>looking at it is a victimless crime

It creates a market. Is there no empathy for the subject of the photo? Would you like your 6-year old son or daughter to be looked at with a sexual gaze?

It would only create a market if the recipient paid for the porn or exchanged some other porn for it. I agree that participating in a market for child porn should be a criminal act. However, I don't see how merely possessing an image that you happened to find on the web can create a market (or cause harm to the person depicted in the image).

Victimless crime?

How about you ask those who were abused whether they feel like they are not victimised by people spreading and owning images of their abuse.

The victims are quite obviously real.

For the most part the victims are anonymous and will never know whether the photo is spreading unless they themselves go to the darker places of the internet.

I see your point, but looking at a photo of someone without their permission is vastly different than raping them.

So you think it should only be a crime if the victims know about it? That seems like a weird and unnecessary wrinkle. And I don’t think most victims have to go to “darker places of the internet” to know, given that they were present when the abuse took place and was filmed/photographed.

I would also like to know when I said that raping a child and looking at images of said rape are equivalent crimes.

Also, it’s looking at an image of someone being abused, not just an image of someone.

Are all CP images images of abuse? For instance, if two teenagers film themselves having sex, are they both abusing each other?