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DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT OBTAINING MY PERMISSION.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 7: Child Pornographers and Pedophiles: Personal Stories

Following are the personal stories of four child pornographers and pedophiles, all of which have been shortened by deleting a few passages.

1. Joseph Henry's testimony before the Permanent Sub-committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, Ninety-Ninth Congress, February 21, 1989* [*Footnote: Published in the Iconoclast, late summer 1989, pp. 13-16.]

In 1971, a pedophile called Joseph Henry was caught molesting girls at the New Jersey nudist camp that he managed, but charges were not filed against him by the club or by the victims' parents. This left him free to move to California where he became involved in a pornography ring (Craft, p. ).... Senator Roth asked Henry numerous questions.

Henry: ... "I'd like to thank you and the sub-committee staff for allowing me to testify about my life as a pedophile, my life of molesting children and the damage I've inflicted on my victims and their families. My testimony may be uncomfortable for some people, but it has to be that way because adults must learn to spot the Joe Henry's of the world. I hope no one thinks what I say here today is designed to win sympathy for myself. It isn't. Your sympathy must go to my victims -‑ 22 little girls, age 6 to 14 -- who I molested since 1949. They will likely carry these emotional scars for the rest of their lives.

I was born on December 15, 1934, in New York City. I am now incarcerated in California, where in 1978, I pleaded guilty to four counts of committing lewd acts upon children. These children were girls between the ages of 8, 9, and 10 and were molested by me and a group of men over a period of several years. The father of the eight‑year‑old girl is also in California State Prison because he was renting out his daughter to members of the group for $100 a session. I was one of the men who paid $100 for his daughter.

As with many child molesters, I, too, was molested as a child. It happened when I was 12. By the age 14, I was, again, molested by the man who lived next door to me, a man who always seemed friendly and approachable. I first came to him just as someone to talk to, but after a while, I couldn't talk to him unless I also let him copulate me. It was a time of traumatic tragedy, a time for my secret sex education that would lead me into this hell called pedophilia.

By the time I was 24, I had molested 14 young girls and had been arrested twice and sent to State hospitals, once for 18 months. During this incarceration, I never received therapy. There was never any physical force with the children I molested. The children didn't resist, but to say it was with their consent would be wrong. I know now I was harming them psychologically.

I used all the normal techniques used by pedophiles. I bribed my victims; I pleaded with them, but I also showed them affection and attention they thought they were not getting anywhere else. Almost without exception, every child I molested was lonely and longing for attention. For example, I would take my victims to movies and to amusement parks. When I babysat them, I would let them stay up past their bedtime if they let me fondle them. One little eight-year-old girl I was babysitting came over to my house one day soaking wet from a rainstorm. I told her I'd pay her $1 if she would stay undressed for an hour. This incident opened the door for three years of molestation.

I used these kinds of tricks on children all the time. Their desire to be loved, their trust of adults, their normal sexual playfulness and their inquisitive minds made them perfect victims. I never saw any outward emotional damage in one of my victims until 1971 when, I was 36 and the manager of a nudist park in New Jersey.

I was able to see many children nude and grew particularly attracted to a nine‑year‑old girl named Kathy. I once bought her five Christmas presents. She was the first little girl I ever forced myself upon and the first whose molestation was not premeditated. I actually saw the trauma and the terror on her face after I had molested her. The incident made me leave the camp.

For the next three years, I was fighting all kinds of urges. I hadn't yet discovered child pornography, and I didn't want to just pick up children off the street. If I had not been under a psychiatrist's, care at this time, I probably would have committed suicide. The doctor helped me with my hatred for my father, my fear of adult women, but he couldn't do anything for my urges toward little girls.

Around 1974, when I was beginning to hang around the 42d Street porno shops in New York City, I got my first exposure to commercial child pornography. I got to be friends with one of the porn shop owners and one day he showed me a magazine that just arrived called Nudist Moppets. They were paperback books with stories of child sex, adult/child sex. The films in the peep shows were of men with girls, boys with boys, girls with boys and a few that looked like families together in sexual activity.

Eventually, I put together a photographic collection of 500 pages of children in sexually explicit poses. Before long, films started coming in and I bought a film projector. I started reading some of the pornographic tabloids called Screw, Finger and Love, which were filled with all types of sex stories, ads and listings for pen pals. At least one of the issues was devoted to a pedophilic theme. In one issue of Finger, there was an ad about organizations that were devoted to sexual intimacy between children and adults. I wrote to three of them -‑ Better Life, Guyon Society and the Childhood Sensuality Circle. Better Life and the Childhood Sensuality Circle responded, so I sent in the membership fee to join them.

I was disappointed with Better Life publication because it was on a homosexual pedophilia newsletter and my sexual interest was girls. However, in the third issue, there was an ad that had a street number to write to instead of the usual coded numbers. I wrote to them, and a few weeks later, I received a letter from a man named Lance Carlson. His real name is John Duncan, and he was a central figure in the child prostitution ring I eventually got involved in. In his first letter to me, Duncan wanted assurance I was not a cop or any other such person trying to entrap him. He also wanted to hear about my experiences, past or present. I wrote and said I wasn't a police officer. I also told him about Barbara, the first girl I molested and how I got interested in little girls. We began a long correspondence. This was in October of 1975.

Duncan began telling me about two girls he was molesting at the time, Tammy and Lisa, ages 8 and 9. He also sent me their nude photos. It was only after I successfully returned his nude photos that he began to trust me and get into very explicit details about his molestation with the girls.

I was desperate for friendship, someone who understood my obsession with children. My letters to Duncan ran as long as nine‑typed pages. I would sign them, "A fellow little girl lover." I offered to trade photos. I even gave him my phone number and he called me collect.

In February of 1976, I wrote Duncan telling him I planned to travel to California in the summer and would like to attend a "child sex orgy," and I would be very glad to pay for this privilege. I wrote him, "I want to assure you that I can keep my mouth shut." He began telling me so many things about Tammy and Lisa and implying they would be available for me if they liked me when I came to California. I began sending Duncan money and presents to give to the girls. Duncan also told me about a "cute blue‑eyed blond." He was referring to 8‑year‑old Yvonne who Duncan said I would be able to have sex with for $100 a session.

I finally traveled to California on July 1, 1976. Duncan brought Tammy and Lisa over to my motel where I was staying. That day, I could not have the children alone to myself because Duncan had arranged for another member of the ring to molest them. Several days later, Duncan molested Tammy and Lisa in my motel room. Then we went to a nearby park where I pushed the girls on some swings. While we were there, Duncan met with Yvonne's father in the park and apparently was arranging for me to rent his daughter.

A few days later, after paying Duncan the $100 that we agreed would be given to Yvonne's father, I had this 8‑year‑old to myself for about 6 hours during which time I molested her. When I was unable to take Yvonne home that night because I didn't have a car, Yvonne's father phoned my motel room and said that since I was keeping her overnight, it would cost me another $100.

At that time, this was the height of my pedophilic experiences. It was a dream come true. After returning to New York, I wrote and described what the trip meant to me.

I really don't know what I enjoyed the most of all the wonderful things that happened, there were so many of them to choose from. If it wasn't for all the photos here on my desk, I would think it was just a fantastic dream. I will always be grateful to you for taking me out of hell and giving me a brief taste of Heaven.

I recount these letters, Senator, not to appear sensational, but only to try and convey how deep my obsession was. I spent virtually every waking moment thinking about the children I molested. This type of letter writing is very typical with pedophiles. Some pedophiles survive through explicit letters and the purchase or trading of child pornography because live victims are not always available. These letters were a release for me. They allowed me to relive everything with Tammy, Lisa, and Yvonne. I wasn't sure I could go through with actually paying someone to have sex with their daughter. It was obvious Yvonne had been rented to several other men. The first thing she said to me that night that I had her alone was, "What would you like me to do?"

The next day when her father came to pick her up, the first thing he said [to her] was, "Did you cooperate?"

You might wonder what are these children really like. How do they act when they are with a group of men who are molesting them? Truthfully, they are manipulated psychologically to such a degree that their facial expressions are blank, as though they are saying, "Just get it over with." Do they cry or fight off my advances? Usually not. Remember, in the child's mind, they think they are as guilty as I am. They know other little boys and girls don't do this, so they must not be good children. They are overwhelmed with shame most of the time and simply comply with the wishes of the adult. Can you imagine what must have gone through the mind of little eight‑year‑old Yvonne as her father would deliver her to yet another strange man who would keep her for a few hours at a time, molesting her whenever he had the urge to do so?

One of my most vivid memories was of Lisa during my second visit to California. The second time I saw her, it was obvious someone in the group had brutalized her, possibly raped her. She told me she didn't want to be photographed and said several times, "Please don't hurt me. Just don't hurt me."

Yvonne's father is now serving a 14-year sentence in California State Prison. I understand from reliable sources, Yvonne may never be normal again. During this time, 1975 and 1976, I was actively involved in the San Diego‑based pedophilia organization, the Childhood Sensuality Circle, which I understand your subcommittee examined briefly in your hearings last November. I corresponded with Valida Davila, the head of the CSC, and did some typing for her. As was the practice with the CSC, Davila also put me in touch with other pedophiles. I can't stress enough that this group and others, regardless of their publicly stated goals, are in practice little more than contact services for pedophiles. These groups serve as a reinforcement for pedophiles and a constant source for new friendships and, thus, a supply of new victims.

By November 1976, I was back in New York when I received a phone call from a man named Eric Cross. Cross was a friend of John Duncan, and he said he understood I was looking for a woman with small children who would agree to marry me so that I could be a father and feel like an adult, not just to molest children. At that time, I had no idea who Cross was, but I later learned he was a child pornographer, publisher of Lolitots magazine, and a pedophile with connections not only through the United States, but in several foreign countries as well. I understand he is now in Florida State Prison and facing a Federal trial on charges of distribution of child pornography.

I went to Los Angeles in the fall of 1977 to meet with Cross. For several nights, I met with Cross to look at child porn photos he was sending out of the country. Cross and I were at a motel examining photos of naked children that he was sending to a source in Canada. As we left the hotel one night, we were arrested. The police had to release me through lack of evidence, and I was able to return to New York, but some weeks later, I was rearrested in New York by U.S. Customs agents.

After my arrest, I learned that numerous other men had come to Los Angeles and San Diego from 1974 to 1976 to molest children John Duncan made available to us. Various motels and homes of two of the men were used as locations for the molestation. The children were also photographed during sessions with the men. Although I did not participate in this, one of the men, I can't be sure which, apparently sold photos to the Dutch child porn magazine Lolita because in the Lolita issues 29, 30, and 31, there are shots of Tammy and Yvonne in various explicit poses.

I cannot begin to imagine the damage that was done to these children by what I and others did to them. Like the alcoholic, there is no known cure of the pedophile. The pedophile must realize he has a problem and wants help. That is the first step, and that's why the therapy I am now receiving at Patton State Hospital in California has played such a big part in why I am here today.

Chairman Roth: .... What role do you think child pornography has played in your life?

Henry: .... With the films, it was a stimulant to seek and reestablish actual relationships with a child.

Chairman Roth: So there is, in your judgment, a direct link ... between child pornography and a pedophile promoting his conduct with a child?

Henry: Yes, Senator.

Chairman Roth: Let me go back for a moment to your victims. Are you familiar with what has happened to any of those young children?

Henry: I heard [that my three victims here in California] were having treatment.... One of my victims was my cousin Patricia who I had molested over three years.... I understand Patsy has come completely reversed in her personality than she was as a child. She is now a cold, frigid woman. She cannot establish any long relationship with an adult male, and I definitely base that on molestation of her when she was a child.

Chairman Roth: Did you ever photograph the children you molested and then later trade [them] in exchange for those photographs?

Henry: Yes, Senator.

2. Interview with Robert: Child Pornographer and Pedophile*

[*Footnote: Campagna & Poffenberger (1988). The Sexual Trafficking in Children: An investigation of the Child Sex Trade. Dover, Massachusetts: Auburn House Publishing. Pp. 128-131]

Robert was a former steel worker who was a divorced father of two daughters aged 6 and 12 years old at the time of his interview. He became involved with child pornography when he was 17 years old. He produced and distributed child porn mostly for a local market, although "he occasionally sold or swapped child pornography to fellow collectors from other states" (p. 128).

Robert was arrested by postal inspectors when he was 27 years old, and charged with "statutory rape, aggravated assault, simple assault on children, and the production and distribution of child pornography," and sentenced to 15 years in a state penitentiary (p. 128). Prior to his arrest, Robert's "behaviour went virtually unnoticed and unreported, for approximately fifteen years" (p. 128).

Question: Did you ever have occasion to photograph children?

Robert: Yes, I had a personal collection of over 300 different pictures of children, all girls between the ages of 9 and 12. I kept them from my wife and daughters by hiding them in a partition‑like wall I built in my basement.

Question: How tough was it to get kids in that age group to let you photograph them?

Robert: My parents own and operate a real estate company with a lot of apartments and rental houses in different neighborhoods. So I'd get to meet kids who lived in different areas of the city or I'd go to arcades, schoolyards, even hospitals, and offer kids money to take their picture in the nude. Any place where there are children I can usually find a willing one. Like I told you, I don't bother with anything over 12 years old. It's not that hard to persuade a kid to come with me for a photo session; I never forced a child to take photos. I'd pay them anywhere from $5 to $20. If they said no, that was it. I'd let them alone. But most of the kids I asked needed the money, wanted the money.... If I asked one hundred kids, I'd get anywhere from 35 percent to 50 percent to come with me.

Question: Did you ever have any contacts or hassles with parents?

Robert: No, I never had any contacts with parents. I've heard of parents entering into deals involving their kids, but I never did. Police really underestimate the amount of people and the kinds of people involved in child pornography. I personally know a lot of professionals - ... doctor or lawyer types who wanted pictures.

Question: What did you do with your photos?

Robert: I sold most of them. I'd take 8 by 10 photographs, sold them for $30 apiece. I'd also exchange them with other pedophiles and pornographers. We'd exchange them hand to hand or through the mail, which is how I got caught.

Question: How did you meet other pedophiles?

Robert: Through magazines and circulation newspapers, underground stuff like NAMBLA, PIE. There's so many. Although now you have a problem with the postal inspectors.

Question: Is that how you got busted?

Robert: You got it! I kept a list of about 200 names of people living throughout the United States for the purpose of selling and swapping child pornography. It takes a lot of time to develop a list of that size. Nowadays everybody is real cautious. Anyways, I'd just start writing to people, pedophiles I'd met or who listed an address in a magazine. Once I got their trust, we'd start selling or swapping pictures and names of other pedophiles we knew. A pedophile is always afraid that the postal inspectors will get their mail. These guys, when they raid a home which deals in child pornography, will take the master list if they find it and start writing to the names on the list. That's how the authorities first became aware of me. I was on somebody's list who got busted. They (postal inspectors) started writing to me under a different name and sending me photos for which I'd send them money. We went back and forth a couple of times. They kept records of it. When they arrested me, they had the evidence there.

Question: Did you ever pay a child to have sex with you?

Robert: Sometimes I'd have to pay, but I also would just meet little girls and talk them into it. I would have maybe 50 sexual relationships with girls 12 and under in say a year's time. It's tough to get kids that young. I'd mostly get their parents' confidence so they would leave their kids with me. You know, a babysitter.

Question: Where would you find the younger kids you paid for?

Robert: Usually in the arcades around the city, in the streets, or in the neighborhood. It's the same as pornography; if I can get a kid to pose nude for money, she will usually do the other things for money too. I can always get the kids because in a way I love kids and they would do me favors and these favors kept me out of jail. It's like this. I could take their photos and send them to people and make money while also having access to my sexual preference and the kids would never tell. This went on and on for years until I got caught.

Question: Are you talking about actual sexual intercourse with a child as part of your relationship with young girls?

Robert: Yes, both sexual intercourse and, oral sex; me on the child and the child on me.

Question: Are you receiving any treatment in this prison?

Robert: Yes, a little. There are about 65 inmates in here doing time for child abuse offenses like mine. Not all of them are receiving treatment; it's a voluntary thing. I am going to try my best to get the help I need. It's the only way I'll be able to stay out of this place once I do my time.

3. Prepared Statement by John Ferguson for Hearings on ..... Senator Specter: Perpetrator of Porn-Related Sexual Abuse* [*The term "he" in this paper also refers to women, who also abuse children.] [** The placement of one paragraph has been changed.]

"Strangely, (not really so strangely, because I picked the idea up in a book) [about a grade school teacher seducing and having sex with one of her students], the thought of this taking place and actually happening [that if some young boys were to find books like these, it would drive them out of their minds with lust] held a delicious eroticism; an irresistible anticipation that I eventually acted upon...."

John Ferguson: These are views I have developed as a long term, heavy user of pornography, and it's connection to my being a child molester. Much of what I've learned about this subject has come from my participation in "Together We Can" of Pittsburgh, Inc., [a treatment program] which has done more to help me and people with problems like mine than anything I have come across in my experiences....

A Brief History

About the age of 9 or 10, I began getting interested in girls; staring up their dresses -‑ watching them get in and out of cars -‑ the age of the mini skirt was in fashion. I discovered masturbation a short time later. Although I didn't know what it was, I knew it felt good, and I seemed to relate it to staring at women's legs. One day, while rubbing myself against a railing, while staring inside cars that were driving home from work, with women in short skirts, I noticed that my zipper had become partially opened. I was afraid. (I knew that I had been doing something wrong); and yet, I was strangely, incredibly excited at the same time. I had discovered flashing, and I went on to do it in grade school, Jr. high, and high school.

All during this time my self-esteem deteriorated, and I withdrew more and more into myself. I could never relate to girls. I liked them, but I felt so bad about myself that I could never relate to them on an equal basis. Other kids recognized this, and called me 'queer', 'faggot', and after a while, I guess I accepted that this was the way my life was going to go.... There is no way I could ever describe how miserable and hopeless every day of my life was. At age 17, when the other kids were getting ready to graduate and get their lives going, I stood atop a bridge, planning to end mine. My whole life centered around masturbation, flashing, and sneaking and peeking at girls at any opportunity I could. I hated my life, myself, but couldn't stop from being the way I was. As bad as I felt, though, I couldn't end it all from jumping off that bridge. I made a confession on a tape recorder and played it for my parents, who were stupefied. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.... and I was put in a psychiatric ward for evaluation and to try to get my nerves calmed down. I started what was to be the beginning of ten years of psychotherapy.

Experiences with Pornography

Up until this time, my experience with pornography had consisted of looking at Sear's catalogs, at the ladies underwear section, and a few nude pictures of women in some magazines that some of the kids had hid in the woods.

At age 18, I got a job working in a hospital (the same place I was taken to after the bridge incident, so I felt proud that I had what it took, as far as guts were concerned, and felt like I had achieved a moral victory as far as making a comeback); and one day our little office, one of the guys brought in three or four hardcore porno magazines that aroused me so intensely that I could barely control myself. Never in my life had I ever seen or heard of anything like this. Sex oral sex everything close up and in color. I fed on these magazines like a man possessed. Never in my life had I ever been aroused like this. A short time later, I found out about actual movies.

I was evolving into a new world that my life would center around; a world based on loneliness and fantasy. I would use pornography to fill the emptiness and loneliness. It would become a source of stimulation as well as a source of 'education', and a tremendous source to feed my imagination and fantasy life, which is where I hid away from the world, and myself. I remember the first time I went into a porno theater. It was more a dirty, seedy, smelly slum, than a theater. People were constantly coming and going. Some were well dressed, some were shabbily dressed; most of them were alone like me. I was afraid to be there.

My initiation to the porno movie was viewing 'Deep Throat'. After the first 10 minutes, I was shocked and disgusted enough to walk out; my head lowered as I came out the door into the crowd on the sidewalk. But I kept thinking about what I'd seen, and went back two or three days later, only to walk out again, this time after 20 minutes. Eventually, I stayed for the entire movie. After 'getting used' to pornography, the shock value lessens.... This applies to all forms of perversion that are found in the pornographic movies house and bookstore. The offenses we commit are there -‑ whether in printed word fashion, or in living color. We can read about other people acting out things we've only thought about or fantasized about, and somehow it becomes more acceptable. It can, in a way be a way for the offender to justify what he does 'it's in the book and other's do it.'

Thirteen more years went by. I 'progressed' into go‑go bars, burlesque houses, and alcohol. By this time, I had gone through probably $15,000 worth of pornography; buying it, later burning it because I knew it was destroying me, turning me into a monster, only to resist it for a while and give in and buy more -‑ a lot more. I wanted -‑ had to -‑ have it. And I couldn't get enough of it. No matter how much pornography I had, I never had enough of it. Porno was number one priority in my life -‑ the only thing that made an otherwise miserable life bearable. The therapy I had received was done by people who didn't understand the complexity and obsessiveness of what I was doing, and why I couldn't seem to stop. I went to church ministers, changed my religion[,] anything to try and change my life around. Nowhere could I find anyone who understood enough to have the right answers. One of the officials of a church I visited was convinced I was possessed by demons, and thought that I should consider an exorcism. Eventually, I gave up on the counseling and religion. I felt I was so evil even God didn't want to help me.

Somewhere down the line, in my early twenties, while browsing through the porno novels, I came across a book about grade school teacher seducing and having sex with one of her students; probably between the ages of 10 to 13. I didn't think people were allowed to sell books like that. It viewed the child as going out of his mind with pleasure as his sexy teacher did everything to him. I fantasized that I was that child, and that the teacher was doing that to me. The thought came to me that if some young boys were to find books like these, it would drive them out of their minds with lust. It was driving me crazy, so I imagined the effects it would have on a kid, just beginning to become interested in girls. Strangely, (not really so strangely, because I picked the idea up in the book) the thought of this taking place and actually happening held a delicious eroticism; an irresistible anticipation that I eventually acted upon....

When you read enough pornography, over a period of time, it gets ingrained. What was once disgusting becomes arousing. There have been many times that I've cursed the day I first saw those three or four porno magazines. I was already a sex offender, because I'd been flashing, but there's no doubt what a tremendous impact pornography had on me. Today, it is the single most difficult part of my lifestyle to change. Even today, I'm in the midst of great inner struggle; one part of me knowing what pornography has done to me, and the other part craving the feelings pornography aroused in me. Pornography has had a tremendous impact on the offenses I've committed.

The point I would like to stress is that when I started going to the movie houses (the hard core porno movie houses), there were only a few of them, and they were frequented by mostly the so called 'low‑life'; the sicko's, people who hung out on street corners and asked you for money when you walked by drunks, addicts, dirty old men. Today, videocassettes are everywhere. Drive‑in theaters showing hard core porno movies are commonplace. Porno's availability has, in my opinion, increased by a factor of 10. Half of the people renting out hard core pornography on videocassette today are women. Porno today is high class, sophisticated, and much more accepted than even years ago. I have no doubt that kids today now have the opportunity to view pornography, at home, on videocassette, when mom and dad aren't home. In our society, I don't believe the 'straight' pornography (between adult men and women) can be stopped. Too many people want it -‑ people who vote. I, myself, have never come across actual films of child pornography, but they're available if you've got the money and the right connections.

... Fictionalized child pornography novels, as well as novels about people abusing animals are commonplace, and just about in every [porno book]store that I'd gone in[to]. In my opinion, although these are fictionalized novels, without any actual pictures, they're just as dangerous and damaging, because they get the mind's imagination going, and the body always follows what the mind tells it like. The mind is where it all happens, not in the penis, as some castration advocates suggest, and the body cannot react to pornography without the mind receiving it first.

I was still heavily into flashing and getting drunk at go-go bars, but now I had 'branched out', or escalated, as I've learned to call it. I've never reached the point of having sex with children, but I had gotten to the point of 'accidentally' bumping into some young girls, feeling their breasts, making it look accidental. I was developing patterns, and the longer it kept on, the bolder, I became. Maybe I wasn't yet to the point of having sex with a child, but I had my books and I could imagine it. In the process of our methods of operation, thoughts precede actions. What my mind can conceive, my body can act out. Had I not been stopped (arrested), there's no telling how far I'd ever go. I had parked my car in an area which I had scouted (targeted) for young kids to be playing. I had it all planned that they would be walking by my car, and I would just happen to be looking at a magazine, knowing all along that they would look into the car and see what I was reading. I anticipated their reactions, and had even handed them one of the magazines, imagining what they'd do with it. I had escalated and had now been frequently doing things that contained great risk of getting caught. I had been doing things a lot more on impulse. At this stage, getting arrested was just a matter of time.

The Arrest and Charges* [*The source of this section comes from Ferguson's answers to Senator Specter's questions at the ?Hearings [find out title].

Ferguson: I was arrested about one year ago for sitting in a parked car and handing out dirty magazines to young kids walking by on the sidewalk.... My charges are being held in abeyance if I did agree to seek treatment, and I have done that.

Senator Specter: Is that the only time that you have ever been arrested?

Ferguson: That's the only time I have been caught.... When the offender does things like this it's very very seldom he gets caught. [In] this particular case [I showed the kids] ... a Playboy magazine, but I also had some hardcore pornographic magazines in the car....

Senator Specter: Have you ever handed out hardcore pornographic magazine to children [before]?

Ferguson: I did hand them out just the one time, but there were several other instances where I had them in my apartment and I had some kids in there and I let them look through them. And one time there were some young children in my apartment and I had a video cassette on the TV, a hardcore porno cassette, which I allowed them to look at.

Senator Specter: Why did you make this kind of hardcore material available to children?

Ferguson: ... I didn't feel good about myself as a person and relating to women and the only way I could find to get any gratification or feel good about myself was to victimize someone weaker than me, younger than me, less knowledgeable than me....

Senator Specter: ...Did you ever molest a child sexually?

Ferguson: I fondled [them] a few times but I never had sex ... with a child.

Senator Specter: On how many occasions did you fondle a child?

Ferguson: I would say [on] four or five different occasions.

Senator Specter: How old were the children?

Ferguson: They were young girls probably between the ages of 11 and 13, I would say....

Ferguson's Postscript

I've always had an extremely bad self image. In my mind, I never measured up. With pornography, there was no risk of rejection, no responsibilities[,] my sex life was lived on the movie screen[, in] paperback novels[,] in magazines and in my fantasies. Child pornography novels show child molesting not as molesting but as sweet, delicious, and arousing sexual activity....

I imagined that showing pornography to a child was sexually arousing [to] him, and I was the source, I was able to make him feel this way. In a world where, I felt inferior, having control over kids made me feel that I could be in control.

There is no doubt in my mind that child pornography, and pornography in general[,] plays a huge role in the adult molesting a child. The adult may view a hardcore porno movie between two adults, and fantasizing himself doing that to a child, or a child doing that to him....

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