#csam tw

okay so to start i want to say that my stance on the epstein files is that i don't think the vast majority of them should've been made public. emails that don't discuss child abuse, plane and boat records, and property search photos (with the exception of victim photos and letters, sexually explicit items, and photos of living people's legal documents) are all fine in my opinion, but even victim testimony from victims who have consented to their testimony being released to the public is iffy because basically all of it involves details about other victims. i don't think the public should have access to details of abuse that the victim of that abuse hasn't chosen to share publicly, even if the victim's name and identifying details have been redacted. and i think i've made it clear i don't think victim photos should have been released, especially csem and csam, even redacted. i really really don't think it's necessary to make all of this public in order to get "justice," it just feels like throwing the victims who haven't come forward under the bus. i'm aware this is not the stance the public facing epstein victims hold so i'm clarifying upfront so you know where i stand.

i had seen that before, and to be quite honest i hadn't fully read about it because it felt exploitative. i've seen multiple similar databases pop up and my opinions on most of them are the same. i understand the logic behind it i think, the way the files are uploaded on the doj website is terrible and impossible to search, and they are actively obscuring information and messing with the redactions so it makes sense for people to want to have a searchable archive. but as with everything else about how this has been going down, it feels exploitative and gross. the public doesn't need a searchable archive because the public shouldn't have access to this information in the first place. and especially with how the releases were botched and how it seems like this database was done, this probably includes archives of unredacted csam and files with unredacted victim names.

"the public deserved better" in particular really upset me. i don't think the public is a party in this that deserves anything and the public's entitlement to my trauma is quite genuinely actively retraumatizing. the fact that he's getting letters from victims telling him to take down documents should be his sign that what he's doing is wrong.

this is a tool that people behind the scenes should have, absolutely. this is something that should be available to the people who need to be searching the files in order to prosecute. this isn't a tool that the public should have. this isn't information that the public should have. (also i have really strong feelings about the fact that i have no control over who sees unredacted csam of me in a legal setting and that that's considered fine and normal and good and part of getting me justice. despite the fact that i never reported. but i digress.) (also, nuance here: i don't trust the legal system, this will not bring me justice. clearly many of the other victims feel that it will bring them justice. hence there should be tools to allow that to happen behind the scenes, and the rest of us shouldn't be put under this public spotlight.) it's strange to me that one of the positive use cases listed is victims searching their own names to confirm what they experienced is real when victim names are supposed to be redacted. the information in the files confirming what i experienced is real are photos of the insides of his properties. i searched my full legal name on the doj website to make sure it was not listed.

there's a lot of giant glaring red flags here. he feels the need to use a fake name because he's concerned he's in danger by doing this, but he has a wife and kids. that hes willing to have mentioned in the article. he seems to be so focused on "helping girls and young women" that he is forcing his wife (who seems to not want him to be doing this) into extra domestic labor, which feels obsessive and deeply misogynistic. he is getting paid for this. his past of having been csa-ed seems to have made him feel entitled to have all the information about this case (a phenomenon i see in a lot of people). i'm not saying he doesn't think he's doing a good thing but this seems like a terrible idea from all angles and again, massively exploitative of the victims' trauma.

pedophiles aren't some sort of "other" or monstrous unhumans who are solely responsible for child sexual abuse. a lot of people who are not sexually attracted to kids at all sexually abuse kids. attraction does play into it a lot, and attraction to kids was definitely a factor in some (but not all!) of the abuse committed by people in epstein's circle, but it isn't a requirement in order to commit child sexual abuse or cause a child sexual trauma.

the way people are using that word in this context specifically reads very much like an othering and dehumanizing of the people involved, in such a way that obscures anyone else's sexual abuse of children when done with different motives. if pedophiles are a class of unperson, and they are solely responsible for child sexual abuse, then no one who you believe to be a person can possibly have sexually harmed a child. and if attraction to children is required to sexually exploit or abuse a child, then you can't possibly be capable of it if csa repulses you! those thought processes are dangerous. anyone can sexually abuse a child. child sexual abuse is committed by all kinds of people, all the time.