This week, a news story illustrates the decline of Western values we are witnessing today. The German parliament voted to decriminalize the possession of child pornography, reducing it from a felony to a misdemeanor and lowering minimum sentences for possession and distribution.
German lawmakers justified their action by arguing that decriminalization offered “necessary flexibility” to deal with the “large proportion of juvenile offenders” and would also protect parents and teachers who find child porn on young people’s devices and report it to the authorities.
However, critics pointed out that instead of creating legal exceptions for specific situations, German lawmakers lowered the severity of all possession and distribution of child porn — a decision applauded by pro-pedophile advocacy groups. These groups view anti-child porn laws, and all prohibitions on pedophilia, as outdated taboos that should be discarded in favor of personal autonomy and self-determination. One such group, Krumme-13 (K13), welcomed the vote but regretted that no politician had “apologized to the thousands” victimized by the former criminal laws against child porn possession and distribution.
Why is this occurring in a supposedly advanced Western nation like Germany? It’s not baffling. German lawmakers are merely extending the same flawed logic of consent that American lawmakers have applied to other controversial issues for years. From gay marriage to so-called “gender-affirming care,” consent has been the rationale for removing numerous societal taboos. The rationale is that if all parties freely consent, almost nothing can be justly prohibited by law.
So argues Dieter Gieseking, the founder of K13, who has faced multiple charges for possessing child porn. In a 2014 interview, he advocated for lowering the age of consent to 12 and suggested that sexual relations between adults and small children should be “discussed separately.” Gieseking claimed that setting the age of consent at 12 is “long overdue” in an enlightened society, as sometimes children “initiate friendly and sexual relationships with a pedosexual.” According to him, there is a need for legal reforms that accommodate everyone involved. A decade later, Gieseking has achieved his goal.
Under this distorted reasoning, consent is the only requirement for a sexual relationship to be legitimate. The logic follows that because minors are autonomous individuals with human rights, any restriction on activities they consent to is unjust. Specifically, sexual self-determination means there is no valid reason for laws against pedophilia or child porn — as long as the children consent. Similarly, laws prohibiting minors from taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or undergoing irreversible surgeries are deemed unjust on the same grounds.
This line of thought is not just morally wrong; it’s profoundly misleading. Age-of-consent laws exist because society recognizes that children cannot give informed consent to certain activities. They’re not mature enough to understand the consequences, and we have traditionally reflected this in our laws. Parents make decisions on behalf of their children for this reason. Children aren’t allowed to get tattoos or buy alcohol, among other things. This is widely understood and supported, acknowledging that children can’t consent to or make certain decisions independently.
But if we assert, as pro-trans activists do, that children can consent to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or irreversible surgeries, how can we argue against the notion that children cannot consent to sexual relations with adults? We can’t — and increasingly, we won’t.
In this context, recent discussions about “children’s rights” are a deliberate attempt to undermine the family, parental authority, and the societal agreement that children are not autonomous and cannot make decisions for themselves. When leftist politicians invoke “children’s rights” against parental rights, as one Canadian lawmaker did recently regarding a bill requiring parental consent for “gender-affirming care,” it often serves a radical agenda aimed at dismantling sexual taboos.
Pro-pedophile activists and their allies in academia are explicit about this. Gieseking once said, “The taboo of pedophilia must finally be broken at all levels of society.” He argued that if pedophiles could openly identify without fear of exclusion or demonization, it would prevent child abuse.
However, taboos, exclusion, and shaming serve to deter predatory and pathological behavior, protecting vulnerable individuals like children. Removing these taboos encourages previously forbidden actions. In Germany’s case, decriminalizing child porn will likely lead to its proliferation, with perpetrators viewed increasingly sympathetically and eventually accepted by mainstream society.
The same can happen in America. To prevent it, we must revive societal taboos. If we don’t, we can expect the same arguments that justified gay marriage and transgender ideology to be used to legitimize pedophilia.
