Mr Alexmst, since you ask, I would treat it this way: I would treat child-porn that uses real children very differently from child-porn that takes the form of cartoons or drawings, or that makes use of models who appear very young but are actually consenting adults. Call that imaginary-child-porn, as distinct from read-child-porn. (Real children, by definition, cannot be deemed to have given consent.)
As to real-child porn, I say the full force of the law should be directed towards punishing and deterring the producers and purveyors of real-child-porn. They need to be labelled as sex-offenders, and deterred in as many (lawful) ways as we can think of, because of the harm they do to the children they use.
So, for real-child porn, I would be harsh in sentencing criminals who compel a child to carry out sex acts. If those criminals go the extra step, and film the acts, and sell the pictures, that makes it worse -- although, in terms of the harm done to the child, surely the major part of the sentence should be for compelling the child to do the sex act, rather than for selling the pictures.
Also, I say the people who (just) view such real-child-porn should be punished, but at a lesser level. The harm they do is indirect, by encouraging real-child-porn-producers to commit future crimes against children, and I would be less harsh on the grounds that the harm done to the child by the act of (just) looking at the pictures is less, on a scale of bad.
Look at the penalties we inflict for other crimes against children. What, for example, about people who sell cigarettes to children? They do direct real harm to the child, but we punish and deter them by a fine, which is often not sufficient to deter them from doing it again. We do not put sellers of cigarettes to children on published lists of people who harm children.
Disagree with me if you wish, but I rate the crime of selling cigarettes to a child as being more bad, in terms of the direct harm done to the child, than the crime of just viewing real-child-porn pictures.
Now, as to imaginary-child-porn, on the other hand, the situation is quite different. In imaginary-child-porn, there is, by definition, no direct harm to any real child. If there are any actors involved in the film/photo productions, they are consenting adults.
As to the perverts who like to arouse themselves by watching imaginary-child-porn, I find it very hard to come up with a notion of any kind of harm they are doing to any child.
In the interests of true justice, I say: if a particular behaviour does not harm others, it should not be a crime. If anyone can identify a way any real child, past, present, or future, is harmed by a pervert possessing and looking at pictures of imaginary-child-porn, please tell me what it is.
Obviously, if a pervert goes on to commit a crime that does, directly or indirectly, harm a child, they must pay the penalty for that, and the level of the punishment should be commensurate with the level of the harm.
But making simple possession and viewing of imaginary-child-porn a crime, smacks, to me, of punishing perverts, not for the harm they do, but simply for being perverts, and I do not think Canada should be doing that.
