Modern Primate

“It’s not like I do anything illegal.”

That’s what Michael Brutsch told Adrian Chen in relation to his questionable online activities. In popular press, Brutsch AKA Violentacrez has been described as a troll rather than a child pornographer. According to Brutsch, “I just like riling people up in my spare time.”

In a recent Reddit thread, Brutsch has offered rebuttals to a number of claims made by Chen in his article. Regarding /r/Creepshots, Brutsch says, “I didn’t create it, and I didn’t post there.” Regarding /r/Jailbait, Brutsch says, “Jailbait was for pictures of attractive teens. We actually removed overtly ‘sexualizing’ comments when we were made aware of them. SRS has had great results using the term ‘sexualizing’ to attack my reddits… Tweens were against the rules. People might have posted them, but we removed them as we became aware of them.” In regard to Chen’s description that /r/Jailbait housed “legal photos of underage girls,” Brutsch implied something rather disturbing when he responded, “He says ‘underage girls’ to conflate pictures of high-school girls with children. Very effective.”

Let me be clear: high school girls ARE children.

Regardless of his motives, the fact is that Mr. Brutsch has uploaded and redistributed non-nude images of teenage and preteen girls in bikinis and in underwear to the photo-sharing site Imgur.com. These photos, when judged alone, might not technically meet the legal definition of child pornography as defined by federal law. But the way these photos are positioned right next to albums containing hardcore pornography featuring nude photos depicting penetration and other sexual acts with adult women, it becomes impossible to imagine that the photos of teenage and preteen girls in their underwear and bikinis is meant as anything but part of a collection of masturbation fodder. There is no question about whether or not this is the sexualized depiction of minors — who, because of their legal status as minors cannot give consent regardless of what they say.

It is in my opinion that if the law cannot yet prosecute Michael Brutsch for child pornography then the law needs to be updated to include things like the context in which the images are presented. At the very least, he should be prosecuted for child endangerment. It’s not often that I find myself on the side arguing for tighter control and enforcement of interent content; but this is a case where a predator needs to be brought to justice as a matter of public safety.

* This post originally contained a link to violentacrez’ Imgur profile, sent to me by fellow blogger Anna Goldfarb. I have chosen to remove the link prior to publishing because of questions regarding the viewing of what I feel might constitute child pornography.