Cabaero: Portrait of a child porn user

FORMER “Glee” actor Mark Salling didn’t fit the profile of a child abuser or one who got his fix from viewing material on the sexual exploitation of minors.

He was 35, an actor, with fans who followed his career, at least until the last season in 2015 of the television musical series about a high school glee club. Fans loved his character as Noah “Puck” Puckerman, an unlikely glee club member because he was a football player with a bad-boy image, tough and intimidating to schoolmates.

This was the same Salling who pleaded guilty before a United States federal court in October last year to possession of child pornography. He was supposed to go back to court in March for sentencing where the judge could order him to four to seven years in prison.

Last week, his body was found near his house in an apparent suicide.

Accounts on the type of pornographic material he kept were hard to believe, especially that Salling was young and popular. But the evidence brought against him was enormous. His collection of child pornography material was, as a www.dailymail.co.uk report said, among the worst the nation has seen. He owned more than 50,000 images and 600 videos which showed girls, some of them as young as three years old, being raped, both vaginally and orally, by adult men.

Details about his crime are sickening they are difficult to repeat here or mention to others. What led to Salling’s arrest was when an ex-girlfriend reported him to the police. The pornographic material was found in his computer and a flash drive.

Salling’s case leads us to ask what is the profile of a person who consumes child pornography. On the outside, he didn’t fit the bill. But his confession and the evidence against him proved it is not easy to identify a child sex predator. Offenders cannot be identified by their mere appearance. They are not old men with big bellies and dirty fingernails. They can be community leaders, influential business people, young and handsome men.

Consuming child pornography is a crime. The Anti-Child Pornography Act of the Philippines says it is illegal to possess any form of child pornography, and that having three or more articles of child pornography “shall be prima facie evidence of the intent to sell, distribute, publish or broadcast.” One might think it harmless to view such material for personal use but consuming such material feeds the industry that make them and increases the likelihood of individuals committing child sex abuse.

Those who are victims of child abuse or who know of someone who is a victim may report the matter to the local police or to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Cordova in Cebu has been the place of several police raids on cybersex dens where children are filmed doing sexual acts for online customers. While the police action has resulted in arrests of people, including relatives who forced the children to perform, the creation of child pornographic material is far from ended.