I think it is a grey area for sure. And there are different severities to the pictures. A picture of an adult having sex with a girl under 16 is wrong and should be illegal. A 14 year old guy having a picture of his 14 year old girl friend should not be illegal. But if an adult forced or paid two kids to have sex, then that is wrong. And it should be ok if I took a picture of myself when I was 12 and kept the picture. Basically, I would think that if the person wasn't forced into it and it is just softcore, nude pictures, it isn't that big of a deal. Hardcore, rape, compensated, or forced pictures involving minors should be illegal and the people that look at them need to get help.
The problem is that the punishment doesn't fit the crime. I wouldn't want to look at cp because the jail time/fine plus being branded as a sex offender for a long time. Your whole life gets f’ed up. You might get disowned by your family, your friends, co-workers, spouse,… And you might not have even done anything. I always question when some politician gets caught with this on their computer if it wasn’t just planted. Because they lose all believability once this information gets out there.
But, I could fly to some foreign countries and pay some young girls for sex or just to pose nude for me and the law doesn't have a problem with that. Just so I don’t take pictures or video tape it.* (*I personally wouldn’t do this, but a TV show uncovered this happening)
Here is another situation. I was at a nude beach one time and it was pretty busy. After about 30 minutes or so, a family with two kids under 10 put down their towels about 20 feet away from me. If I had a picture of them, I could go to jail (although it was a public place...). But since I just saw them in person (because you can't look down all the time) it isn't a problem with the law.
And it is a good thing we don't have thought-crimes yet, because I imagined Hilary Duff naked and doing certain things with her well before she turned 18... And that shouldn’t be a crime.
