Liam- (just to play Devil's advocate) we can easily agree that certain portrayals of child sexuality are and should be illegal, but what about tasteful or beautiful photographs of children naked? Pictures of my daughter which I took when she was three, and which I cherish, would probably be considered prurient by some. If they were displayed on an internet site, yes they would probably seen as pornographic. In many cases, the crime is not in the content, but in the context. Again, the situation is rarely black and white, and cannot always be placed in such a neat descriptive phrase as child abuse. What's more, we deal with a sliding scale- nudes done by Impressionist painters were considered by many at the time to be titillating. Today, we may consider them sensuous, but rarely pornographic. They were seen by many as harmful to the society then. Now we agree that they enrich it.

The question of freedom of speech and of expression goes to the heart of how we perceive ourselves and our society, and how we structure our personal and societal moral codes and ethics. I would not live in a society where the degradation and abuse of children is accepted. But neither would I welcome a system that denies personal freedom in the attempt to ferret out these abuses.

LEJ