Initially the company published various one-off magazines with titles such as Carnaby Kinks, Young Lesbians, and Fuck Around the Clock before settling on a series of numbered titles. These were produced in A5 format, consisted of full-color photographs, and typically featured five or six photo sets of around ten pages each; each set would be accompanied by a short descriptive text. While not all the titles ran concurrently, subject matter from magazine to magazine frequently overlapped. Many themes, such as big bust, interracial, uniform, or ethnically themed sets would appear in any title, dependent on the activity being performed rather than the participants.
Despite the fact that these countries generally had age of consent laws, it seems like the producers of such material operated in the open with few or no legal consequences. In addition to its infamous bestiality films, the Danish Color Climax Corporation released films of girls as young as 7 being molested, and, while the production of such films ceased in 1979, the company still exists to this day and I've never heard of those responsible for making the videos being charged. Dutchman Joop Wilhelmus became a millionaire from pornography, including the child abuse magazine Lolita, which ran for 17 years from 1970 until it was finally shut down by police in 1987; Wilhelmus was arrested in 1971, but released, and even appeared on radio in 1975 talking openly about molesting children. He was later imprisoned for abusing his 12 year old daughter, and drowned while drunk shortly after release. In the USA, I have seen articles claiming that 1970s Times Square sex shops were openly selling "kiddie porn" for up to $50, including a film called Preschool Sex, which is exactly what you'd think it would be.
In the 80s the German Greens had "a national working group called Gays and Pederasts" which "at the [1985] Lüdenscheid party convention... managed to place a discussion paper in the manifesto for the regional election. It included the demand to abolish legal punishment for non-violent sexual acts between children and adults." The demand met both internal and external resistance and was ultimately removed from the manifesto, but it is incredible nevertheless. The working group was dissolved two years later.
In several countries such as Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, child abuse images were legal to own and distribute in the 1970s, e.g.
"Between 1969 and 1980, the Color Climax Corporation produced legal child pornography films. Since 1980, child pornography has been illegal in Denmark" ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Denmark )
"Wilhelmus [a Dutch radical leftist who advocated complete 'sexual freedom'] was also the founder and publisher of child pornography magazine Lolita. Lolita was first published circa 1970. .. and was eventually closed down by Dutch authorities in 1987." ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joop_Wilhelmus#Lolita )
So it was far from restricted to Germany, although perhaps the shocking scandals with the foster homes and nurseries does indicate it went even further there.
In the Middle Ages, when the life expectancy was still significantly lower, the puberty began later than today and adolescents in the age range 12-18 years were set up for marriage. This changed increasingly. Naked, erotically depicted boys and girls have always been in the center of the art. As photography became popular at the end of the 18th Century, also erotic act descriptions with children and young people were made. At the end of the 60s there was a magazine called Lolita, produced by the Danish company "Color Climax", that had sex between children and between children and adults as the subject.
This magazine was sold everywhere - sometimes from under the counter. Only in the 80s the magazine was discontinued due to new laws set. From the 90s, the notion of child pornography expanded ever further. In the 70s and 80s, nudist magazines such as "Young and Free," "Sunshine Friends", etc. were still perfectly legal to buy. Even artists such as David Hamilton, Jock Sturges and Sally Mann published images of naked children and adolescents, which was at the time was considered an art - even though the first voices reported this as child pornography to blame. The photographer Jacques Bourboulon got special attention because of the very erotic pictures of Eva Ionescu he made.
Child pornography - the word is used everywhere and nonetheless it is totally unclear what it actually describes. This is where the problem begins: there are totally different legal situations. What is considered CP in one place can be in another place perfectly legal. Even the legal description of CHILD is not regulated. In a country you are a child until you are 18 years old, in another the limit is 16 years, or as in Germany one is legally a child until one is 14 years old, after that he/she is called a young minor until he/she becomes an adult. In practice this leads to constant conflicts. Law is by no means uniform. A few years ago there were these kinds of problems with the magazine "Seventeen" in the Netherlands. When the Internet emerged, the company produced entirely legal pornography with young people aged 16. As long as this was sold in the Netherlands, it was no problem. But with the advent of the Internet Seventeen wanted to sell the pictures and videos on the internet as well. It was not long until it hit the headlines everywhere for "child pornography", especially in the USA. This became a huge political pressure on the Dutch authorities. A very similar problem seems to be, soon, with Switzerland, where this minor protection ends at the age of 16. Not to mention countries such as Japan where the age limit in some places is 13 years (the same applies in Spain). There are countries where there is no minimum age but one is entitled to have sex when married (this is often the case in Muslim countries). So here is again the question: what is child pornography? The answer may vary.
As the real Internet business emerged in the late 90s, it was very easy to enter into this business. I remember the people of Site-Key.com from St. Petersburg that did much business in 2000. They had a Delaware Corporation in the United States, a Visa and MasterCard merchant account with Card Service International in California, and they ran all the payments via the U.S. through a gateway link from Linkpoint. But there were not only Site-Key but still a lot of other vendors. One of them provided services particularly for the distributors of hardcore child pornography (CP was mostly scanned images of Lolita magazines of the 70s, nudism, nudist pictures doctored to show them pornographic, as well as pictures of fathers abusing their daughters that they had posted in newsgroups or forums). This second company (IWest) had their headquarters in Israel and did their billing through Israeli banks which were aware of the scheme (until Visa withdrew the license from some Israeli banks, some have even settled for CCBill for whom it did not matter what was paid for, the main focus being that money was moving. Some Russian / Israeli citizens were never particularly choosy...). There was no problem to bill for any kind images, and the hosting of nude images was not a particular problem for these companies - let alone for the Non Nude Models. At this time almost 100% of the websites were hosted in the United States because it was the only place where it was affordable. The Web sites have generated such traffic, that a human being can hardly imagine how big the interest really is. I have the 2001 statistics of a website containing naked pictures of children and adolescents. During the month of June 2001, a total of 200 million visits to the site took place (this is not page views, but unique visitors but on a daily scale - it is likely that a good part of visitors this month visited the site on many days and have been counted multiple times. My estimate is that there were about 15 million unique visitors during this month). The ratio between visitors and buyers, however, is very small. The same site in June 2001 a turnover of approximately U.S. $ 60,000 made at a price of about $ 30 which is approximately 2000 customers. Even Web sites that still exist, such as Met-Art.com bought productions in 2000 with 11-14 year old girls, and everything was billed through the very serious CCBill (this series are no longer at Met-Art Journal).
This whole discussion about morality and sexuality is an incredibly stupid thing to which religions have contributed significantly ... One hears different theories from various sources. What is actually harmful for children and adolescents? In the U.S., the sight of a naked human is allegedly harmful to the poor child. Well, in Germany, the Bravo magazine has for decades reprinted pictures of naked girls and boys for the purpose of sexual enlightenment. In Germany, there should therefore be a lot of injured children and adolescents. When I was child, we went with the school to collect waste paper. Here we found the most exciting magazines in the wastepaper... I know very well how this has awakened my interest. On that account, I was really deeply shocked as a child when I had to go to the butcher and saw how animals were handled and killed. Until today, this remains a traumatic experience for me. Today more and more violence is shown freely and at the same time people are lobbying about sexual self-control. It is allowed for everyone to form an opinion about the situation. But it is hardly possible to form an objective view because the access to information is prohibited by the Government. I hope that in this sense I have - though perhaps sometimes with immoral statements - shown another side that so far has remainied strictly confidential. I wish very strongly that I have given enough food for thought. Without radical rethinking nothing will change.
Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, in countries like Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, taking advantage of liberal laws that allowed the distribution of Child Pornography, were published some legal child porn magazines as such Lolita,[6] Piccolo, Boy and others.[7] In some cases, commercial producers such as Color Climax Corporation took over its distribution.[8] In the US were produced magazines such as Nudist Moppets, which showed naked children three to twelve, and Lollitots, which showed naked girls eight to fourteen years old. The USA made illegal in 1977 using children for pornography, however, some of those magazines had never involved any kind of sex act in the first place. Commercial child pornography ceased in Denmark in 1980 when Danish laws against it were passed.[9] The last child pornography magazines out of the Netherlands appeared in 1982.
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