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Thread: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

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    Oliphaunt
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    Default "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    "Sexting" is the stupid word du jour I just discovered in this NPR report. It means young teens sending each other nekkid photos of themselves on their cell phones. These photos may or may not be intended to be sexually arousing; in this story, it was a girl who exchanged a side view pic in the shower with a platonic girlfriend.

    What do we think about this? Honestly, I think it's a little tempest teapotty. Yes, a kid should know that a nude photo, once sent, is no longer in their control. Yes, it's gonna suck if that photo is passed around the football team, largely because it means your trust has been broken. Yes, it's gonna suck when the principal finds a copy of it in his mailbox and calls your mom. Yes, being a teenager sucks for precisely these kind of social reasons.

    But I have to wonder about some of the comments wailing that this is going to ruin a child's chances of getting into college, getting a job or getting on with her life. It seems to me that if this is a widespread enough problem to really worry about as a society (as opposed to worrying about your specific kid and handling it by, I don't know, not giving them a camera phone until they're old enough to handle it responsibly!), then it seems like that very widespreadness would provide its own protection. Sure, Brooke's naked picture might be shocking to a Googling college admissions officer. But when it's Brooke's and Sean's and Maddison's and Kyle's and Morgan's...well, then, doesn't it just become something stupid you did as a kid that's unfortunate, but not crippling?

    I guess I'm sort of analogizing to drug use. 20 years ago, smoking pot was such a big deal that Clinton had to say he didn't inhale. Now we've got a President who freely admits to not only using pot but cocaine. Still in the past, of course. It'll be at least another 20 years before we have an openly currently pot smoking President, but it's a sign that these mores do indeed change.

    What do you think? Are these "sexters" committing the crime of the century to mar their Permanent Files forever, or just kids being kids?
    Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.

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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    I think you have to differentiate between "could have horribly disproportionate consequences" and "will have horribly disproportionate consequences". It's pretty easy to imagine a situation where what's really just a dumb thing to do could end up biting you in the ass in a serious way later. It's not likely, and I've seen kids (and adults) do much, much, much stupider things without serious long term consequences, but I've also seen people in authority overreact to much smaller things.

    The problem is that whole "kids have underdeveloped frontal lobes" things. This is exactly the type of judgment that kids are really bad at. "It's unlikely" means "It'll never happen, so go ahead" to most youth in the midst of chronic hormone poisoning. So parents learn to state things in terms of inevitability (YOU WILL DIE IF YOU DO THIS) because anything more nuanced understood as "it's ok, go crazy". I don't really like this--I think it undermines authority and keeps kids from ever learning good nuanced judgment--but I understand it. This problem is, IME, the central problem with raising older teens. Long after they are functional adults on every other plane, they still can't weigh risk vs reward.

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    This is something I just don't understand at all. I accept that I'm a fogey, but come on, as a teenager I'd have been absolutely mortified if someone took a naked picture of me. What about all that teenage awkwardness and being all uncomfortable with your body? Is it an inevitable byproduct of the availability of internet porn and girls gone wild or does it have more to do with all the over saturated self-esteem stuff these kids have been raised with?
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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    The reason that nude images are considered such a horrific, potentially life ruining thing to older generations is because they grew up in a time when it would take effort to actually spread nude pictures of yourself around. When I was a teenager, digital cameras and webcams were becoming ubiquitous and already nearly everyone I knew had had naked pictures of them taken. Then, came camera phones and during college me and my friends would sit in bars and giggle (and sometimes gasp in horror) over pictures on our phones of men's genitalia.

    I understand that there's the panic over teenagers being OHHOLYGOD sexual beings and that people clutch their pearls at the thought that sometimes teenagers take off their clothes, but as the novelty wears off (as it will as people who are in their twenties and teens now grow up and raise kids of their own) I don't think it'll be quite as big of a deal. Perhaps someday, not even nudie pics will harm a woman's political career.

    Now, clearly, the solution to bringing that day closer is to have everyone take pictures of themselves naked. If we're all naked on the Internet, then nobody can be hurt by it.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    I don't know...to me it smacks more of a lack of self-esteem. It bugs me that kids are trying to get attention from their peers this way. With my daughter, I actually hope I don't have to use the "it's bad for your future" argument. While I agree with Manda JO that sometimes you it helps to put a little fear into them, I'd rather make it a lesson about not reducing yourself to nothing but a hot bod.

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Actually in the cases I hear about the issue is "is it child porn" and the consensus from the legal community locally is "Yes, yes it is". So all this little twits busy doing this can wind up on Sex offender web sites in the future, as well as all of the little twits they send 'em too. So, yes, there can be some serious future issues regarding it.
    Don't let it be forgot / That once there was a spot / For one brief, shining moment / That was known as Camelot.

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Who the hell gets their college application denied because there are naked pictures of them on the Internet? It's bizarre that anybody thinks that would happen. If it did, anyone who ever did porn would never be able to get into college later, and that's pretty dumb too.

    I mean, maybe from super-religious colleges with a million restrictive rules, but something tells me the kind of kids who send their platonic friends naked pictures of themselves are probably not willing to go to those schools anyway.
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Well, maybe--just MAYBE, mind you, they don't find it to be nearly as shocking or horrifying that somebody might see a picture of them naked. Not everybody has the same level of body modesty and in this day & age of web cams, cameraphones and surveillance cameras everywhere perhaps they're just inured to the fact that their images are going to be spread around a LOT more than those of us who grew up in a non-digital age. High fashion runway models are being paid bank money to strut around in clothes that would've been illegal in a stripper bar back when I was a teenager and it just isn't that big of a deal--everybody has naughty bits, y'know? They're all basically the same and perhaps it's just time for us to give up on this retarded freaking out over the existence of visual proof that everybody's naked under their clothes.

    I used to catch similar crap for my habit of skinny dipping--I don't have much if any body shyness naturally and spending three years in Japan using mixed sex bathing facilities and seeing public urination and suchlike pretty much pounded whatever remained out of my head. It doesn't make any more sense to me to swim in clothes than it does to bathe in clothes, and people used to do THAT, too! I think these kids are just a natural stage in evolution AWAY from some sick and unnecessary cultural attitudes. More power to 'em!

    On preview: The incredibly convoluted interpretation of "child porn" is also something that needs to go the hell away. One of the better ways to accomplish this is to flood the court system with ridiculous cases such as these to focus attention on the fact that we as a nation have a huge blind spot regarding teen sexuality and that we also have an unfortunate automatic equation that "Nude=Sexual." This just has to stop, it's stupid and hurtful WAY beyond kids taking silly nekkid pix of themselves, which is basically just playing doctor without the hands on factor.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by SmartAleq
    On preview: The incredibly convoluted interpretation of "child porn" is also something that needs to go the hell away. One of the better ways to accomplish this is to flood the court system with ridiculous cases such as these to focus attention on the fact that we as a nation have a huge blind spot regarding teen sexuality and that we also have an unfortunate automatic equation that "Nude=Sexual." This just has to stop, it's stupid and hurtful WAY beyond kids taking silly nekkid pix of themselves, which is basically just playing doctor without the hands on factor.
    However, the rule/law hasn't gone away yet. I figure it'll change when it hits some legiscreatures family.
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by wring
    However, the rule/law hasn't gone away yet. I figure it'll change when it hits some legiscreatures family.
    True, but that's the case with any law--if no one's willing to break it consciously to show it's no longer needed then it will remain in perpetuity no matter how stupid it is (see: marijuana prohibition.) Some kid's lawyer parent is going to chase something like this right on up to the Supreme Court and sooner or later SOMEBODY'S going to acknowledge that a picture that a person takes of him/herself willingly and with no coercion and sends it under the same circumstances does NOT create a pedophile out of the person it's sent to. None of us have the capability to stop our phones from receiving incoming messages, the onus is not on the receiver but on the sender--and the sheer ridiculousness of prosecuting a teenager for kiddie porn because he/she took a picture of him/herSELF is beyond the law being an ass and right into drooling imbecile territory.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by Queen Tonya
    This is something I just don't understand at all. I accept that I'm a fogey, but come on, as a teenager I'd have been absolutely mortified if someone took a naked picture of me. What about all that teenage awkwardness and being all uncomfortable with your body? Is it an inevitable byproduct of the availability of internet porn and girls gone wild or does it have more to do with all the over saturated self-esteem stuff these kids have been raised with?
    I want to make sure I'm not putting words into your mouth, so I'm going to be a pedant and ask for clarification of this pronoun. By "it", do you mean "all that teenage awkwardness and being all uncomfortable with your body", or do you mean the apparent lack of all that teenage awkwardness and being all uncomfortable with your body?

    I've a few more thoughts, but it's a little hard for me because I know full well that my kids and their friends weren't raised in the mainstream culture. So I can't begin to explain how "normal" kids feel about their bodies these days. The kids in my neopagan community, who attended clothing optional festivals from the ages of 6 or even younger, did go through a period of feeling uncomfortable in their bodies, but it was younger than the kids mentioned here. At about 10 or 11, right when breasts started budding and hair started appearing, the kids who had previously been naked as jaybirds suddenly sprouted clothing. The girls even brought along bathing suits for the swimming pool for the first time ever. By 12 or 13, they were choosing to walk up to the enclosed showers, instead of showering at the communal showers because, their words, "I feel creeped out when old guys stare at me!". (They received both sympathy and strategy advice by the older women in the community.) By 15, however, they're over it. They're walking around topless, in the pool naked and showering in the communal, co-ed showers again.

    Now, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty confident that more than a few naked pictures have bent sent from phone to phone. These kids are unbelievably attached to their cell phones and sharing every passing thought, whim, burp or bump via text or facebook or other means. (Literally. One of them facebooked this morning that she hurt her leg getting out of bed!) I'd be shocked if pimples, breasts, penises and pubic hair weren't logged just like the rest. And I think it's a mistake for we fogeys to assume it's sexual. Is it? Maybe. Could be. Probably is sometimes. But it could also just be, "OMG, I went up another frickin' bra size! Check these suckers out!!!"

    Oops, gotta go for now. There are other things I want to respond to, never fear! But carry on in my absence and I'll catch up tonight!
    Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    I meant the lack of awkwardness and excessive modesty I usually associate with teenagers. I don't blog or do much with social networking, but I can see how I might've been a twittering, blogging and facebooking fool if I were a kid now. I'm not oddly pierced or Hot Topicy, but I did stupid punk things that my parents hated so I can sorta get where kids that are doing silly things now are coming from. But when I try to think of myself and my friends at that age taking naked pictures of ourselves and sharing them, total disconnect.

    FWIW, I think it's laughable to call this trend menacing or threatening, vaguely dumb maybe, but that's about it.
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    Libertarian Autocrat Vox Imperatoris's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    What are we supposed to be debating? I think that this is definitely a bad thing and one that shouldn't happen in a perfect world, but what are we supposed to do about it? (And under the law, you can only be prosecuted for child porn if you consciously seek it out. It doesn't count if someone SMSs or emails it to you.) And I agree that it is silly to think that a naked picture available on the internet will affect someone's college admissions chances.
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    Indifferent to bacon Julie's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by SmartAleq
    Well, maybe--just MAYBE, mind you, they don't find it to be nearly as shocking or horrifying that somebody might see a picture of them naked. Not everybody has the same level of body modesty and in this day & age of web cams, cameraphones and surveillance cameras everywhere perhaps they're just inured to the fact that their images are going to be spread around a LOT more than those of us who grew up in a non-digital age. High fashion runway models are being paid bank money to strut around in clothes that would've been illegal in a stripper bar back when I was a teenager and it just isn't that big of a deal--everybody has naughty bits, y'know? They're all basically the same and perhaps it's just time for us to give up on this retarded freaking out over the existence of visual proof that everybody's naked under their clothes.
    Agreed.

    Don't get me wrong, though. Naked pictures of me would freak me the hell out. They'd also freak the hell out of everyone else. All around, it's a bad idea. But I can't work up the slightest freak out about someone else taking and sending all the nude photos in the world. I'd tend to prefer they don't send 'em to meee.



    Quote Originally posted by Vox
    I think that this is definitely a bad thing and one that shouldn't happen in a perfect world
    Why?

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Vox Imperatoris and the rest of the Moral Majority want to tell other people what to do with their bodies. Vox, benevolent force that he is, is one step ahead of the rest in realizing that he can't. All praise Vox Imperatoris, Imperial Voice, Decider of Debates and Keeper of the Moral Good.
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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by SmartAleq
    ...the sheer ridiculousness of prosecuting a teenager for kiddie porn because he/she took a picture of him/herSELF is beyond the law being an ass and right into drooling imbecile territory.

    But it's happening. Not just once, but several times, that I've seen/heard in the news. Or just as bad, prosecutors, judges and defense lawyers all jumping through hoops to try to avoid labeling some hormone poisoned teen from being labeled a sex offender, because the Legislature passed a law specifically to remove any discretion from the administration of justice.

    On preview: Vox Imperatus, the laws vary from state to state. I'm sure there are some states where you need to go seeking out the images. I'm not so sure that there are no states where receiving unasked for images is a crime. Even if that is the case, why would you slam a 15 yo girl with the label of child pornographer for taking nude pictures of herself, which she then sent on to a friend?

    FTM, I think that the recent flap over the glamor shots that Miley Cyrus had taken last year shows that there's far, far too much flexibility in the definition of what may be child porn, compared to what is simply edgy photography. (The only definition I've seen that seems to hold water is, if you're getting paid for it, ti's art. If you do it as a hobby you're a criminal.)

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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by Hostile Dialect
    Vox Imperatoris and the rest of the Moral Majority want to tell other people what to do with their bodies. Vox, benevolent force that he is, is one step ahead of the rest in realizing that he can't. All praise Vox Imperatoris, Imperial Voice, Decider of Debates and Keeper of the Moral Good.
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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Sorry, Chief. Sorry, Vox.
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    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by Vox Imperatoris
    What are we supposed to be debating? I think that this is definitely a bad thing and one that shouldn't happen in a perfect world, but what are we supposed to do about it?
    Well, that if you like. Why is a definitely a bad thing and why shouldn't it happen in a perfect world, and why do you think nothing can be done about it, if it's clearly so bad?

    To be clear, I didn't open this as a "debate", like in debate class, with two clear sides to take and defend, but as a discussion of whatever issues related to the topic of "sexting" might interest people. I put it here because I expected more disagreement, honestly, than we've gotten already, and because my own thoughts are rather jumbled and could use some alchemy, as it were, in The Crucible. And Jibba Jabba didn't seem the right fit for that. But I'm still feeling out what the fora are like here, so forgive me if I got it wrong.
    Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.

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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    The legal angles are definitely an area that needs some national debate--it's freaking ludicrous that what's a prison offense in one state is totally okay in another. When we have laws that allow marriage from any age over fourteen, but rigidly insist that any person under eighteen is unable to consent to sex we have a profound disconnect from reality that's making felons of kids who're just behaving totally normally.

    One thing that definitely needs to happen is to conclusively differentiate nudity from prurience. Ridiculously rigid societal restrictions on people being naked is not a sign of a healthy society. I infinitely prefer the Japanese model, that nakedness is often seen but never noticed. A society that freaks out when a nipple pops out on teevee but which also spends billions of dollars on pr0n is a sick society that needs fixing.
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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    One aspect of the statutory age of consent that I think needs to be addressed, however, is that by having as tight as it often is, here in the States, there is often a way to prosecute people who do prey on teens. Without having to prove rape, vice statutory rape.

    And I believe that's a useful tool. If for no other reason than that I believe that rape trials are swinging back to being even more of an ordeal for the victim, excuse me alleged victim, than they had become just a few years ago. With the Kobe Bryant rape trial, the defense that 'she's just a slut' seems to have come back into play, as being acceptable. Victims of teenaged sexual abuse are often messed up enough in the head by the abuse they've suffered, the expectations of family and society, and just how hard it is to get such complaints investigated that a rape trial seems to often do more harm to the victim than good for punishing the abuser.

    So, taking the issue of consent out of the picture for the 40 yo who convinces a 15 yo girl that she should have sex with him makes sense.

    What I'd like to see would be more emphasis in the law on age differences, vice strict age of the victim. I've got no problem with seeing a 19 yo with a 16 yo. (This is different from saying I'd like to see such a relationship - just that I don't believe that there's anything there that should be considered the business of the State.) I've got more problems with the seeing a 21 yo and a 16 yo. Or a 40 yo and a 16 yo. From what I recall of NY's age of consent laws, that sort of thing is already worked into the code. However that is not a universal thing through out the various states.

    On another hand, I'm not sure I want a Federal statute about the age of consent. I don't think we can get around one vis-a-vis transmission of nude pictures: Once something goes over the internet the potential for cross-state traffic cannot be ignored. I may not like that, but I think the barn has truly burned down on that issue. Though I'll admit part of my resistance to a Federal definition of age of consent is that IMNSHO Federal statutes are far less flexible, in practice than local ones - and this is an issue where I'd prefer to see specific leeway for prosecutorial discretion. I know that's subject to abuse, but I still think it's a better system than mandatory minimums, with no room for human judgment within the law.

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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by WhyNot
    Now, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty confident that more than a few naked pictures have bent sent from phone to phone. These kids are unbelievably attached to their cell phones and sharing every passing thought, whim, burp or bump via text or facebook or other means. (Literally. One of them facebooked this morning that she hurt her leg getting out of bed!) I'd be shocked if pimples, breasts, penises and pubic hair weren't logged just like the rest. And I think it's a mistake for we fogeys to assume it's sexual. Is it? Maybe. Could be. Probably is sometimes. But it could also just be, "OMG, I went up another frickin' bra size! Check these suckers out!!!"

    Oops, gotta go for now. There are other things I want to respond to, never fear! But carry on in my absence and I'll catch up tonight!
    I was what I would consider a pretty mainstream teenager in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I was reasonably smart and popular, with a relatively active social life, and I've grown to be a normal, decent adult.

    Now, I'm not sure how harmful the "sexting" phenomenon is when all is said and done, but I do know that at 17 years of age I would have given almost anything to see naked pictures of the girls from my school. And it most definitely would have been sexual. In fact, it would have been the most sexual thing in the world as far as I was concerned. Like mind-blowingly sexual. Hell, I managed prurient thoughts about many of them in their grunge-inspired flannel shirts and baggy jeans. Maybe things would have been different had I been raised in a nudist commune, but I most assuredly was not, and neither were any of the kids I knew.

    Again, we can discuss how harmful this really is, and maybe times have changed in ways that I, as a young fogey, find confusing and frightening. But I'm guessing 17 year old boys are, in the main, still 17 year old boys. And for the great majority of them, I'm quite certain that their interest in seeing naked pictures of your daughter is most certainly sexual.

  23. #23
    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by hopesperson
    Again, we can discuss how harmful this really is, and maybe times have changed in ways that I, as a young fogey, find confusing and frightening. But I'm guessing 17 year old boys are, in the main, still 17 year old boys. And for the great majority of them, I'm quite certain that their interest in seeing naked pictures of your daughter is most certainly sexual.
    Sure, but these aren't 17 year olds, they're 14 (and, in some other cases mentioned in the article, 11 and 12) year olds, and the very specific case talked about in the article doesn't have a boy in it - it's a girl taking and sending her picture to another girl, with no suggestion that they are gay. Yes, boys got involved once the "friend" forwarded the picture to someone else on the football team. And I'm sure at that point, it was made sexual. As Xander once said, "I'm 17, linoleum makes me wanna have sex." But, to bring it to the legal question, should a girl be prosecuted for child porn when her intended dissemination of the photograph was clearly not sexual, but the photograph was then later used or could be used for sexual gratification? Wouldn't every picture of a child ever taken, even the ones in flannel shirts and baggy jeans, then be "child pornography"?

    At the same time, I grant that children are indeed sexual beings long before most of us are ready to admit that. To which I say...so what? Are we so scared of their sexuality that we can't allow them to masturbate to pictures? Is the real danger here not to the "children" sharing pictures, but to our fragile ideals that they're innocent cherubim?
    Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.

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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by WhyNot
    Quote Originally posted by hopesperson
    Again, we can discuss how harmful this really is, and maybe times have changed in ways that I, as a young fogey, find confusing and frightening. But I'm guessing 17 year old boys are, in the main, still 17 year old boys. And for the great majority of them, I'm quite certain that their interest in seeing naked pictures of your daughter is most certainly sexual.
    At the same time, I grant that children are indeed sexual beings long before most of us are ready to admit that. To which I say...so what? Are we so scared of their sexuality that we can't allow them to masturbate to pictures? Is the real danger here not to the "children" sharing pictures, but to our fragile ideals that they're innocent cherubim?
    Of course kids are sexual beings, and I am not particularly troubled by that fact in and of itself. As far as I am concerned, the real danger is not from people they know and trust looking at the pictures, for masturbatory purposes or otherwise. The real danger is that once the relationship ends, as it almost invariably will, the pictures are forwarded to a friend, then to a friend at a different school, then to several friends, then to someone's uncle, then posted on the Internet.

    I view myself as an open minded person, and I would not want to be an overly protective parent. But I will do what I can (perhaps what little I can) to make sure that naked pictures of my pre-teen or teen don't end up in the public domain. Though he or she may be sexually mature, that is often a far cry from emotionally mature. I made some lousy choices as a kid, but I was lucky that none of them were broadcast for public consumption. And I'm sure I would have made a lot more if not for the protection and counsel afforded by my parents. In my experience, kids are often lousy decision makers.

    When my kid is an adult, he or she can post nude pictures on a billboard on the Kennedy for all I care. Until then, I will do what I can to try to help her make wise choices, and to try to limit the harmful fallout from her bad ones. I don't view this as serving my "fragile ideals," but as responsible parenting. A 13 year old is not an adult, no matter how much he or she may act, feel or even look like one. Innocent cherubim? Of course not. Stupid cherubim? All too often. What is my role as a parent if not to at least try help protect my kids from themselves until they're mature enough to go it alone? Call me old fashioned, I guess.

    As to the legal question, of course a girl should not be prosecuted for child porn when her intended dissemination of the photograph was clearly not sexual. In my view, it's a matter of common sense, which is often sorely lacking in our legal system.

  25. #25
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by hopesperson
    As to the legal question, of course a girl should not be prosecuted for child porn when her intended dissemination of the photograph was clearly not sexual. In my view, it's a matter of common sense, which is often sorely lacking in our legal system.
    Even if the intent was sexual, one would hope that some sort of Romeo and Juliet laws could apply when children are taking their own photos and distributing them.

    The interesting twist in the NPR story is the question of whether and how to prosecute the adults who eventually received and forwarded the photo in question.

  26. #26
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Why, oh why, isn't this thread in the Darkroom...


  27. #27
    Maximum Proconsul silenus's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Why do all the sane people live in Vermont ?
    "The Turtle Moves!"

  28. #28
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Damn! Where were these girls when I was in high school??

  29. #29
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Which answer do you prefer?

    Depending on how you look at things they were either:

    Not born, yet.

    or

    Dating the cool guys in your HS class, instead of you.

    (Not to imply I was one of the cool guys, either.)

  30. #30
    Oliphaunt featherlou's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Neither menace nor threat. They're just naked bodies - big deal. We all have one.

    ETA: You guys probably don't want to hear this, but this is a particularly American discussion - starting from the idea that naked bodies are somehow wrong and going from there.

  31. #31
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by featherlou
    Neither menace nor threat. They're just naked bodies - big deal. We all have one.

    ETA: You guys probably don't want to hear this, but this is a particularly American discussion - starting from the idea that naked bodies are somehow wrong and going from there.

    I'd like to see a citation that an adult taking nude pictures of a minor wouldn't end up on your Sex Offender lists, or even a simple breakdown of what constitutes a Sex Crime according to Canadian (or even just Ontario) Law. Given that it's easy to find cites for at least Ontario's Sex Offender Registry, I'd like some kind of definition of what puts someone on that list. I find it hard to believe that it's not as much of a boondoggle as the various US statutes - because it's going to be such a difficult category to define. A quick layman's reading of Christopher's Law shows me that child pornography is on the list of potential offenses. Further, the definition of Child Pornography here makes no provision for a minor taking pictures of themselves in a lewd manner.

    It's possible that your judges have the sense to throw out idiotic convictions that would otherwise be required by law. But I want a cite for that.

  32. #32
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by WhyNot
    "Sexting" is the stupid word du jour I just discovered in this NPR report.

    ...

    Honestly, I think it's a little tempest teapotty.
    Sorry but the stupid word du jour is "tempest teapotty".

  33. #33
    Oliphaunt featherlou's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Otaku, I meant that this thread was a particularly American discussion, with very few people even questioning the assumption that nude bodies are bad. I can't speak to the Canadian laws on kids taking naked pictures of themselves because I don't know them.

  34. #34
    Libertarian Autocrat Vox Imperatoris's avatar
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    Quote Originally posted by WhyNot
    Quote Originally posted by Vox Imperatoris
    What are we supposed to be debating? I think that this is definitely a bad thing and one that shouldn't happen in a perfect world, but what are we supposed to do about it?
    Well, that if you like. Why is a definitely a bad thing and why shouldn't it happen in a perfect world, and why do you think nothing can be done about it, if it's clearly so bad?
    I forgot about this thread. My point was that whatever I may think about people sending naked pictures to each other, it's not my business and it's not the government's business, either. As for why I think this, I simply believe that people, gay or straight, should only have sex in the context of marriage (that being a lifetime "spiritual" commitment, not necessarily a marriage under the laws of any state) because that, to me, is the most ultimately fulfilling way of living and may also be will of God.

    I didn't mean to suggest that it would be impossible to stop these kinds of things (although it probably would be), but that there is no way to do it that would be morally acceptable. The answer is certainly not to use child pornography laws to stop it.

    ETA: In fact, I think the government would do much better by concentrating on stopping actual child sexual abuse instead of going after pedophiles who do not molest children, merely because they have downloaded child pornography, or, like they've done in Australia, fake child pornography.
    Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.
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  35. #35
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    Default Re: "Sexting" - Menace or Threat?

    I think sexting is awesome!!!!!!

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