For example: Is it possible for pedophiles to get help before offending? How does grooming of children happen? What is the extent of child sexual abuse online? Should there be preemptive imprisonment for pedophiles at risk of molesting a child?Īnd now the latest debate: what to do about the forthcoming influx of child sex robots (and current reality of child sex dolls)? Writing convincingly of the need to clamp down on the “shadow trade” in child sex dolls and robots, professors Marie-Helen Maras and Lauren Shapiro present a meticulously researched argument for banning them in the December 2017 issue of the Journal of Internet Law. Incidentally, conversations about pedophilia that once were shrouded in darkness are now being brought into the light. With both the AI revolution and the cultural awakening that’s been coined the post-Weinstein effect, there is an intense focus right now on the best way to protect our most vulnerable populations against sexual abuse. However, in an email interview with The Daily Beast this week, Donovan shot down the notion that child sex dolls could be used to prevent abuse with a simple analogy. Most notably, Juliet Grayson, chair of the Wales-based organization the Specialist Treatment Organization for the Prevention of Sexual Offending (StopSO), told The Independent that the prescription of child sex dolls might potentially curb assaults against human children. Unsurprisingly, heated controversy surrounds the subject, with some advocates suggesting child sex dolls could be used to deter the real-life fulfillment of pedophilic urges. Dan Donovan (R-NY) just introduced legislation to ban the dolls, in a bill named Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots, otherwise known as the CREEPER Act. Meanwhile, a case in Canada that began in 2013 with the intercepted “controlled delivery” of one such doll is still being prosecuted five years later.
Most recently: A 33-year-old Essex man was found not guilty of importing a 3-foot-tall child sex doll in the United Kingdom. The Stop Abuse Campaign has launched a new campaign designed to grab your attention. Three words (“child” + “sex” + “ doll”) that should never appear together are suddenly-and disturbingly-making headlines around the world every week, as is the debate surrounding their implementation or banishment to either curb or reinforce pedophilia.