Child porn unlikely to trigger act: doctor

The Australian men arrested in a police crackdown on internet child pornography were unlikely to commit offences against children, the psychiatrist who has interviewed many of them says. Olav Nielssen, a psychiatrist at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, said giving the men access to "virtual" child pornography, in which computer-generated images rather than real children were used, would do no harm to society. Dr Nielssen and two colleagues have interviewed about 30 men arrested during Operation Auxin in 2004 for possessing thousands of pornographic images of children. Dr Nielssen, who interviewed the men for court reports, said most were heterosexual with no criminal past. They had no history of anti-social behaviour, and no psychiatric disorders other than their abnormal interest in child pornography. Most had not, and probably would not act out their fantasies, he said. [...] Most of the men had begun with viewing adult pornography and then "slid down the slippery slope to pre-pubescent material". They were no longer interested in normal sexual relationships.

source: 'Child porn unlikely to trigger act: doctor' by Adele Horin; www.smh.com.au/news/technology/child-porn-unlikely-to-trigger-act-doctor/2007/04/16/1176696757630.html; The Sidney Morning Herald; 17 April 2007