User:Lysander/Organic storage of child porn

A prisoner writes to me, "Although I have no intention of ever getting involved in child pornography again, I must confess to you that I'm an unrepentant pedophile. I just simply refuse to be a hypocrite about it. I hope you'll find my honesty to be refreshing. Why should I be ashamed of something that gave me thousands of great orgasms? Kiddie porn is wonderful! I have a photographic memory, so the stuff I collected back in the day still fills my masturbatory fantasies and triggers more orgasms."

So basically, he's still in possession of child porn, it's just that it's now stored in an organic rather than magnetic medium. I suppose that if it could be objectively proven that he had those memories, and if the technology existed to destroy the portions of his brain that hold those memories, he would be legally required to do so. Part of the rationale for child porn laws is that the victims are victimized over and over by the repeated viewing of the material, so if someone is constantly recalling it to memory, that counts, even if all the computer-based copies of the porn have been destroyed.

As a practical matter, people are indeed punished for recalling it to memory, because government psychologists will sometimes hook sex offenders up to polygraphs and ask them about their fantasies; and if it's determined that they're still having those fantasies, they may be subject to civil commitment or probationary restrictions on liberty.

(Actually, his honesty isn't all that refreshing, because I've heard those same kinds of sentiments a thousand times before.)