To feel completely gutted that one of my favourite authors said this (warning: child abuse) [titled edited by MNHQ]

[lougle]

Daily Mail

I've bought practically all his books. I love his writing. Yet I can't quite believe that I have read this. John Grisham has claimed that 'white guys his age' are being punished too harshly for downloading child pornography and it doesn't make them paedophiles.

but it wasn't 10-year-old boys

This comment is very very telling.
10 year old boys appear to be at one end of his "acceptability" spectrum and 16 year old girls at the other.
Child abuse is child abuse.

Disturbing how many apologists there are for this.
It's like the idiocy surrounding "degrees of rape".

I think the subtext of Grisham's comments is that 16 year old girls probably do want to be hookers and have their photo taken, and while you might not want to admit to that opinion while sober, it is an easy thought to have while drunk.

Even then, '16 year old girls wanting to be hookers' implies that he was looking for material that probably wouldn't have seemed out of place in Nuts magazine. Much as I dislike Nuts (it's gone under now hasn't it?) I doubt that this person was prosecuted for downloading the equivalent of the Nuts archive accidentally while drunk.

I think he's just a airport thriller writer.

I'd care much more about what he says if he had any judicial or political power.

Apart from everything else awful in his views there's an underlying outrage that wealthy white middle aged men should have to go to prison. I mean how awful. Everyone knows prison is only suitable for poor black kids.

Well.... whilst I my instinctive reaction was to agree with the above.

Having read his comments, what he is really arguing about is the use of jail time, particularly in the US.

All crimes are on a spectrum, and where people view different crimes on that spectrum does differ. e.g. is possession of drugs less bad than distribution.

He is saying that a one off case of someone looking at child abuse, is less bad than someone actually perpetrating the abuse. And similarly that there is a difference between 16yos and 10yos. He then says that possibly jail time is not appropriate/necessary for the lesser crimes, such as infrequent looking at 16yos...

I think I do differ with his opinion on that last point, but I do think that we need to ensure that we understand that jail + criminal record does ruin people's lives. Maybe they deserve to be ruined... but we need to be sure that we are making that decision objectively, and not emotively grouping together paeodphiles without recognizing that their actions/intent does differ.

The thing is, when you view an image of child abuse you are complicit in that abuse (after all, you are one of the reasons it's being made) and also you are abusing that child again. Maybe it doesn't hurt the child as much as the original act of abuse but actually, knowing that people are getting off on pictures of your abuse is likely to be incredibly harmful.

I have no problems at all with people viewing child abuse being jailed. Regardless of their race or age. Has anyone here ever come across child pornography accidentally on line? I never have - ordinary pornography occasionally but never child. And then what - they 'happen' upon it and just download it by accident?

I think that JG needs investigating, if this is his mindset.

It is NOT 'child porn' or, even worse 'kiddie porn'.

It is images of real live children being abused.
Someone's children: in fear and pain.
And anyone who looks at them is part of that abuse.
They provide a market for this vile trade.
People who watch child abuse are abusers too.

Paeodophiles actions and intent ARE ALL the same:
gratification from the abuse of children.

Yes, there is a 'spectrum' of criminality.
But the problem is not that people are being locked up for 'too long' for more 'minor' offences, it is that they are not being locked up for long ENOUGH for the more severe ones.

As a society we do a LOT of tolerating of child abuse. A LOT.

Ok, I am going to get my arse handed to me on a plate but here goes:

JG has gone down in my estimations because of his whinging defence of his dirty pervert friends and the idea of 'accidentally' downloading these sorts of images, which is pretty laughable.

I am also at the way he said 'it wasn't like it was 10 year old boys '- as if the abuse of boys is worse than the abuse of girls or something. And the way he talks about 'white' men as I don't understand the relevance there.

BUT

I do think there is a big difference between looking at sexual images of 10 year old children (of either sex!) and looking at sexual images of 16 year olds, who in the UK, Canada and plenty of states in the USA, are perfectly legally able to consent to sexual acts with men and women of any age.

Yes, it's illegal to do so, and yes it's wrong and gross and Pervy for middle age blokes to be doing this but are people really saying that looking at 16 year olds and looking at 10 year olds are the same thing?! And as I said above, someone who has a sexual interest in 16 year olds is not actually a paedophile.

I work in IT/new media BarbarianMum and people do post links, which other people do open without realising what it is, there's a way of changing the URL for example. It's very rare though. In 2 years I've seen one link. Problem is, is when you open it, it stays on your hard drive and your hard drive keeps a record as though you've downloaded it. If you email it to get it checked by your boss (for example), you're distributing it.

I think that many men, at least men of a certain age, feel this way.

Reading Grisham's comments was almost verbatim the argument my own father gave for having 1000's of images of child abuse on his PC . Discovered by my young teenage sister .

I don't understand it at all even after 10 years of trying to get it. It's like they are hardwired up all wrong. My father, like Grisham I imagine, proudly describes himself as a "feminist" and a supporter of abused people/underdogs. When I and others robustly challenged this position I was told I was not "intellectual" enough to understand where he was coming from.

Absolute arrogant deluded hateful fuckers.

It's grim I remember spotting an article about a group in the Netherlands or somewhere around there who'd taken their Government to court because the Government said their group was illegal and they disagreed. They don't see their behaviour as wrong

I honestly don't believe that you can go to prison for 3 years in Canada for accidentally downloading a picture of a 16 year old. The police do not organise sting operations to crack down on relatively harmless pictures of 16 year old girls, and I doubt that you can be arrested for clicking on the porn equivalent of Mac Defender malware.

The reason that it is illegal to download certain pictures is that by doing so you are creating a market for the people that create and share them. In the same way some countries have very strict anti-drug laws.

So in case my argument wasn't clear there, I don't think Grisham is accurately describing what led his friend to be sent to prison for 3 years.

I agree Merry

Ok, I apologise for my dig at JG's writing - I agree, the topics he writes about are excellent and well-thought through, I just don't like his style of writing and find it a bit tiresome that the 'hero' is often a clean-cut handsome young man.

Anyway, his writing or my taste in reading is not the issue here.
I agree that a relatively longish prison sentence will not be handed out for an accidental viewing of an abusive picture.
His reasoning wrt 10 year old boys vs 16 yo girls who look like 30 yo is just sickening and really worrying because I bet that kind of thinking is more widespread than we would like to think.

I saw the headline but didn't read the article because I knew it would make me angry. I suspect he's just ended his career

I saw the headline but didn't read the article because I knew it would make me angry. I suspect he's just ended his career

Tbh I think he's expressing a pretty standard view. Offenders downplay, the press minimises, idiots suck it up. I'm sure the lawyer friend did tell him he'd "only" whilst he was "drunk" etc. However anyone who is fool enough to believe you get 3yrs for looking at 16yo girls deserves his career in the public eye ended. It's hard enough to get 3yrs for the people making thus shit.

Tbf to the mail though, the words aren't terrible. They've used "porn" when referencing him but "child abuse" when using their own words.

No need to apologise, PacificDogwood You're quite right about the hero often being a clean cut handsome young man. Although, of course, in the Pelican Brief the hero gets shot fairly early on.

John Grisham has published the following comment on his website:

*"Anyone who harms a child for profit or pleasure, or who in any way participates in child pornography—online or otherwise—should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

My comments made two days ago during an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph were in no way intended to show sympathy for those convicted of sex crimes, especially the sexual molestation of children. I can think of nothing more despicable.

I regret having made these comments, and apologize to all."* www.jgrisham.com/a-statement-from-john-grisham-2/

I suspect it's the best he can do, under the circumstances.

He is a sick man. I shall never buy or read any of his books again.

Clearly he's realised his opinion is an unpopular one and is now trying cover his sorry arse.

Too little, too late. Even in his apology he doesn't use the correct terminology. Pity there is nowhere to reply.

Back pedalling IMO.
Poor show of an apology.

Ah, just found his fb page. Feeling much better now.

First we get Freud making disablist comments then frantically back pedalling when he thought his job was on the line.
Now Grisham does this.
It is the cyber version of a bunch of petrol station flowers and a "sorry love didn't really mean it".
Arrogant idiots.