Justifying Alfie's Naughty Boy Page

a discussion between ianboy and Alfie

Given my explicit stance on not promoting punishment or abuse of children, I have been questioned about my site's link to Alfie's Naughty Boy Page, a site last up a year ago which contained images of under-age (non-adult) boys apparently or in reality being spanked and beaten, as well as mainstream movie clips of such scenes.

After a good deal of correspondence with Alfie thrashing out (!) the issues surrounding his site and our respective (and mainly similar) attitudes to child abuse and sexuality in general, we have collaborated on the following discussion which we feel puts a serious case for a sane and rational appraisal of this material and for the validity of publishing it online.

We hope that it adds substantially to any sensible debate on this issue.

IAN:

Hi Alfie. I'd like to say how much I respect your resilience in the face of considerable adversity in keeping your great "Naughty Boy Page" up and running.

Since putting my own site up (about adult consensual discipline) I seem to have turned into a full-time "agony aunt" (emphasis on the "agony" not the "aunt" please !!) on the subject of discipline for quite a few young inexperienced guys who contact me. It's cool, and I'm having a great time writing to them and giving them a bit of confidence to go out and have some fun - now if I could only take my own advice . . . !

ALFIE:

Heh, no one is good at that. Marriage guidance counsellors have one of the highest divorce rates for any profession; over 50% of nurses smoke; doctors generally drink too much and in teaching I've found that the most disruptive kids tend to be the sons and daughters of police officers and fellow teachers . . .

IAN:

Can I ask exactly why you decided to make the site ? I've got only half the answer from what you've said about your own childhood interests and the comment page on your site.

ALFIE:

The only honest answer I can give is "Fuck knows."

It was April 6th (I just had to check, I knew it was the first Friday in April). The rug rats and the wifey thing were away visiting relatives for the weekend and I had nothing too pressing to do, so I started catching up on my little fetish list on the Net. As I remember, I found that Count Brass's board had been deleted (for "breach of TOS"), half his site (The Movie and TV Spanking Page) was missing, several other (legal and decent within the context) sites I knew about had been deleted, several Yahoo groups I knew of had disappeared . . .

It was a spur of the moment thing. I had just written a javascript for a slide-show prog, and I was thinking of starting a personal home page. Then I thought, "Sod the personal page !" I had maybe 40 pictures I had collected of movie spanking scenes, to which I added everything I could salvage from the Count's site. I configured it all in the slide-show script I'd written, added a couple of light-hearted commentary pages and uploaded it there and then. The rest you know.

Also that weekend, I started making inquiries about why perfectly legal sites seemed to be disappearing en masse. The finger pointed squarely at Kidspank (I could name names, but there's no point). I am not and never have been a member of Kidspank, but it pissed me off to think that they were trying to force the hands of good free sites when they themselves charge for third-rate galleries of pictures to which they don't even hold the copyright.

I'm not trying to make a social point. It's not an anti-spanking idea any more than it's a pro-spanking one. And a big part of the motivation is that I have enjoyed collecting the material, to be honest. Let's just say it exists because it exists, and my focus now is to ensure that it continues to exist as something positive and non abusive - if that's possible.

I hope you understand a bit better now . . . This is useful for me, too, because I'm still not really sure why I did/am doing it.

IAN:

How did you feel when you'd put the site up - nervous about the possible consequences or OK with the idea ?

ALFIE:

This is a bit weird really - I expected to feel uncomfortable about publishing it. I did the original site in one evening as I said, over a few beers, and really felt quite self conscious about it - particularly opening a Freeserve account called "Spanksite" . . .

I think the turning point in the way I felt about it was when I idly posted the URL on a couple of newsgroups (alt.soc.spanking and alt.spanking.contacts, as I recall, neither of which I'm normally subscribed to). Come bedtime an hour later, I casually thought I'd take a look to see if anyone had visited - and was shocked to discover it had had nearly 50 hits in the first hour alone . . . That really changed the way I felt about it.

IAN:

In what way ? You felt better about publishing because so many people were apparently legitimately interested, or worse because you considered how many of them might be viewing it for the "wrong" reasons ? I only just found your site when I started doing the research for my own site links, so I don't know for how long it didn't have the serious comment page.

ALFIE:

Yes, I felt better. Neither of the newsgroups I posted to was pornographic or in any way dodgy. I suddenly had a feeling of being less alone in my inner world.

It had a less serious comments page from the outset, stating that I am a father who has chosen not to spank his kids. The more considered bit only went up around mid June, just before it got blocked by Freeserve.

IAN:

I was recently asked about your site by someone I was corresponding with. He described it as "compelling, but disturbing", being concerned about "all the pictures of boys getting bare bottom spankings" and when I thought about it I felt I had to give him some sort of justification on your behalf, partly to work out some of the issues for myself. I'd like to discuss with you some of the things I replied to him.

ALFIE:

Thanks. I get quite a few comments myself of the "It just seems really strange that people should want to post this sort of stuff" variety. In saying he found it "compelling", your correspondent is more honest than many.

IAN:

He asked whether these are actual real pictures of boys being spanked by their fathers or all faked ?

ALFIE:

Most of them are fake; some probably aren't. Some of those that aren't are from well known mainstream movies. I certainly didn't and wouldn't commission any of them !

IAN:

It was difficult at first to respond absolutely positively to his question. The pictures are certainly "compelling" to me and my correspondent because of our own CP interest, but mostly because they represent the pinnacle of our own fantasies sometimes about what we perhaps wish MIGHT have happened to us as boys. The problem comes when that is twisted by some people to representing what they'd LIKE to do to a young boy if they had the opportunity, i.e. a wish to abuse which neither of us have. The motive is entirely personal for each viewer and therefore everybody has a different response to the images.

ALFIE:

There is a long tradition of taking and publishing child spanking pictures. Just take a look at the "Vintage" gallery on my site. Before there were photographs, people made sculptures, painted and drew pictures depicting juvenile physical punishment. Maybe that's weird on the face of it, but it seems to be pretty natural behaviour. It was inevitable that it was going to happen on the Internet.

Some, perhaps many, visitors to the site will be child abusers who use it for their own gratification. That's not what it's there for, but it would be foolish to deny the fact. But does that make me any more culpable than the people who made the films depicted on it (many of which are deemed family entertainment) ? I think not. And I feel far less culpable than the advertising industry which a generation ago used scantily clad women to advertise cars and now (given that tits are no longer PC) uses cutesy kids in their place. There is, I understand, a "boy-love" website which has a whole gallery of "boys in TV commercials". The subliminal messages we receive from the media are often appalling. At least Alfie's page is honest about what it is.

Did you know that Mothercare catalogues are currency on prison VP wings ? Whereas many prisoners will have pictures from the likes of "Playboy" on their walls, paedophiles will have clippings of the kids in catalogues. Do you think Mothercare don't know that ?

(Yes, I find the thought distasteful too, but there's nothing the prison authorities can do about it. Mothercare pictures aren't pornographic . . . Or are they ?)

Conventional therapy wisdom would take issue with what I'm saying here. The model goes like this . . .

Child abuse is an addiction. If you show an alcoholic lots of images of drink, (s)he is more likely to take a drink. The same applies to child abuse, be it sexual or physical. The abuser fantasises; he masturbates; the pleasure of masturbation reinforces the fantasy. This cycle continues until the fantasy is no longer enough and the abuser acts it out. Pornography (and arguably a site like mine) can be used as a tool in this process. I am therefore being irresponsible. I am part of the process of abuse.

I say, isn't that a bit precious ? OK, we know that abusers invariably collect porn and wank over it; but so do a lot of people who AREN'T abusers. Can you really blame the porn ? We don't blame cars for pedestrian deaths - we blame the drivers.

And don't we ALL have fantasies which are inappropriate, if not downright illegal ? No doubt there are many who would find my fantasies repugnant. Fantasy is a very personal thing. If I were to act out some of my less appropriate fantasies, I would be abusing kids and breaking the law. So I don't do it. Simple as that.

But I simply can't accept that thinking about these things makes me a child abuser. Is that really any different to fancying someone when the feeling isn't reciprocated ? If the other person is married, does that make you an adulterer ? If (s)he is just not interested, do your fantasies make you a rapist ? If so, I would venture to say that we're all raping adulterers.

Anyone who abuses a child HAS MADE A CONSCIOUS DECISION TO DO SO. It's not about compulsion, it's about choice. Usually the abuser will have gone to great lengths to justify the behaviour to his (or her) self, to water down the guilt. Nevertheless, any abuser has still made the decision to abuse. Films, websites, horny pictures and hardcore don't make decisions. People do.

IAN:

About this addiction theory - I considered this when I was younger, and wondered whether all the masturbation I indulged in as a teen (and there was a lot !) fantasising about being spanked, caned or strapped had "made" me into an obsessed spanking fetishist by exactly that process of "fixating" the image being fantasised about that the theory describes. (A sort of reverse aversion therapy !!)

I personally think it's not that likely after all though. With hindsight I can look back on the much earlier pre-sexual stimuli and very young experiences that I talk about in the "thoughts and experiences" essay on my site, so whatever it is in my psyche that makes me a spanking fetishist it was obviously deeply embedded long before puberty and sexual awareness, and to some extent I guess that must follow for most other people - or is that an unreasonable generalisation ?

ALFIE:

Maybe; maybe not. I know I was turned on by spanking when I was 7 or 8. But everyone's experience is unique. I know people who say they realised they were gay when they were 5. When I was 5 I had no perception of my sexual orientation at all - although looking back, I think I still got excited when other kids were in trouble . . .

IAN:

It's all about what we do with it and the moral choice we make and our own self-control, as you said. Even if I strongly had the desire to spank children, which I DON'T (I think the reaction of young adults and older - and of course now legal - teens is much more . . . delicious and satisfying, as they are more mature, more equal to the one giving the spanking, and by giving their full adult consent they can appreciate the sexual/fun rather than merely the pain/punishment component of it better) I'd never actually do it - it's just not an option in my mindset.

There are many stories about spanking (quite young) children in the Jimka archive, as well as scenes where that develops into sex with extremely underage kids. I don't enjoy those stories too much, but I understand that they are purely fantasy and don't represent what the authors actually go out and do (I hope). If they do then they ARE abusers, but the fact that I have read their story doesn't make me any more likely to BECOME an abuser, it doesn't change my view of how inappropriate taking that action would be. Should I ask Jimka to remove those stories from the Archive though ?

It is the same for me with your pictures (and video clips) - I respond to them mainly by empathising with the boy (apparently) getting spanked, wanting to be that boy, wondering how it would feel to be that boy, and sometimes (to be sure) what it would be like to be the adult with a boy over my lap like that, but I'd much rather have a real responsive adult there, that I could more easily find and contact if I wanted, so I'd never twist that into wanting to go out and find an under-age boy to spank myself. I'm no saint - as I've said, I do have those impulses occasionally, but it's just never going to happen, I won't allow it.

I actually have a young nephew (14 now) who for much of his young life has been a bit out of control, almost hyperactive, and I've wondered occasionally what might happen in a "baby-sitting" situation if I was ever asked - in fact my sister (who is 12 or so years older than me) has even joked now and then that I should spank him for them - if only she knew !! His Dad has certainly only play-spanked him to my knowledge, which is unfortunately part of the problem in my own opinion - the kid has had all the wrong discipline signals from him. Most of the family think he is an appalling parent anyway, and he is (surprise) a teacher !

In reality, I'd almost certainly actively avoid getting into the situation in the first place rather than leave myself open to any such temptation, but I'm not foolish enough to deny that it is there in my nature. That self-awareness is what makes me a moral human being !

ALFIE:

As you probably realise, it's not in my mind set actually to spank a child. I have on the odd occasion lashed out in the heat of the moment on our two - an isolated slap, nothing serious, certainly nothing I enjoyed; in fact I felt nothing but remorse. I remain firmly opposed to physical punishment which, given loving, constructive discipline, is, I believe, unnecessary.

My partner doesn't feel as firmly about it and has occasionally spanked them both (although I can count such instances on the fingers of one hand). Witnessing THAT provoked such a complex and contrasting set of feelings in me. Anger, sympathy and unease were I think the primary ones, although excitement and ill-disguised enjoyment were part of it too. It's just not something I would do - I feel it would be damaging, for ME at the very least.

I was actually a member of STOPP (Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment) as a student. I feel there is a BIG difference between a parent smacking a child and a teacher using pain/violence as a method of control. I don't condone either, as I've said; I just feel the latter is big-time out of order whereas the former is forgivable.

If anyone laid a finger on my kids, no matter WHAT they'd done, I would be straight down the cop shop without a second thought. In my mind it's only right that I should be able to take that stance without some shit wingeing about "in loco parentis". I don't give up my parental rights or responsibilities while my kids are at school. Oh no I don't ! At the end of the day, if they were to do something outrageous, it's MY PARTNER AND ME who'd have to attend a police interview; it's WE who'd have to weather the implied criticism of bad parenting - not some cane wielding teacher with a diploma in social science from Nurdsley College of Higher Education. I make no apologies for my erstwhile membership of STOPP. And, as it happens, it STOPPed a year after I joined.

IAN:

Equally, I'd feel very nervous about ever being a real father and having to make that decision for myself, to spank or not to spank, as I'd never be sure whether I was doing it for my own benefit (with dubious rationalisation) or the child's ! Thankfully, perhaps, I'll never have that problem, although in other ways it's possible I might have been a great parent and my "mission" to help the younger and more inexperienced guys out there who write to me could be some sort of over-compensation.

ALFIE:

Quite possibly. The paternal instinct is, I believe, much under-estimated. I think one can (excuse the expression !) flog oneself too much over the way one feels. The simple fact is that it's not unusual for people to have a fetish like this. Come to that, it's not unusual for parents to feel sexually aroused by their kids. The writer Blake Morrison summed it up for me in one of his books; in it he describes reading a bedtime story to his daughter, sitting on his lap, when suddenly he realises he's got an erection. That's one thing, but it would be quite another, he muses, to want to act on his arousal, or even to want his daughter to know that he was aroused. As it was, he would have felt mortified if she'd found out. (I wonder sometimes whether said daughter, who would now be in her late adolescence, has ever read that passage, heh . . .)

As adults and, maybe, particularly as men, what is demanded is a sense of responsibility for how we behave. We can't change what we sometimes feel, but we can act responsibly in the face of it. It's the men who let their dicks rule their heads who are dangerous, not the ones who have "inappropriate" feelings. Sod it, we all have those in some shape or form.

IAN:

I should say that I stumbled by accident some months back onto a Russian child porn site - it was one of those classic nightmare browsing experiences where just out of curiosity I clicked on a "teen" link from a "twink" site and ended up with multiplying browser windows that couldn't be closed fast enough before they spawned new and even more depraved sites ! NOT where I wanted to go today !! Anyway, while waiting for a knock on the door (!) I felt I should see what all the fuss was about, as I'd already got there, and not through any really conscious choice of my own.

It was actually distasteful to me, and certainly not arousing, to see a nude 8 or 9 year-old boy, however good looking, displaying himself like an adult for the camera. I was perhaps understandably relieved. Frankly, I'm a simple romantic and I'd only be interested in giving them a good cuddle, not in the utterly abhorrent idea of fondling or having sex with them.

ALFIE:

Yes, I feel the same way. And it's not just the notion that those kids are being abused (although that is the case) - the idea of adult/child sexual contact turns my stomach.

Perhaps that's a denial of part of my inner self (in the same way as the closet gay who, when asked, will launch into an "I'm not a fookin' poof, dirty perverts" rant). But I don't think so. I've considered the possibility; after all, I DO find children, particularly boys, attractive. Kids are cute; that's not news to any of us. However, I genuinely believe I have no desire to behave sexually with them. The very idea sickens me.

I must say, though, that for this reason I am deeply suspicious of people who demonise and dehumanise paedophiles. That is NOT detracting from the abhorrance of child abuse, of course; but to me, it's child molestation we should hate, not child molesters. I think it's quite possible there's a bit of a pedo in all of us, and we have to be aware of it to ensure that we stay safe as adults. Repugnance at this concept and the brutalisation of those who fail to stay safe is a bit too glib for me.

I am also narked by people who take on the cloak of "boy lovers" (or other equivalent tags). What squicks me here is that these guys tend to end up revelling in their feelings, and worshipping the notion of youth and boyhood. Ugh ! Many of them will claim (perhaps too vivaciously for my liking) that they do not want a sexual relationship with a boy, yet they will actively seek out the company of boys . . . I don't want to do that. I find kids (my own excepted) pretty irritating on the whole. I much prefer adult company.

It's sad that the only person I've been able to discuss it with is my partner. She understands and accepts it, but then she's a very special person. In a perfect world, we'd all be allowed to be open about the way we feel, without fear of criticism (provided we're doing nothing wrong) and I believe the world would be a happier and safer place for it. As it is, though, were I to be open about the murkier side of my sexuality, it would probably cost me my career. In that way (and I think ONLY that way) the NAMBLA/PIE stance rings true: it's very similar to being gay or bi 50 years ago.

IAN:

Absolutely. Your wife must be an exceptional person - does she know about your site ?

There are a few exceptional people around in the world, but they do take some looking for. I've been fairly lucky with the good friends I've made over the years, met through my short and dubious political sojourn, small ads and now the internet, but I haven't found that long-term soulmate yet. Maybe soon, through the website . . . As I've said to you before, being self-employed and with an "arty" background allows me somewhat more liberty to self-express and maybe a few less worries about the consequences. I sympathise with your circumstances and inability to "come out" in this way !

ALFIE:

Yes, my partner does know, but it was about a month before I told her about it. She was a bit taken aback, I think, but generally pretty cool with it.

IAN:

Some of the pictures on your site are extremely arousing for me, but I am sure that is a matter of context and the sense of the drama being played out in them, not the age of the boys in them. There is just one picture of me on my site that I composited (they were all done solo with an autotimer so far !) - the one with the phantom hand holding a strap. I loved the base image but felt that it needed that something extra to finish it, so carefully grafted on the hand to make a story, the idea of something about to happen, which made it even better (for me, and presumably from all the fan mail I've had, many others too !).

The Bebbons pictures on your site - where on earth did they come from ? I've never heard of them before, but they are artfully "enhanced" boy images that have undergone the same process, for the same reason.

ALFIE:

Ugo Bebbons is a graphic artist who specialises in this sort of thing. I've had the honour of his visiting my site ! What I like about his work is the humorous element in particular. They are all 100% fake. I've just collected them from here and there on the Net.

IAN:

Some of these and other pictures COULD be argued to be child porn (although you carefully reject "sexual" images or ones showing genitalia), but is it in that sense any different from certain of those mainstream film scenes, e.g. "The General" ? I'm sure the director and actors in that didn't think they were making a porn film ! You could argue that those were child actors who'd given their consent for the purposes of the film and therefore were not being abused, but how do we actually know that the ones in the pictures weren't also ? Many of those images are obviously staged and don't show an ACTUAL punishment happening, much like the Royale Studio images I have on my site with the young soldiers and sailors getting caned and flogged.

Anyway, I'm sure those boys in "The General" dormitory sequence actually got hit with that belt - the way the flesh bounced and they jerked away from the blow couldn't have been faked. That was REAL punishment, being filmed. How different is that really from a boy taking some spanks to show a pink bottom for the camera from (presumably) his father or other guardian ?

ALFIE:

Absolutely. The example that comes to my mind is the British film "Kes". You must have seen the famous caning scene, and there is no doubt that it was done for real. In fact, watch very carefully and you'll see that the last boy (the innocent bystander) has clearly visible marks on his hands from an earlier take. Oh, yes, those were genuine tears. Later in the same film, Billy Casper is delivered a full-blown clout by the games teacher - again, no punches pulled in that one. I have often wondered whether Barry Hines (himself a teacher in real life) actually went to the extent of insisting that the water in the shower scene really was freezing cold . . . Heh, it wouldn't surprise me . . .

And have you ever seen a film set in Glasgow called "Leaving" ? Yowch !

The point is, in all such examples it would have been perfectly possible to simulate the scenes with little, if any, loss of dramatic effect. People have actually sat down, discussed the matter, and decided to do it for real.

IAN:

The films we have just mentioned, and others on your site - to your knowledge are there ANY at all in which the scenes were basically gratuitous, designed to thrill ? I can't think of any in which the sense of the scenario was NOT to underline a morally strong message, that the institutions or individuals being portrayed were effectively abusing the children in their charge. There is perhaps the main problem that people seem to have, as the context of a piece always colours the way we view it, and the collection of such clips in a site such as yours or the Count's, removed from the moral context originally surrounding them, makes us approach them with a quite different expectation and perception.

ALFIE:

No. Certainly the over-riding theme in "Kes" is how kids are shoddily treated, particularly in a working-class environment.

The same is true of "Leaving", although I think the tawsing scenes I was referring to, which are palpably genuine, were designed to shock and could be seen as gratuitous. But we're talking here about 15/16 year old actors - still kids, but with enough understanding of what it was about - and from an era when CP in Scottish schools was still relatively commonplace. They quite possibly got belted at school in real life; although not, I hope, with the brutality depicted in the film !

It just interests me that nobody comments about scenes like that when they're on TV, and yet people are disturbed by certain material on my site. As you suggest, it's probably the context. But I'm sure a lot of people do watch those scenes for "questionable" reasons.

IAN:

Then again, the definition of child pornography has changed over the years. I think it was in fact Lewis Carroll, the famous Victorian author, who was recently "unmasked" as a prolific photographer of nude prepubescent girls, which at that time was considered quite acceptable "Art".

ALFIE:

Indeed. His favourite subject was Alice Liddel, for whom he wrote "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland". Most of his "friends" were little girls. He was the funnyman our parents warned us about. He was also a clergyman and an Oxford don. Such fine fellows were in those days above suspicion. To be fair, no one has ever alleged that he abused any child (unless you include nude piccie taking), but I think we can all take a good guess at his fantasies . . .

IAN:

Then there is the question I've also had raised, about what sort of parent might allow these sort of pictures to be taken of their child ?

That's got to be extremely difficult to answer without knowing some sort of context for the images originally. For instance, some have certainly and many others might conceivably have come from publications or videos that were trying to bring about an end to child abuse and physical punishment, or perhaps in that earlier "Vintage" age to show bad children the reward for bad behaviour or naughtiness (and thus discourage it), but once they are removed from that maybe legitimate context they appear quite different.

In the case of that Russian child porn site I mentioned, and similar sites, clearly the parents are exploiting their child in order to gain desperately needed hard currency - that's a sad fact of modern life and more an indictment of their socio-political circumstances.

ALFIE:

Incidentally, I suspect that many of the "private" captures (such as the Chris and Brad series) are posed rather than genuine. There are many more featuring the same kids. It's all a bit too pat. So what are the adults who take and distribute those shots playing at ?

Hmm . . . There is a big demand for such pictures and probably they got their rocks off on it. So ? We live in an accountability culture these days. I don't think the photographers who took the shots in the "Vintage" library had to account for themselves like that; most of those appeared in mainstream magazines. 3D stereograms of kids getting spanked were particularly popular in the infancy of the 20th century. Before photography, I don't think the people who painted those awful Victorian "corner time" paintings you often see in pubs and "Everything £1" shops had to face uncomfortable questions about whether they were pedoes, did they ?

IAN:

I agree that at this distance there's almost no way to tell how or where or by whom the pictures were made. They could have been made for legitimate purposes or purely sexual ones. It's possible that some of those were real punishments taped or photographed without the boys' consent, but who can tell us now, except for the participants ? Part of the difficulty is that for better or worse, like the film scenes, they gain a NEW context by being displayed in a gallery with other boyspanking images and that automatically changes how we feel about them, whatever their original provenance.

ALFIE:

When I first started the site back in April, I didn't put any "private" pictures in. Gradually I've been softening on that issue. After all, they're out there. But the day I suspect that a kid has been hurt or abused for the sake of the site is the day I'll pull the plug on it for good.

IAN:

I think the fundamental point is that these things are, as you say, out there already and can't just be unmade or destroyed - they have a validity in themselves which transcends both sides of the argument, and to some extent actually support the views of those people who want child abuse to stop. The fact that such a site is there and has all these confrontational images SHOULD have the result that the issue can be properly discussed and people like us can confront our emotions, deeper sexuality and ideas on the subject, hopefully very rationally.

ALFIE:

I want child abuse to stop, like any humane, rational person.

Most of the pictures on my site are from freely available films and books. The bruised butts collection, for example, was gleaned from child protection books, medical texts and newspaper articles. People may find it uncomfortable to see it all collected together, but the fact remains that it IS all out there. All I've done is to put it at the end of one URL.

IAN:

Unfortunately some of those people choose to exert their point of view by trying to get sites like yours shut down, and the movie/TV resource pages, even though they are only listing and making available stuff that has already been aired to the general public and is therefore public domain. I therefore respect your right to publish the stuff. It's a short step from closing down sites like yours to public book-burning, as after all who gets to choose which books are burnt and why ? Not us, for sure. Never trust anyone with an agenda to conceal or destroy information, for whatever reasons !

ALFIE:

Hear hear !

However, I'm pretty certain that Kidspank were in some way responsible for the deletions I've experienced. So often, what looks like a morality/censorship issue boils down to money.

Why did Eidosnet selectively delete every picture on my site which depicted spanking when they have a newsfeed which carries groups which exist for the sole purpose of posting images of underage boys being abused by adults ? Are you telling me that Eidosnet are too stupid to realise what a group with a name like "fucked.prettyboy" is about ? They certainly know they carry it on their newsfeed. I pointed it out to them, posing the question above. I am still awaiting a reply, but the newsgroup is still there. Money again, I reckon. People are attracted to an ISP which boasts "uncensored newsfeed".

IAN:

When I first started thinking about these issues, when I wrote my original replies to the people who questioned me about it, I did feel that I had reservations about what you had put on the site. I now know that I was in fact simply not facing up to my own reactions to the stuff. I'm in no position to comment or moralise, really - I left your site a few Megs lighter in disk space and in a way I felt slightly uncomfortable at the time about why I'd downloaded some of those images. Let me reiterate that I absolutely respect your right to freedom of expression and to republish this public domain material.

Anyway, it's worth considering the implications of all the normal adult porn there is in circulation. Many (straight) just-adult (18 year-old) boys have posed nude for gay porn mags over the years, knowing full well that thousands of men (me included to be sure) would get a sexual thrill from imagining doing things to them that would have been quite illegal at the time - remember the gay age of consent was only just lowered from 21 to 16 here in the UK ! Did these boys lose sleep over this once they'd pocketed the money for the photo shoot ? I very much doubt it. They probably had some mildly exhibitionist fun doing it anyway !

It's a minor step from this to getting a thrill out of seeing a boy being (apparently) spanked in a photo, probably equally staged in a studio and possibly equally rewarded, and imagining doing that to them yourself. It would certainly be no less illegal if acted out ! There's a very fine dividing line, but who is doing the dividing and defining the line ?

ALFIE:

My philosophy on this is that people shouldn't feel bad about enjoying looking at those images. If it makes people feel uncomfortable, that's probably a good thing. If it makes them think, then so much the better. It's not an intentional payoff, but some of the best payoffs aren't.

IAN:

On the subject of the age of consent, I used to work in a gay political organisation back in the late 1980s that was campaigning among many other things to equalise it for gay and straight sex. (We could never have believed then that it would take another 12 years !) Although I have always agreed with that goal, others of my colleagues at the time believed strongly that the whole principle of an age of consent was flawed, as teens vary so widely in their sexual and social maturity. They would have liked to abolish it completely, NOT to open the floodgates to widespread legal abuse of children, but to prevent the legal harassment of those teens who were capable of making informed choices and exploring their own sexuality having the fun with others that they were socially and biologically capable of.

They wanted that abolition however to go hand in hand with even GREATER protection of and information for children, so that they were capable of making those informed choices, and if necessary saying "No" without feeling pressured. It was a compelling argument, but unfortunately completely unfeasible to enact under the current social climate, with parents and government unwilling to give adequate support for uncensored sex education in schools at an early enough age to be effective (in preventing teenage pregnancy, for instance).

ALFIE:

Yep, I'm still in two minds over that one. To me, if two lads aged, say, 15 and 16 are having a sexual relationship then, all things being equal, that's fine. If it were a 15 year-old and a 30 year old guy, I'd be on the phone to the police. Let's not lose sight of the fact that the reason the age of consent law was passed in the first place wasn't to criminalise young people who are ready for sex, it was to prevent child abuse. Also, the notion of consent means more than just agreeing . . . It means agreeing in an informed context, as you say. A young child may be more than happy to "play a private game with his wee-wee", but that doesn't make for consent; that doesn't stop it being abuse.

IAN:

One comment I've had is: "On the one hand it seems cool, but on the other you just have no guarantee how those boys live, and that makes me feel kinda bad about the whole thing. That maybe they're getting what I would quite have liked, but really acting it, and then having it shown to the world."

ALFIE:

This strikes a chord in me over the issue of child stars in the movies and other forms of entertainment too. The pressure kids are under in such settings is phenomenal. There are the obvious examples - Judy Garland, who cracked under the pressure, and Michael Jackson, for whom stardom was clearly a form of abuse which has all but destroyed him. (Have you SEEN him recently ? He looks like death warmed up !)

Then there are the lesser known examples - McCauley Culkin was physically abused by his over-pushy father and Jack Wilde, the kid who played The Artful Dodger in "Oliver", had resorted to drink and drugs by the time he was 16. I'm not saying two wrongs make a right, of course - but people don't seem to worry about it when it comes to enjoying "The Wizard of Oz" or the Jackson 5's music, which is odd.

We don't get off on guilt trips about enjoying relatively luxurious lives when kids around the world are dying of malnutrition, and by giving up 1 or 2 per cent of our salaries we could give them a life. How many people boycotted South African investment during the Apartheid regime ? Anyone who didn't (e.g. by banking with Barclay's) was benefiting from a regime which deprived kids and families of their basic human rights. We're not talking a spanked bum here - we're talking electrodes on the genitals and long-term imprisonment. That cheap coat you got from the market could have been made by an 8 year old boy denied the right to education and beaten if his work isn't up to scratch. More than likely it was.

People are very selective in what they feel guilty about.

IAN:

Finally, I guess there is simply a general concern about the legality of some of the images on your site. How far you are prepared to make a stand for freedom of expression is one thing, but no-one really fancies being carted off to prison !

ALFIE:

Rest assured that there will never be anything illegal on Alfie's Page ! What constitutes a legal or illegal image is often unclear, but I always play it safe.

IAN:

The usual fear is the "Gary Glitter scenario", where he allowed service technicians access to his machine without removing some incriminating material, so the moral is certainly to not get caught by your own stupidity if you do download questionable stuff, and make sure you regularly (daily if necessary) clear your browser history and temporary Internet file cache if you are at all concerned about leaving evidence.

For Windows, Adsubtract PRO is an indispensible utility that will do this easily, and as well as removing distracting and annoying pop-up ads and banners while you're surfing it also prevents site cookies from being placed on your disk if you don't want them. Similarly, you may also wish to get a utility like Lavasoft's Ad Aware that prevents sneaky "spyware" programs being downloaded that can track your surfing remotely. There are also products that you can find if you are particularly paranoid that will wipe over the space where deleted files were too, so that they are completely gone from your disk and pagefile etc., perhaps after you've archived them with some form of good encryption tool . . .

ALFIE:

Webroot's Window Washer, rather than the overpriced "Evidence Eliminator", is the best option for complete deletion if that's what anyone needs. There is also a version called Mac Washer for Apple. Jetico do an excellent secure deletion and encryption program too, called BestCrypt, which has a version for Linux.

IAN:

Thanks Alfie, I've rarely enjoyed such an open, honest and stimulating discussion !