In a quiet office in the Butler County Courthouse, overlooking the rooftops of peaceful Hamilton, the county prosecutor pushed an ordinary manila file folder across the desk and opened it.

        What was inside cannot be described by words I can use here — or by any words, really. And that is one of the dirtiest secrets of the porn industry: Most people never see the evil side of pornography, so they rely on what they are told by the hip, sophisticated defenders of porn, who say it's harmless.

The big lie

        It's a lie.

        But it's a big lie.

        Big enough to make a hiding place for wealthy porn pushers. Big enough to cast a shadow of doubt whenever anyone tries to cap the open sewer. Big enough to shelter corporations that quietly diversify into deviancy, to get a piece of the action. And big enough to impress media types who think porn is free expression that must be protected from prudes in tight collars who want to censor statues of Cupid in the park.

        What I saw was not harmless. It was not art. It was children, hardly old enough to pedal a bicycle or set up a Kool-Aid stand. They should be playing on slides and swing sets, not doing things in dark bedrooms that could give nightmares to a vice cop.

        It's the eyes that chill the soul. As the mind struggles to grasp a picture that the heart says should never be possible, the eyes of lost innocence look as dead as glass marbles. What fortune-teller's story of lifelong misery can be told in the eyes of a child who is abused for the gratification of sick men?

        “But porn's harmless,” they say.

        I dare anyone who repeats the lie to look at such pictures that proliferate on the Internet even faster than the sad statistics of lost and missing children. I'd dare them to confront the final, lowest rungs of pornography and still call it a “victimless crime.”

        I wouldn't wish these stomach-churning snapshots on anyone. But maybe some people would be less quick to defend porn if they could see where it leads.

        It has never been easier to become a porn junkie. “Most of these are from the Internet,” said Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper.

        Internet porn is as close as an itch. Men don't need to look for it — it finds them, in e-mail “spam” of “Gang Rape Videos” or “Free Mature Pics — Click Here Now.”

        Local headlines tell the stories of men and boys who have walked too close to the edge and slipped into the pit. They trade and collect thousands of files of illegal child porn. On the other side of every picture is a horrible crime of child abuse and rape.

        Porn addicts start on the “harmless” stuff, then seek more exotic ways to feed their jaded habit. Some turn into child killers and rapists who act out the fantasies that decorate the secret rooms of their minds.

        Mr. Piper, who's on the front lines in the porn battle, says porn is always nearby in child molesting cases, often used to desensitize victims. He knows the enemy. “The porn industry is good at stigmatizing. They can shut you up or destroy your credibility,” he said.

        Weeks later, I can't forget those pictures. When I hear people say porn is harmless, I wonder what the children with the lifeless eyes would say.

        E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.

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