| the blog of human failure
Let me introduce a hypothetical subject to you all, and you can let me know what you think about it. Let’s say you were a 15 year old male and you had a girlfriend. Now with full knowledge and willing consent of this girlfriend, you videotaped the two of you having sex at that age of 15. You then kept that video tape for 20 years until you were the age of 35 years old. You are no longer seeing this girl, but you still have the tape.
Does the fact that you are in the tape mitigate the child porn aspect of watching two 15 year olds have sex? Is it OK if you watch the tape for nostalgia but not OK watching it for sexual pleasure? I mean, it’s you in the tape, so this has the strong possibility of being a loophole. You were the one there having the consensual video-taped sex with another age-appropriate-at-the-time partner. How can it be immoral for you to watch a video tape of something 20 years later that if was perfectly moral for you to actually be doing and video tape yourself doing 20 years ago?
If you think it is immoral for you to watch the tape, that must mean that you think your identity significantly changes over time to the extent that who you were 20 years ago is not even the same person as who you are today. After all, you are not even entitled to watch a compromising tape of your other self.
Let’s take the idea a step further. What if you and your girlfriend, both at the age of 35, consensually video tape yourselves having sex? Now it is 45 years later and you are 80 years old. You no longer are dating the woman in the video and you no longer look much like the 35 year old you. Are you entitled to watch a video tape of the 35 year old you having sex at the age of 80? What about watching it for sexual pleasure as opposed to nostalgia? Is it too pathetic and creepy to watch a 35 year old version of yourself having sex?
If you think it would be pathetic or creepy to watch the tape, you must again think there is a significant difference in identity between the two versions of yourself, where you are again not entitled to watch a compromising tape of what was 45 years ago perfectly acceptable behavior.
Your current identity will over time make you a separate person from your past identity. Does this mean that the 35 year old is not entitled to the awards and accomplishments of the 15 year old version of himself? Does this mean the 80 year old is not really entitled to a lifetime of accomplishments simply because he is no longer the same person who performed them? Do I have to throw away this video or what?
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Interesting concept. Something like that might be close to call. It’s kind of on the same grounds as the old question “If having sex with an identical clone of yourself considered masturbation?”
Honestly, I don’t think there would be anything wrong with watching the tape. If there were, then by the same logic, merely remembering the event, in the confines of your own mind, would be considered “creepy”.
While, technically, it would be considered watching child porn, the fact that it’s your own self really doesn’t make it any different than your thoughts. And you can’t be arrested for what you think (yet).
Comment by D14BL0 — September 19, 2008 #