The above is just an interesting aside, though.

I think it makes perfect logical sense that viewing child pornography is a crime. Someone peeping into a kid's window while s/he changes would certainly be considered a violation of that person's privacy. Using the legal system's logic that a minor can't possibly consent to a million anonymous people ogling at their naked image (which I personally think is fair), then looking at child pornography is no different. I mean, it's less scary because it's removed from the person's home and not in-person the violation itself of seeing a kid naked without the kid's permission is just the same.

Now there is probably a sort of reverse Genovese Syndrome that goes on here, where people might think that so long as they share the responsibility of violating a child (that if they personally didn't jerk off to a picture, then 999,999 other people would have anyway). There probably is a diminishing returns of sorts on someone's violation, and the one millionth violator I'm sure doesn't mean near as much as the first one. But the fact still remains that one million people ogling a kid's nakey pic is worse than if only a hundred had seen it, and isn't near so bad as if the pic potato-girl-level viral. So you're still contributing to the violation by viewing child porn.

Now, it's a different discussion to talk about what the most practical use of law enforcement resources to stave off the root problem is (and not one I'm as interested in), but I certainly think it's "justifiable" to punish someone for looking at child porn.