her crotch, and his right hand down her pants. With a frightened expression on her face, the girl says into the phone, "Gee . . . I'd love to go to the drive-in, Tommy, but my dad has some, uh, extra household chores for me tonight."

Comment: This cartoon makes it seem as if it is the girl's duty to have sex with her dad. Father-daughter incest is one of the most prevalent and traumatic kinds of incestuous abuse. By making light of this serious crime as in this cartoon, Flynt belittles this betrayal thereby discounting the devastating consequences for the victims.

A young girl's bedroom is the setting for this cartoon. She and her father are standing bare-assed next to her bed with their pants down to their ankles. The girl's father is gripping her from behind by her shoulders as he penetrates her. He looks shocked and humiliated as his daughter tells him: "Daddy, not only is what you're doing illegal, it's being done badly."

Comment: This Hustler cartoon portrays a sexually experienced adolescent girl who appears to be completely blase about the fact that her father is having intercourse with her. She reprimands him only for being a "lousy fuck" -- much to her father's chagrin. Some men are drawn to young girls because they assume their lack of sexual experience will cause them to be uncritical of the men's sexual performance. This cartoon contradicts the reality that girls who are raped by their fathers are severely traumatized by this experience -- often for the rest of their lives. Instead, the cartoon provides an example of a father who is upset by the encounter. The outrageous message of this cartoon is that girls can enjoy sex with their fathers if their fathers are good sexual performers. This is an exceedingly irresponsible and dangerous message to convey.

An obstetrician is holding a dead baby up in the air by its legs after delivering it in a hospital delivery room. To the obstetrician's left stands a heavyset man wearing only a white T-shirt, shoes, and socks. His penis is erect, and on the floor beside him is a book entitled Fetal Positions. The obstetrician asks this man, "Want a piece of ass, Earl? This one is stillborn!"

Comment: Here Flynt makes a joke out of an authority figure condoning the sodomizing of a dead baby (necrophilia). That this is not the first or the last time that the obstetrician will facilitate Earl's perverted behavior is conveyed by the phrase, "This one is stillborn!" This crass and repugnant cartoon grossly minimizes the serious damage resulting from penile penetration of a baby -- let alone a new born baby. It seems possible that this invitation to Hustler viewers/readers to laugh at this hideous desecration of a dead baby would engender a more callous attitude to such acts.

This two-page spread includes a grotesquely caricatured drawing of the upper body of a retarded girl showing her naked up to the top of her breasts. Her blond hair is ragged, her eyes are squinting, her absurdly long tongue is sticking out exposing two crooked front teeth. A man's scrotum hangs down as his penis penetrates the girl's right ear, and semen is shooting out of her left ear. Following is an excerpt of the text accompanying this monstrously demeaning drawing of a retarded girl:

Retarded girls say "gummph" a lot, but they also like to fuck a lot. They take off their clothes and diddle with themselves all the time. If they can get someone to do their diddling for them, they laugh and jump merrily around.... They are constantly in heat and will not put up with the usual introductory conversations and gift giving that so slow things in normal relationships."

Comment: The disabilities of many girls and women cause them to be even more vulnerable to sexual attack than other girls. Shockingly high numbers of them are preyed upon by perpetrators because of their helplessness and stigmatization. This picture-cum-text reinforces the dangerous myth that retarded girls are always eager for sex, so if men care to do it to them, it will be a sexual favor rather than sexual abuse.

While using children under 18 in pornography is illegal, drawings, paintings, and stories about such abuse is perfectly legal. Pseudo-child pornography is the term used for pornography that childifies adult women in order to appeal to men who are turned on to girls.

This is a photo of a young girl called Baby Breese with minute child-like breasts, long brown hair and the number "12" on her tank-top-covered chest -- suggesting that she is only 12 years old. Baby Breese is standing with her legs apart. The length of her tank-top leaves her pubic hair-covered genitals and upper thighs exposed. The small picture is surrounded by text which begins by stating: "We are delighted with the overwhelming response to our guess-the-age-of-Baby Breese contest," and "so was the nymphal Ms. Breese" (also referred to as "Lolita"). Although Penthouse reported that she was actually 20 years old, many of their viewers/readers guessed her age to be far younger -- e.g., 11, 12, and 14 years. I guessed it to be 12.

Hustler reprinted a small cover picture of the same Baby Breese photo cropped at the waist accompanied by the heading "PENTHOUSE MODEL BABY BREESE SHOWS PINK, ER, AH, BROWN FOR HUSTLER." "Pink" typically refers to the color of her skin inside her labia majora and vagina. The suggestion is that a picture "showing pink" will be revealed inside this volume of Hustler magazine.

Comment: Presumably Penthouse and Hustler selected this example of pseudo-child pornography to grace the pages of their magazines because Baby Breese looks like a child. Naming her Baby Breese also implies that she is very young. Requiring her to expose her pubic hair and upper thighs was no doubt intended by Guccione and Flynt to turn viewers on to this young girl. Since men typically masturbate to pornography, this picture is likely a potent promoter of child sexual abuse.

This cover photo depicts a young woman who is childified (a word coined by Liz Kelly) by wearing her blonde hair in two short beribboned bunches sticking out over her ears; by having breasts that appear small and undeveloped; by her innocent facial expression; and by a pair of cotton panties accented by lace and light blue ribbon (her only item of clothing).

Comment: The ways in which this young woman is childified are common to the childification process, as also is the use of unusually young-looking adult women like Breese. Such portrayals provide a legal way to appeal to pedophiles and child molesters. More dangerous still is the fact that pseudo-child pornography also appeals to some men who have no previous history of attraction to children. Hence, it can contribute to men who previously had no sexual interest in children, transitioning into this group of men.

A pseudo-child pornography photograph from Hustler titled "Lolita Back to School," portrays the childified "school girl" on the cover (described in #17) now lying on her bed. Her cotton panties are pulled down over her spreadeagled legs to reveal her sparsely-haired genitals in direct view of the camera (this pose is commonly described as a "crotch shot"). Long white knee socks, black Mary Janes, and the name "Lolita" add to the childification of this young woman. The text at the top left of the picture reads:

The Lolita complex is one of the most common sexual fantasies of the heterosexual male. Many men fantasize about having sex with young girls -- which is taboo in today's society. But many wives and girlfriends gratify and fulfill their man's fantasies by dressing and acting like adolescent girls ... wearing pigtails and bobby socks. It's a harmless fantasy carried out by two adults. And, as our own Lolita reports, she too enjoys playing a little girl with her boyfriend.

This kind of pseudo-child pornography can sexually arouse males who didn't previously think of girls as erotic substitutes for women. The text encourages men to ask their wives and girlfriends to try to look and act like young girls. Men's equation of youth and sexual attractiveness is a serious problem in the United States and presumably many other countries. Reinforcing and justifying this equation -- as this kind of pornography does -- is sexist and destructive.

Comment: This kind of pseudo-child pornography portrays a "child" as an erotic substitute for an adult woman. In addition, as mentioned in my comments on photo #17, it can sexually arouse males who didn't previously think of girls as attractive "sex objects." The text also encourages men to find it acceptable to ask their wives and girlfriends to try to look and act like young girls. Men's equation of youth and sexual attractiveness is a serious problem in the United States; reinforcing and justifying this equation -- as this kind of pornography does -- is very sexist and destructive.

The first non-pornographic photograph in a sequence of several photos portrays a 19-year-old woman named Wendy Welles who has been shrunk to a diminutive size. She is sitting fully clothed on a regular-sized chair that highlights her small size. She was presumably selected for these photos because she is a genuinely tiny woman measuring four feet seven inches and weighing only 75 lbs. She is also childified by two small braids and an innocent-looking girlish grin. In the text below the first picture, Wendy states that "she can look all of 12 or 13 to the casual observer."

Comment: Although there is no nudity in this and a few of the other pictures in this sequence, Wendy is nude in some of them. She looks like a stereotype of a young non-threatening childified young woman. As Wendy states in the text of the next picture:

"I represent almost everything a man looks for in a woman! The adoring little girl that makes him feel fatherly and protective, the naive adolescent who makes him want to be a gentle and patient teacher, the ripe and womanly side that makes him all sexy and adoring.... In minutes I can become a little girl about half my age. I plait my hair.... put on frilly outfits, and use cosmetics to make myself down instead of up."

In another picture in this sequence, Wendy is photographed nude except for her long knee socks. She is lying on her side with her breasts exposed and her right knee up to exhibit her genitals. She states in the text that her ideal fantasy is "to look and act and be treated like a little girl but feel like a totally grown-up woman inside."

Comment: It seems reasonable to assume that Wendy was selected for this photo sequence because Gucionne knew she would appeal to Penthouse's male viewers who feel threatened by adult women and who therefore seek out females who have the features, behavior, and attitudes of young innocent girls. Many males prefer to pursue the real thing -- i.e., to sexually abuse children (not childified adult women) in and out of their families. Hence this kind of pseudo-pornography is only a step away from actual incestuous and extrafamilial child sexual abuse.

In the last picture of the sequence on Wendy to be described here, she is kneeling on the seat of her huge-looking chair. Her nude buttocks face the camera revealing a backside view of her genitals. Her head is turned sideways enabling her to gaze into the eyes of the viewer. The text has her saying, "I love to display myself nude. It's thrilling, and it's fun, and I can do it proudly."

Comment: Wendy's exhibitionism adds the cherry atop the cake made especially for men. By the end of the sequence she has become the perfect little innocent childified sex object who enjoys her body being appreciated -- presumably by males. What an attractive female she is for insecure males, pedophiles and child molesters. Note how much more romantic the text is compared to the typical captions and text in Hustler.

This photograph shows a young girl lying on her stomach atop her bed, clutching a Raggedy Ann doll. Her bed sheets have a Disney motif, with Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Pluto marching in a parade. The girl is wearing nothing except white knee socks, bows in her hair, and black panties. The caption accompanying the photograph reads, "BABY DOLL. It's easy to feel paternalistic toward the cuddly type above. Naturally, she digs forceful father figures, so come on strong, Big Daddy."

Comment: The very young-looking girl in this photograph is objectified by being referred to as "Babby Doll," sexualized by her nudity, and childified by her attire and her Raggedy Ann doll. The statement that she "naturally digs forceful father figures" normalizes the myth that young girls desire sex with much older men, and the phrase "Big Daddy" insinuates that it is her father who is being urged to forcefully come on to his daughter (an invitation to rape?). After all -- that is what she wants! This Freudian oedipal myth is, of course, a projection onto daughters of some fathers' sexual desires for them.

This pseudo-child pornography photograph portrays a very young-looking woman lying naked on her back on her bed. Her eyes are closed, her bent knees are spread apart, as she holds a teddy bear over her genitals as if they are engaged in intercourse.

Comment: The composition of this provocative photo appears to be designed to facilitate male viewers' fantasies of placing themselves in the position of the teddybear and having intercourse with the childified young woman. Once again we see how pseudo-child pornography can foster a sexual desire for children in men who were not previously attracted to children.

In this picture, a very young-looking girl/woman is sitting astride a prone man's naked torso as he squeezes one of her small breasts and penetrates her with his penis. In striking contrast to the "girl," only his naked torso from his belly button to the top of his thighs are partially visible. The "girl's" mouth is wide open and her head and body are arched back as if she is in ecstasy. As in so much pornography, the man is described as having a huge penis and as being very virile as they have repeated simultaneous orgasms. (The text has the girl/woman saying: "It amazed me that my body could take so much, as huge as he was, but it didn't even hurt. My little cunt just seemed to open right up to it." And, "Our orgasms seemed to be synchronized to arrive at the same moment.") Aside from her youthful appearance, her youthfulness is conveyed by her statement that she "had never dreamed it could be so sensual, so sexual, so grown up."

Comment: It is typical of both child and adult heterosexual pornography that much more naked female flesh is shown than naked male flesh -- unless the males are victims. This is evident in the picture described above. Portraying this "girl" as free of pain from penetration by an adult male with a large penis is wishful male thinking by those who pursue sex with female children. The same applies to the depiction of the "girl" as experiencing sexual ecstasy in this situation.

This Playboy cover depicts a blonde-haired childified woman sitting on a white rocking chair with a large collection of dolls and teddy bears at her feet. She is wearing a youngster's voluminous white frilly petticoat, white cotton tights, and black Mary Jane shoes. She is holding a stuffed rabbit against her bare chest, and exposing one fully-developed breast. This photograph merges the "girl's" young, innocent-looking face (which makes her look about 12 years old [endnote: according to Negley and Wamboldt, p. 1]) with her adult-looking breast and her childified lower body resulting in a sexualized girl/woman.

Comment: This picture is the only example in this chapter of this method of merging a girl and a woman. Her adult-looking breast can be expected to sexually arouse males who are attracted to adult women. Those who repeatedly masturbate to such a picture may also become aroused to the child portions of the girl/woman.

Under the heading "Little Nymph or Teen Angel," this full-page drawing is an ad for a partially nude plastic five feet two-inched teenage blow-up doll with a "teenage body" described in the text as follows:

"Her innocent, beautifully molded teenage face is crowned with long silky golden hair.... Lolita comes complete with built in female organs, Greek features, deep throat open mouth, and soft rounded shapely hips and thighs.... Lolita, the teenage party girl, is the most life like doll sold."

The customer who buys her is encouraged to "dress her like a cheerleader, high school girl, surfer, a nymph or a lady."

Comment: "Fuck Dolls" are frequently advertized in pornographic literature. This Lolita doll was clearly created to appeal to males who are attracted to adolescent girls. That some males purchase these plastic substitutes for live females reveals the extent to which some males can objectify females. Not only are the dolls literally objects, but the advertizer describes them as sexual objects as well. If males were not able to objectify females, such dolls would have no appeal to them.

A woman introduces a new photo-illustrated magazine called Baby Love by telling her readers that she and her husband practice "a new way of child education" involving sex with their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. "We began by stroking her body softly and we didn't leave her tiny vagina out, as so many people do," she reported.

"And she loved it from the very beginning! You should have seen her wriggling about as my husband or me caressed or kissed her soft little pussy.... On some of the photos you can also see that she isn't even a virgin anymore. I did this with my finger and it didn't hurt her one bit.... On some of the photos you see how proudly she shows me her little cunt and clitty by pulling the lips wide open. I think she's going to be a winner! She also likes to play with my cunt, mainly because it is bigger and has so much hair around it, but she prefers to play with the cock of her father. It's her most precious plaything. On some photos you see her sitting on my man's cock and because she isn't a virgin, she can take the head in her little cunt and she absolutely LOVES to do this and move around on it.

"I know that some people will condemn us for bringing our baby-daughter up in this fine and funloving way. Well, maybe this photoserial will give them some second thoughts, as everybody is so enjoying it and most of all our daughter. Other already liberated people will find it a stimulant to follow the same education. This mag is meant for them!"

Comment: Unfortunately, I only have a copy of the one-page introduction to this magazine. While it seems likely that the illustrative photographs of the baby girl described would have to be real in order for this magazine to be marketable, the text was presumably concocted for male users of child pornography. Firstly, it has a familiar pornographic ring to it. For example, the use of language like "cunt," "pussy," and "cock," is typical of pornography. So is the writer's claim that the baby girl loved all the sexual acts described. The additional claim that the baby enjoyed pulling her labia wide open so as to display herself in the manner characteristic of both adult and child pornography is evidence that she has learned to please her father in this way.

The crass sexist statement that because the baby girl enjoyed exhibiting her genitals, she will be "a winner" implies that being a sexual exhibitionist is all that it takes for a female to be successful. This demeaning male view is inherent in all heterosexual pornography. The sexually abusive behavior with the baby described in this story is attributed as much to the mother as to the father. In reality, mothers are far less inclined than fathers or other men to behave in the way described. Finally, authorship of Baby Love is attributed to the mother despite the fact that the vast majority of child pornography is produced by men.

The blatant proselytizing in "Baby Love" for parents to sexually abuse their baby girls is a dangerous piece of propaganda. The common claim of pedophiles that children enjoy sex and have a right to it ("even an old guy like Freud already told us that baby's have sexual feelings"), is validated by this woman's story. Written child pornography both on and off the Internet is legal -- no matter how abusive and harmful the material is.

Pornographic novels are sold in many pornography stores. Child pornographic novels, such as Violent Stories of Brutal Incest, are legal. This particular book is in a series called "Violent Books." A small drawing of a man raping a girl appears on the cover. Another book, Daughter's Torment, sports a picture of a naked adolescent girl on her back as two men are poised to rape her.

"The Crown Report: Case Studies" is printed on the cover of S&M and the American Father conveying that it is an authentic non-fiction book. The cover drawing shows an older man clenching the wrists of a young girl kneeling on the ground. The top of her dress is completely torn off, fully exposing her breasts. She appears to be struggling to free herself from her father's grip. Runaway Teen Slaves shows a bound and gagged teenage girl on its cover. A man who is pressed up against her back has pulled off her bra to expose her breasts, and he appears to be biting her neck. Presumably, rape will be just one of the fates of all these teenagers on the pages of pornography inside the covers.

Incest Sinners: Daddy's Slave Girls and Chained Youth: Girls in Bondage also purport to be case studies in the Dr. Lamb Library. The cover picture of the first of these books depicts a naked teenage girl sprawled face down across her bed. Her father, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his tie loosened, and his pants down to his knees, is holding her buttocks and forcing himself into her anus. The girl's eyes are closed and her mouth is open making it unclear whether she is in pain or ecstasy. The cover picture of Chained Youth: Girls in Bondage shows a young girl who is bound, gagged, and hanging from the bar in a closet. A completely naked older man is approaching the little girl who looks scared, as if she anticipates being raped by him.

Teens in Restraint is the title of a book illustrated by a photograph of a teenager with rope tied very tightly around each breast, then binding her arms firmly behind her back. Smaller pictures advertise four books on the back cover, including Nympho Mothers: Incest Obsession (showing a young girl about to suck her mother's breast), White Masters: Black Slave Girls (showing a white man leaning on the raised backside of a totally naked African American girl -- presumably prior to penetrating her), and Kidnapped Virgins: Taken by Force.

A teenage girl is shackled to a brick wall in the drawing on the cover of Chained, Tortured Schoolgirl (June 1984). Her dress is torn and disheveled, fully exposing her breasts and her underpants. On the right side of the picture is what appears to be a man's leg. On the left side is a man's hand holding a fire nozzle, hosing the shackled frightened-looking girl.

Comment: As long as sexually explicit photographs of children are not used on these book covers or inside them, this form of child pornography is legal and easily available to interested users at no risk to them or the sellers. There are books available for all preferences, whether rape, bondage, anal penetration, incest, or bestiality.

Young Pussy is the title on the cover of a pseudo-child pornography magazine displaying a full frontal photographed view of a young innocent-looking blond woman with her hair in two child-like bunches. She is wearing very little makeup, her bra is unclasped at the front exposing her small breasts, and her pubic hair and genitals are in full view. The text on the cover reads: "Small Breasts & Tight Holes Eager to be Sucked and Stroked?" Then, in smaller letters: "Joni -- she loves to eat cum and have her rectum fingered!"

Nubbins #12 (presumably suggestive of the word "nubile") is another title cover with a frontal photograph of a young small-breasted childified brunette with heavy bangs and two beribboned ponytails. Baby Dolls #15 also shows a young-looking woman with the same child-like ponytails as the other two cover "girls." In contrast to the other two, she is wearing bright-red nail polish and exposing her voluptuous breasts.

Comment: Because the photos of these three magazine covers that I have in my collection unfortunately do not include the complete covers, information on the dates they were published is not available. I believe that they were marketed in the 1970s when child pornography was flourishing in the United States. The fact that these three cover "girls" all sport the same 2-ponytailed hairstyle -- as also have several other pseudo-child pornography pictures included above -- suggests that this was the preferred way to childify young women.

The titles of these pseudo-child pornography magazines were clearly designed to appeal to child pornography users who do not want to take the risk of purchasing illegal material. However, as with most pseudo-child pornography, they are also likely to appeal to some male pornophiles who have shown no previous interest in child pornography. Hence, these pictures can become a bridge for so-called normal male viewers from arousal to adult pornography to arousal to child pornography.

These are five of the eleven photographs from a photo-essay entitled "Sakura" most of which appear to portray teenage girls. A haiku (a classic Japanese poetry form) accompanies the photos. Photographer Akira Ishigaki describes the meaning of the title as follows:

Sakura is the word for the cherry blossom. From my childhood ... I recall the resemblance between the petals of the cherry blossom and a woman's body. In the spring of my twelve years, I caressed the petals with my fingers, kissed them gently with my lips. (p. )

A girl is standing next to a wooden house with her back toward the viewer in this photograph. Her arms are tied tightly behind her back; the rope hoists up her dress to expose her bare buttocks and legs. Her buttocks protrude slightly making them the focus of the picture. A piece of rope passes between the crack of her behind and presumably through her genitals (although they cannot be seen). Another piece of rope attached to her front, exits the picture. The profile of her face is showing. With a ribbon in her long black hair and small white booties on her feet, she looks as if she could be as young as 12 years old.

Comment: Many males who have not previously been sexually aroused by the bondage genre of child pornography, can nevertheless become turned on by it if they are attracted to the body of the girl in bondage -- not the bondage per se. Viewing repeated examples of child pornography that combine these two stimuli (attractive girl's body and bondage) can result in these males acquiring a taste for child bondage (this is an example of classical conditioning).

A heavily bound girl is standing facing the viewer with an older looking female standing closely behind her with her hand resting on the younger girls shoulder. Both are bound with rope. As with the girl in the previous photograph, rope also keeps the girl's Japanese dress up providing a very graphic view of her hairless genitals and legs. The rope appears to be very tightly tied so they divide her labia majora in what appears to be a painful manner. The girl is looking down with a passive and demure expression on her face. There is no sign of pain or discomfort in this or the previous photo #27.

Comment: This photo is much more shocking than the one just described above (in #31). Firstly, the photograph of the girl is larger and more graphic, and the view of the rope so tightly tied through her genitals is disturbing. Secondly, the view of naked hairless genitals is more taboo than a view of bare buttocks. Although the girl is not smiling, her facial expression conveys no distress -- as also is the case for the girl in the photo above. Hence, the message to the viewers of these two Penthouse pictures is that these girls are not disturbed by exposing their private parts or by being immobilized or hurt by the tight ropes. This is a false male fantasy that can undermine some men's internal inhibitions against acting out their sexual desires for girls.

Comment on Series: Ishigaki's use of a haiku to accompany his exquisite pictures in this photo-essay provides them with artistic credibility thereby rendering the appeal of bondage more acceptable to middle-class consumers.* [*Footnote: Ishigaki included three additional photographs in this series portraying young girls/women as corpses. Two of these pictures were described in Chapter 13 on child snuff pornography.] His sensitive and subtle verbiage contrasts dramatically with his macabre photographs eroticizing the torture, bondage, hanging, and death of Japanese girls. The implicit message of this photo-essay is that it is acceptable to publish child pornography depicting extreme brutality toward girls in Penthouse -- a softcore pornography magazine -- when it meets society's artistic standards. Perhaps racism is another factor in the lack of public protest -- except from feminists* [*Footnote: Activist Nikki Craft organized a long-term feminist rampage in the mid-West against Penthouse magazine for publishing this sadistic child pornography] -- about these photos. Could the explanation be that the largely white readership didn't criticize Gucionne because the girls are not white? Could Gucionne, who is white, have assumed the magazine would get away with publishing child pornography for the same reason?

Ishigaki's delicate prose, beautiful photography, and the beautiful Japanese girls that he chose for subjects (and sex objects), contributed to making the vicious content of these pictures more acceptable, thereby serving to legitimize the sexual violence against girls implied in these scenes.

This is one of many small ads on a page advertizing a large variety of pornographic videos. This ad for a 60-minute video is the only one that appears to be genuine child pornography. It consists of two photos of a prepubescent girl with tiny budding breasts and no public hair. The first shows her face, long hair and breasts and a large penis stuck in her mouth. There is a black circle covering her mouth for censorship purposes. The second photo shows a frontal view of the spread-eagled girl. A man's open thighs show his penis entering the girl's vagina. Although her vagina is covered by another black circle, it is easy to see what is going on. The text of this ad reads, "TINY CHICKY FUCKING AND SUCKING THE BIGGEST COCKS YOU'VE EVER SEEN!" and, "FLAT TOPS GIANT COCKS."

Comment: It is hard to believe that Flynt has the nerve to claim that he does not support child pornography. I believe these two photographs are illegal. Tammy Gordon undertook a one-woman campaign to try to get Law Enforcement officials to take some action against Flynt for publishing this photograph. However, her efforts were met with apathetic responses everywhere.

Conclusion: I have shown transparencies of the 34 pictures described and commented on in this chapter to many different audiences in the United States and abroad. They typically have a very powerful impact. Many women in particular find slide or transparency presentations on the damage caused to children by men viewing child pornography, to be far more convincing than the scientific evidence quoted in Chapters 8 and 9 (my theory). Viewing pictures of child pornography touches audiences emotionally far more effectively than hearing about experiments and studies. Furthermore, many non-academic women find the scientific evidence inaccessible to them.

I consider pictures like those described in the mainstream mens' magazines in this chapter to constitute visual evidence of harm to children. The cartoons repeatedly trivialize and normalize child sexual abuse, treating it as a harmless matter to joke about. The perpetrators in the cartoons are never shown to suffer any negative consequences for their crimes. And many of the victims are portrayed as enjoying sex with older men, including their fathers or other relatives. Hence, the cartoons perpeturate destructive myths about child sexuality and adult child sex, using humor as a cover for the damaging propaganda that it constitutes.

With regard to the pictures of child pornography that show children being sexually abused, the harm to children is even more obvious. Very few people realize that certain forms of child pornography are easily available despite the fact that most forms of it are illegal.