Topical issues of cultural examination of child pornography: towards “prevention” of ethical and aesthetic relativism

Currently, of particular relevance is the development of an effective methodological program of pornographic image criteria search. The absence of a holistic concept that would help identify pornographic signs has negative social and cultural consequences. Such theoretical difficulties concern such local areas as pornography involving minors (the so-called “child pornography’’). In this article the author draws attention to the lack of an established methodological basis of the analysis of such materials. This adversely affects the practice of cultural examination. An attempt is made to highlight a number of reasons complicating the procedure of cultural examination of pornographic materials. However, the targets are planned to improve the efficiency of detecting signs of pornographic images of minors. First of all, it is aesthetic and moral relativism that characterizes modern culture. It is emphasized that the analysis of features of graphic solutions to identify pornographic signs does not give a clear and obvious results within contemporary art and culture. In turn, the prevailing standards of morality and decency cannot be considered outside of the historical-cultural context, outside the value system of the national-cultural identity. Aesthetic and ethical relativism is a major cause of the expert’s problems. In case of cultural examination of child pornography, one can avoid such relativism. But the effectiveness of finding the signs of pornographic content involving minors is complicated by legislative causes. These include, firstly, the inadequate number of legislated definitions that characterize the phenomenon of “child pornography” and, secondly, the absence of the internal classification of the minority which distinguishes the age of childhood. Article 242 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation words the criteria of pornographic images of minors, but it is not correlated properly with the internal age gradation of minority and leaves a loophole (as experience shows) for distributing a special kind of “camouflaged” child pornography. Thus, the article provides arguments for the revision of the wording of the criteria of child pornography and for the need in the boundaries within the age scale immediately below which any format of using the image of the child as an erotic-sexual object is to be legitimately classified as pornographic, and above which the analysis of discrepancy with the representative norms of sexual relations is legitimate. In the end, a number of provisions aimed at addressing the ethical and aesthetic uncertainty in this analysis are planned.

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