The authorities in New Jersey who have arrested a fourteen-year-old girl on charges of child pornography. Why? Because she posted on line, supposedly for her boyfriend to see, naked pictures of herself.
Yes. Herself.
Supposedly if she’s convicted, she will be facing jail time and be forced to register as a sex offender under laws that were designed to protect people like her from…well…people like her.
Look, obviously this girl’s not the brightest bulb in the box, and were I her father I’d be mortified beyond belief. But wait…what? Child pornography? A sex offender? For putting up pictures of herself? Seriously?
PAD
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there is a story about olivia hussey who had to get special permission to appear naked in the in the 1968 romeo & juliet because she was a minor. while in new york to promote the film she decided to go to a theatre to see the audience reaction only to find the theatre wouldn’t admit her because she was a minor and her parents weren’t with her. keep in mind, she’s the only one that gets naked in that movie and they wouldn’t admit her because she’d be exposed to the same nudity she probably sees every day.
when zero tolerance goes wrong.
Technically, she wasn’t the only one who got naked. In the same scene, her costar gets out of bed and stands bare-assed to the camera while he yawns and stretches. Hussey’s own nudity is actually very fleeting; as she leaps out of bed there’s only a fast shot of a breast.
Of course, now you can freeze frame it. If that’s, y’know, what you’re into.
PAD
We had a similar case in Cincinnati. I don’t normally post links, so I’m not sure how to do it properly.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090314/NEWS0107/903140344/1060/news0104
I think this will create a change in the laws, but it will have to be done probably state by state or county by county. The laws weren’t designed for this, and hopefully they can make exceptions until there are new provisions for such cases.
Of course, “sexting,” as it’s called, has other consequences, and we had a recent story of an 18-year-old woman who committed suicide over her bad reputation when her ex-boyfriend sent out the nude photo she had sent. Because of her age, there were no laws broken.
For those who don’t follow the link:
She entered a plea of a misdemeanor of contributing to the delinquency of a minor (herself or her the boy?), and he got the same. They recommend no jail time, though. And their names are not given.
The laws weren’t designed for this, and hopefully they can make exceptions until there are new provisions for such cases.
Well, I’m not sure we should have any hope. After all, about the only thing worse than overzealous police are overzealous politicians. And when you start talking about child pørņ, everybody gets up in arms without bothering to understand the situation and its implications.
That all said, this is only the latest in the string of such cases, but apparently the first (and certainly not the last) involving a social network site like MySpace.
I can only image how police would react if they had access to all of the photos on MySpace. They’d probably have aneurysms at the stuff they’d find.
Does anybody know the specific statute they’re prosecuting her under? I’d be curious if she had the proper mens rea to be convicted.
Situations like this can highlight the absurdity or unintended consequences of how certain laws are worded and can be interpreted.
Until now, my favorite example was some Arkansas legislation intended to address the problem of underage drinking, but which may also be interpreted as outlawing taking communion and similar religious rites (http://www.thearkansasproject.com/criminalizing-communion ) but this example might just beat that one.
I wonder if she’s being tried as an adult…
If it’s a felony charge and she could get seventeen years and be listed as a sex offendor, it’s a charged-as-adult situation.
My big question is why are teens doing it? What are their reasons? If you go on youtube you can see teens strip down to their underwear and if you go on an adult site like x-tube there are plenty of boys and girls (over 18 , or so they claim) who are more than willing to show how much they love their body.
Are kids so sexual now that they have no problems showing the whole world what they got and how they use it?
I’m not saying its a bad thing, but as someone who is raising two kids (gay dads, mother left them in our care) one 8 and the other just turning 12, I am wondering how this will affect them, especially the boy who now was a basic cell phone (no camera).
Why are teens doing it?
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Because a small portion of any population is idiots. Teenagers are kids who have hormones worse than adults and no experience in handling them, so in some ways they’re even more prone to bad decisions, but still, all teens are not doing this.
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The ones that are? Yeah, they’re making a dumb choice that involves their sexuality. That’s nothing new, teen pregnancy rates alone show that.
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The technology is new, but that’s all. Figuring out why these kids do it isn’t hard. The real question is how much the parents can do to educate their kids and help them grow up. That’s a much harder question and I think the answer varies from family to family.
My big question is why are teens doing it?
“Have tech, will travel”, I believe the saying is. In the end, there really is nothing new here; its just that technology is involved.
It used to be that they’d just take the pics/videos and pass ’em around to their friends. Now they get passed around on the internet instead.
There’s no logic o this. at worst she should be eligible on some kind of public nudity charge, though even that seems suspect.
Having said that, let’s imagine a worst case scenario. There is no question that there are a lot of perverts out there who want child pørņ/underage pørņ/whatever you want to call it. Right now any site showing that would be shut down and the people making it liable for serious prosecution. Now, if we change the laws to allow kids to post themselves in sexually explicit situations what would stop some of these guys from setting up sites that are ostensibly made by kids but are actually just child pørņ sites?
So while it’s ridiculous that this girl is being charged under laws designed to protect her, we have to think carefully when we change the law so as not to make it too easy for the real child pørņ guys to gain a loophole.
Chris, not that it’s any of my business but I’m nosy and the way you worded it didn’t quite register; I’m pretty sure that you didn’t mean to say that the two kids are gay dads but was it that they had gay dads and the mother left them with you or that you are one of the gay dads or….
Ah, never mind. God bless you for doing it, whatever the circumstances. yeah, it’s really bad out there. this is the first generation raised on pørņ. Real pørņ, not quick sneaks at dad’s Playboy (or Playgirl, or, I don’t know, Field and Stream, Miniature Horse Monthly, whatever, who am I to judge?). They are exposed to stuff at the age of 12 I had to find out about at 30 from accidentally renting adult anime. It’s pretty raw by the time they get to high school. Worse for the girls than for the boys, I think. When I was a small broth of a lad girls were mysteries wrapped in enigmas, the most fascinating creatures in creation. To the boys of today they are nothing of the kind. Perhaps it is altogether healthier that way, I don’t know, but there’s a real power to mystery that these girls will never have.
Honest to God I just can’t convince myself of any way in which it’s healthier.
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Kids today are exposed to a whole lot of stuff as “acceptable behaviour” that – to me -just seems to rob them of having any degree of respect, including self respect. And if it’s the natural teenage impulse to rebel and test the limits, what the Hëll do these kids see themselves needing to do to achieve that?
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Cheers.
Well, the legal system isn’t prepared for cases like this. A few years ago, self-pornography wouldn’t have spread out much. With the internet, it’s difficult to do anything, intentional or not, and not have it spread out. Now the law is concerned about encouraging sexual deviancy as much as actual sexual violations. This is why things like simulated and animated underage pornography are illegal. The problem is we do not have a vocabulary to deal with underage and unintentional violations.
Of course, the real problem for me is that she posted the images in the first place. We really need to figure out new ways to explain the seriousness of the internet to children.
Following this logic, doesn’t that mean that any underage person who engages in… let’s say “self pleasuring” is a child molester?
whats next arresting a 14 year old boy for mášŧûrbáŧìņg
claiming that it was statutory rape because the boy was under 18 ?
i remember a few years ago a story about a 17 year old boy accused of rape in NC or SC i dont recall,
It allegedly happened at a party and during the trial video surfaced which cleared the boy, but the video showed the boy engaged in oral sex with a 16 year old girl, based on the draconian laws of the state, that 17 year old high school boy went to jail for 10 years,
there was talk of the laws changing and the boy getting released eventually.
but it goes to show you that lawmakers couldnt find thier ášš with both hands and a map
dámņ conor i didnt se your post untill i was ready to submit
I think that case was here in Georgia.
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Which once passed an obscenity law so badly-written and draconian that the ABA (which had been here every few years) never came back to Atlanta.
My real wonder here is if part of the sentencing will involve rules regarding when she is and isn’t allowed in the presence of minors. Often times in these cases the offender is not to be inside closed rooms with minors without specific supervision… something along those lines (I have a friend who… let’s not get into it). If it’s a child pornography charge these sorts of restrictions are very standard, but how will that effect the life of a 14 year old?
To people wondering “what’s with kids these days?” Honestly, I wouldn’t give it too much thought. The percentage of the teenage population that’s doing this is still rather small (just think of how many kids actually played “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” it’s the same folks). As long as you encourage your kids to be educated and are willing to have reasonable (if awkward) conversations about sex with them, it’s no more easy or difficult to raise a moral, happy, and healthy young adult.
At the age of 14, one could argue that she’s not legally allowed to be alone with herself. If one wanted to reduce this to an absolute absurdity, anyway.
If a woman of childbearing age is court ordered not to be in the presence of children, can she thus be banned from reproducing?
No, but the child would potentially be taken into care immediately post delivery by social services. (Which, dependent on circumstances, might be the ‘right’ thing to do)
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Cheers.
Which only goes to show that the law, unless it has a functional brain working to administer it, can come across as an ášš (no pun intended) and thus make it that much harder for the next generation to develop any sort of respect for it. If only it were the only such, though. But it isn’t. Here in Ontario, the well-meaning Nanny government has just passed a law wherein it’s illegal to smoke in a car if there are minors present. Shortly after it was passed an adult was pulled over and given a ticket for smoking with his 15-year-old daughter in the car. I hear you all say “Great!” and I’d agree, but …
While the cop was writing out the ticket, said daughter was standing beside them … puffing away on her own cigarette because it’s illegal to sell tobacco products to minors here, but it isn’t illegal for them to use them.
When, oh when, are we going to wing up with lawmakers at least approaching the status of sentient beings?
NUTPOHS – Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
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There are similar examples of overkill in the press over here, usually concerning sale of alcohol. Mother and her 19 year old son were in a supermarket, he decided to buy a bottle of wine to have with a meal, cashier refused to serve him because he looked to be less than 18 and didn’t have any id with him. Cashier then refused to sell the wine to the mother in case she gave the wine to her son. Go, as they say, figure…
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There’s a difference between justice and the law; justice is unique to each situation, based on events, participants and motivations. Laws are when we try to produce “one size fits all” justice, hopefully to end up with “one size mostly fits most people” justice. But courts are ultimately where new laws get road tested, and fine tuned to maxinmise their suitability and effectiveness. It would be nice to think that those enacting laws and doing the fine tuning had IQs in the three figure bracket and at least some modicum of common sense…
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Cheers.
That’s the law – re the 19-yr-old/mother wine sale – in Georgia (and most other states, i think), the clerk is not allowed to sell to an adult if they have reason to believe that said adult will pass it on to a minor.
It’s the same law over here, but the example shows one of the differences between ‘justice’ and ‘law’, which is what I was (poorly) aiming at. People in the clerk’s position (Hmm.. haven’t tried that one..) are afraid to use common sense, because the law involved is a bludgeon not a scalpel.
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Maybe worth noting that the girl has been arrested, not (yet) convicted. Without fly on the wall footage or a convenient TARDIS it’s pretty much impossible to decide why the arresting officer did so; may have felt they had no choice under the laws as written, may have wanted to kick the situation up to court because it’s a clumsy law that needs fine tuned, may have felt the girl was at risk in her home situation, may just have had an earful of teenage/parental attitude on a bad day… Who can say.
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Cheers.
This is actually happening rather frequently. Apparently, the new thing with teens in young lust is to send naked pictures of themselves to their love interests via cell phone. Aside from bringing new meaning to “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,” it’s also resulting in a lot of cases like this.
Frankly, I don’t see the attraction. When I was that age, I didn’t want to see pictures of certain girls at school naked. I wanted to see them naked, in person, and then do the stuff that naked teenagers do. But maybe I’m old-fashioned that way.
“Hi, my name is Amanda. I live in your neighborhood and have to identify myself as a sex offender. If you see naked pictures of me on MySpace… WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT A 14 YEAR OLD’S MySpace PAGE?????”
Technology has helped shape the world into an even smaller, weirder place.
I hope the judge doesn’t try to make a point out of this case. Clearly, the DA’s office would like to.
If a guy has a naked pic of his 16 year old girlfriend, he’d be busted for possession of child pørņ. If that’s the case, if the girl willingly takes naked pictures and distributes them, then she should be in trouble also.
Yes, laws can go too far, but there’s also something called common sense, and it’s getting more and more uncommon. Anyone at this age knows what child pørņ is and that it is illegal.
That being said, there should be separate laws for things like this. I’ve long been of the opinion that today’s sexual offender laws are unconstitutional because they punish people twice for a crime, and on top of that are used on people that have not committed a sexual offense.
As for the whole ‘what’s wrong with kids today?’…
Until the modern, industrial age, 14yo kids were usually married and may already have had kids. There are two reasons for this. First, life expectencies being much lower, you married younger because you had less time to raise your family. But also because this is the time when the hormones are flowing. The only way to stop unwed teenagers from having sex is to get them married before they start sleeping around.
This isn’t meant to imply that there’s anything right in adults taking advantage of minors. This is pointing out that we keep changing the definition of adulthood despite the fact that biology could care less.
Mmmm.. I’ll go with ‘technically 100% accurate, but still disagree” here 🙂
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Your argument about biological and hormonal imperatives is correct. I’d still like to think that not being a slave to those is part of what makes us humans and not animals.
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Cheers.
I have been following these sexting cases with interest for some months, even wrote a bit about it. On one hand, these cases corrupt the spirit of laws conceived to protect minors from abuse at the hands of adults. The idea of a teen going to prison (even an adult prison depending on what county you are in) because he put himself (and only himself) in danger, is ludicrous. But that pales in comparison to the efect of sex offender lists.
As far as Ive learned, those lists bar you from holding public office, joining the military, getting any kind of federal (and sometimes local) grant or help… In some counties it can prevent you from working or owning a bussines within the city limits, depending on how the forbidden areas are drawn. Schools or employers can deny you equal access simply because of your presence on said list. And the minimum period of time you can be on the list is ten years, meaning until 24, that 14 yo girl is basically a second class citizen, a pariah. If she is lucky.
If she is not, some organization or other will track her way after she left the official list. They will warn communities and employers of her abject condition and basically try to extend the list effect to your dying breath.
These lists were born to warn the public about the presence of child molesters and rapists. And everyone thought it was fine. Then they added more and more “crimes” to the list. I kind of remember a CDLF case about a comic shop owner who ended up in that list because someone thought the Gaiman’s Death info about AIDS was pornographic enough to prosecute him for selling it to minors. They add solicitors in soem counties, but also prostitutes… great way to help a prostitute seek a “decent” job, by the way. The list has become a new Scarlet Letter.
The Laws and instruments born to protect us from non-consensual sex have become a weapon in the hands of those legislators and law officials who simply want to protect us from…sex. Any sex, at least, that doesnt fit the venues they deem “normal”. And the teens they punish are simply beign made into outcasts, cautionary tales to frighten the flock into following the narrow and righteous path. Remember, for certain people, “bad” sex has to have consecuences, and if it doesnt, they are there to create them.
http://incontemptcomics.com/2009/02/26/heavy-hand-of-justice/
A) 14 year old girl takes nude photos of herself, puts them on the internet.
B) boyfriend of 14 year old girl convinces her to pose nude, posts photos on internet.
C) boyfriend of 14 year old girl ‘forces’ her to pose nude, posts photos on the internet.
By all means leave girl (A) alone. She’s not huting anyone. It should not be a crime if you’re doing it to yourself.
So come on all you 14,13,12, etc. year old girls. Start posting naked pix of yourself to show your support for this ‘innocent’ young thing.
And that’s your name on the list… C’mon, there’s got to be an ‘encouraging, inciting, promoting’ clause in the laws somewhere 🙂
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“It should not be a crime if you’re doing it to yourself”
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I see what you mean, but I see what you say.
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To me, there’s an implicit codicil that says “so long as you’re fully cogniscent of exactly what you’re doing to yourself”, which introduces age as a factor – the whole “age of consent” thing assumes that before that age you’re not qualified to give your consent. And how far do we extend that idea? Self harm? Drug abuse? Suicide? Alcohol abuse? Obesity? Really bad fashion sense? Auctioning ourselves on e-bay? (There’s some Romanian college student apparently sellig off her virginity for £50,000 at the moment. She’s hoping to meet a nice man who will marry her…)
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Should our society protect us from ourselves? If so, how should it do so? Answers on a post card please…
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Cheers.
BTW, afterthought; Why the quotes around the word “forces” in your original post?
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Cheers.
Under law, “force” can have any definitions – some of which are only technically “force”.
Carlin said it best:
“Seriously, where do we get our values?”
1) There is nothing new about the combination of teens + sex + stupidity.
However
2) We should acknowledge recent cultural developments as a result of internet, camera phones, sms, twitter, reality TV, blogs, YouTube, celebrity culture, etc. that contributed to this specific brand of stupidity.
However,
3) This is not a problem that can be dealt with by the law enforcement/legal system. Parents will have to add it to the things they have to educate their children about along with just say no, always use protenction, don’t take candy from strangers (not necessarily in that order).
Devil’s Apricot time, with a side order of stating the bleeding obvious, but; some parents are clueless about technology, some parents are clueless about parenting…
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Cheers.
So?
1) Parents and society have to teach children certain things. It has always been so.
2) Some children end up with bad parents and/or bad education. This has always been so.
3) 2 doesn’t change 1.
So, your intial position was that parents need to add stunts like this to the list of things to teach their children not to do and that it can’t be dealt with by the law enforcement/legal system. We’ve agreed that some kids end up with bad parents and/or bad education (I did say I was stating the obvious), so, even expanding the onus as you have to ‘parents and society’, who does get to sort out the problem and what tools should they use to do so?
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Cheers.
My nomination for the “Wait…what? Seriously?” Award goes to headmaster Lynne Moone Teta of the Boston Latin School for her press release stating that “There are no vampires at Boston Latin School”
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/cnn-news/19020075/detail.html
You don’t have to have wasted as much of your life watching horror movies as I have to know that this scene comes right before 7/8 of the class of 2011 come running down the hallways, hands outstretched, killing all before them in an effort to slake their unholy thirst. The faculty were turned weeks ago. Tyrone, the hip black student at Boston Latin School, he was the first to go–the papers said it was a drug bust gone bad (of course).
For the love of God, do NOT send your kids anywhere near Boston Latin School, or, as I like to call it, P.S. Soon To Be Filled With Blood Drained Corpses High! You might also serve them some of my delicious crockpot garlic rubbed chicken just in case this advise came too late (recipe to follow)
What you need to do now is have the principle of your school one up them. He needs to make an official press statement that, despite all rumors to the contrary, there was and will be no zombie outbreak at least year’s or this year’s proms.
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You then talk him into letting you set up the prom in a Dance of the Dead theme.
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Not a bad film actually. Much better than I was expecting.
This case is idiotic, but hardly surprising. There are 2257 laws (if you’ve ever watched the opening credits of a pørņø, these state that all actors are over 18) designed to make sure only adults are in, er, adult entertainment. Unfortunately, as with so many laws, folks pursuing their own agenda (in this case, an erotophobic one) have stretched the law to a ridiculous degree. When it comes to the Internet, the 2257 laws have an “guilty until proven innocent” aspect: Unless you have filed the appropriate 2257 documentation stating that everyone involved is over 18 (and have folks ready to produce the documentation upon request), it’s assumed that the person is under 18 and so the folks involved can be prosecuted for child pornography.
In theory, this is done to protect minors. In practice, it discourages anyone from presenting their own erotic videos online. I’m 38 (and anyone thinking I look under 18 needs professional help), yet if I posted an adult video of myself and didn’t have 2257 certification, I could be busted for child pornography. Bleh.
“There are 2257 laws (if you’ve ever watched the opening credits of a pørņø…”
And why else would anybody watch pørņø?
“There are 2257 laws (if you’ve ever watched the opening credits of a pørņø…”
“And why else would anybody watch pørņø?”
Actually, you can’t skip through these, so you don’t have much of a choice. It’s a burden I’m willing to bear…
Back to the topic, there’s also a problem with intent of pictures. Lots of people have taken perfectly innocent pics of their kids taking a bath, or crawling around naked (a pic of the latter was sent for my niece’s daughter’s birt) — but if someone decides that they’re child pørņ, well, prosecution can happen all too easily
James, there’s a great Perry Bible Fellowship strip which follows this ‘logic’ to its conclusion.
Sadly, this has probably happened.
It’s New Jersey, Peter — we only just passed a law two years ago to remove the phrase “No idiot or insane person shall enjoy the right of suffrage.”
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More seriously, this is definitely an insane law, although I certainly see Bill’s point about being verrrrrry careful how we modify it.
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But still — yes, the world’s gone somewhat insane, as James Lynch (no relation, AFAIK) points out with his example about baby pictures. I certainly have a few pictures of my daughter in the bathtub as a toddler, but clearly need to be careful about distributing them. (Pity — I was going to send them to all future potential prom dates.)
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TWL
Don’t worry. Showing them in person and watching the date’s face is much more fun that sending them anyway. 🙂
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Cheers.
I don’t know that it’s necessarily a bad law, Tim, so much as it is a bad application of existing laws. You have to be able to look at who laws were intended to protect, and that’s obviously not being done here.
PAD
Fair enough; let me amend to “it’s an insane case.”
The idea that people have to use (gasp!) discretion in figuring out how to apply a law is something that seems beyond a lot of folks, though. Even where I teach, there’s a tendency to make sure that a particular rule/method/policy/etc. must be able to cover all cases, and there ain’t no such animal.
TWL
It is an insane/overkill case… But who gets to use how much discretion in deciding how to apply which laws? The current process is to take a case to trial and establish precedents.
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Yes, rules seldom cover all cases, circumstances do alter cases and I’ve already stated my perception the law is to justice as “off the peg” is to “bespoke tailored”. But systems should be designed to improve through iterative testing, which is where go to court, establish precedents, add amendments comes in.
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Who is the law designed to protect? 14 year old girls seems the obvious answer, and if nothing is done here, what message is that sending to other 14 year olds? Or to those looking at 14 year olds as sex objects? I don’t know what the right answer is, but I’m reasonably certain that “No problem, carry on, perfectly acceptable behaviour here” is a wrong answer…
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Cheers.
It’s nice to know the authorities in New Jersey have so much time on their hands. If their real crime rates are so low, maybe I should consider moving there.
Catch 22, how far do you want the cops in New Jersey to go in terms of deciding what is and isn’t a real crime?
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Cheers.
I hope you realize I’m being facetious.
It isn’t the job of the police to decide what is and isn’t a real crime. It’s their job to arrest people for committing what they BELIEVE to be a crime. The ones who dropped the ball here are the prosecutors and any judge who issued a warrant for the girl’s arrest on charges of child pornography.
PAD
Facetious is fine, you’ve still opened the door to the magic words “real crime” vs, what, “waste of time crime”?
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Police arrest people who they believe have broken the law(s) as written. Who did what, when and why along the chain of events that led to the girl being arrested, I don’t know. But in that absence of knowledge, and given that some laws are blunt instruments not suited for delicate work, I’m not prepared to instantly say that anyone dropped any balls.
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Is it overkill to charge her with child pornography? By me, “Hëll, yes!”. Do I have a problem with sending a clear message to other 14 year olds that pulling this kind of stunt buys them a shedload of legal grief? Again, purely by me, “Hëll, no!”
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Cheers.
While this is rather a bad situation on the surface, I do kind of like the idea of the law being there to be used as a deterrent for such activity by stupid kids.
If the kids know they can be charged for child pornography for the act of posting or distributing naked pictures of themselves, perhaps they would be less likely to engage in that idiotic behavior.
Now it isn’t just parents telling their kids not to be stupid by doing things such as that, it is the law telling them not to do it and if they do, then they will be charged and have to deal with the consequences.
That kind of deterrent never works. The chances of getting caught are so long and the law is so unjust that kids aren’t going to take it seriously. We could debate all day about whether they “should” take it seriously, but the actual fact is that they won’t.
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Harsh punishments rarely work as well at deterring as people think they will. Yeah, they always feel like they should work, but actually looking at the results doesn’t seem to support that.
“Lies, dámņëd lies, and statistics” ride again… 🙂
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The argument about deterrents is always bogged down in the difficulty of provong how many people didn’t do something.
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Personally – and that’s all I’m doing, saying what I believe – busting a 14 year old with charges like these for doing somethins stupid is a wrong answer. But letting a 14 year old pull a stunt like this with no social/legal fallout biting them in the butt is also a wrong answer.
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To me, at one extreme, there are – for want of a better term – zealots, who think sex should only happen between married men and women, preferaby in the missionary position and with the lights off, and they’re quite happy to legislate for a camera in every bedroom to make sure that’s all anyone ever does. At the other end of the beam, you’ve got ‘atheists’ who are saying “if it feels good, go for it”, and “do as thou will shall be all of the law”.
Me, I’m an agnostic, I think there’s acceptable behaviour and unacceptable behaviour and that unacceptable behaviour should incur consequences, but I don’t think I’m unilaterally qualified to say what any of those should be. That’s why societys reach concensus on where the lines get drawn.
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Because the minute you agree on “Do as you will, and you harm none”, someone has to start deciding who is getting harmed, how they should be protected and how those who do harm should be punished… (Which – by me – also needs to cover those who harm themselves)
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Cheers.
Peter J, has anyone suggested that there should be no social/legal fallout? I don’t think anyone’s arguing for that.
No, and I’m not saying that anyone has said that. By the same token, no one really seems to be arguing that she should be sent to jail and listed forever as a kiddy-fiddler, or taken out for a dámņëd good cautionary stoning.
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I think there needs to be a middle ground solution, and I’m curious as to what that might be. One option might be to introduce laws making parents responsible for the actions of their kids, and wouldn’t that open a can of worms…
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Cheers.
What on earth does being an atheist, an agnostic or even a religious person have to do with how they feel about sexuality? I know plenty of open-minded believers, several rather moralistic atheists, etc.
BigCheese, I think Peter was being metaphorical in terms of the atheist/agnostic/zealot analogy.
Thanks Tim, you are correct.
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I did use the phrase “for want of a better term”, and thats all it is. If you have people who believe there is only one true moral standard, people who believe there are no real moral standards, and people who believe there are moral standards but aren’t sure exactly where they all are, the terms seem as reasonable as any others. No offense intended towards anyone doubts, beliefs or lacks thereof.
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“Moral standard” is probably a fuzzy term too, but I’m working with what’s available… 🙂
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Cheers.
with this i see two major problems:
1. There needs to be a distinction between nudity and pornography made in these cases. Legally nude pictures of men, women, boys or girls can be created and distributed to the public. However pornography (especially child pornography) cannot. One of the problems facing this issue is that these pictures get out and are distributed to the public with no way of undoing the damage. The authorities must consider these pictures as pornography so that they may arrest the people maliciously distributing the pictures. However that cuts both ways with the original picture taker being arrested as well. Eventually there will be a court case where the issue of nudity vs. pornography comes into play and a lot of these convictions will be overturned.
2. People need to get back to basics. A cell phone is only a cell phone if you use it to call people and it should remain that way. There needs to be a stripped down (pun intended) cell phone that can only be used to place calls. No mp3 player, camera, and all the other dohickeys.
They make no-frills models. I’ve got one. I can text with it using the keypad, but rarely do.
“Mobile phones, the only topic where men argue about who has the smallest…”
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It’s one more demon that we can’t get back into the bottle, kids want the phones with all the bells and whistles.
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Cheers.
“Supposedly if she’s convicted, she will be facing jail time and be forced to register as a sex offender under laws that were designed to protect people like her from…well…people like her”
And what happens if, as part of the sentence, she’s ordered to stay at least 500ft away from herself at all times?
Well, it could be argued that she’s already lost touch with reality once… he said, facetiously. Or possibly fatuously. 🙂
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Cheers.
I seem to be in the vast minority here, but I don’t have too much of a problem with all of this. Just from the driblet posted, the girl would appear to be guilty. Take a photo of a nude 14 year old? Check. Disseminate? Check. Doing so with the intent of causing sexual arousal in another? Check (or at least I assume that was her intent). The fact that she did it hereself, to herself is secondary. Suicide is crime and someone who only attempts suicide can be charged with attempting the act. Though in the case of suicide (and in this one, I suspect), treatment is a bigger issue. Consent is *not* really an issue. (Going back to the suicide example, the suicide attempter consented to the illegal act. A suicide victim *is* a victim (of their own “failings,” (medical consitions notwithstanding) if nothign else), but a victim nonetheless. A zero tolerance application of the sentencing law may be inappropriate here, but even a loose interpretation of the law would seem to indicate punishment of some kind is justifiable.
Let’s not forget, *somebody,* at some point, comlained. This was not something held between consenting minors. She put this on the web. She distributed it. This is not the case where the boyfriend passeed the photo around — at least not if I read the blurb correctly. And if he did pass it around, he should have equal consequences.
Suicide is crime and someone who only attempts suicide can be charged with attempting the act.
And laws against suicide are another mockery of common sense. Because charging somebody with a crime when they want to be dead is one *helluva* deterrent.
I’m not sure if it’s a ‘mockery of common sense’ or not. You either allow people the right to kill themselves, and let the bodies fall where they may, or you do something to save people from themselves.
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If you choose not to do nothing, you have to choose what to do, and legally taking people into custody, usually to section them for treatment, makes as much sense as any other approach.
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(Note please; I’m not saying people shouldn’t be allowed to self destruct, just that society has an either/or choice about how it responds)
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Cheers.
I agree. If you’re under 21, you don’t get to drink, no matter how responsible you’re going to be. If you’re under 15, you don’t get to drive, no matter how well-trained you are. If you are under 18, you should not be allowed to produce and disseminate nude images of yourself. If that’s allowed, it takes us into another road where we start asking exactly what the harm is in having a 14-year photographed naked. Maybe this girl should be punished if only to prevent her and those close enough to her to care from doing it and winding up like the girl who killed herself over sexting. I’m not in favor of registering her as a sex offender, but every other punishment they’re considering sounds fine to me.
*My* “Wait…what? Seriously?” award (though not for this month) is…
A 16 year old girl took her 18 month old daughter to a ear-piercing place to get the baby her first set of piercings. The operator performed the procedure with no problem or complaint. Then, the 16 year old asked to get an ear-piercing for herself. The proprietor refused because the 17 year old did not have parental consent.
Wow, that’s kinda brilliant in its stupidity.
Ya know, part of me really hopes no one can top that in these awards, ‘cos I don’t think I want to know what could actually top that…
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Cheers.
So you can be old enough to give consent for another and simultaneously too young to give it for yourself.
Wow. Just … wow.
There’s a moment in the film version of “Get Smart” in which Smart and Sigfried face off for the first time while Starker looks on, and it goes something like this:
SIG: How do I know you’re not from Control?
SMART: If I were from Control, you’d already be dead.
SIG: If you were from Control, YOU would already be dead.
SMART: Since neither of us are dead, obviously I’m not from Control.
(long pause)
STARKER: You know, that actually makes sense.
The whole thing with the underage mother being able to get a piercing for her infant daughter but not herself makes sense in the same way.
PAD
Yes, but could she outrun an arrow? (Monday is Obscurity Day here in Poole Towers…)
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“Logic… Allowing us to get things hopelessly wrong, but with total confidence!”
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Cheers.
Sixteen years old, with a one and a half year-old, and couldn’t get the piercings because she was too young.
And yet, there’s a certain other medical procedures which, if anyone had tried to keep her from having two years or so previously, certain member of the community would have gone to court to make sure she had the right to have.
THAT’S a headshaker for you.
Actually, I don’t have a problem with that. Why should she be allowed to do something that other girls her age can’t, just because she has a kid of her own? I mean, when you hear the story, it sounds strange, but when you think about it logically, it kind of makes sense.
Although I do have a problem with giving an 18-month-old pierced ears. I think it borders on child abuse. And what’s the point of it anyway? What does an 18-month-old need earrings for? (Although it brings up the question, what does a grown woman need earrings for, but I’m not going to get into that).
Common sense would suggest that this girl is not the ‘sex offender’ that we are really concerned about and try to protect our kids from. HOWEVER…she did, in fact, post sexually explicit pictures of a minor on the internet, which is illegal. The way I see it, she can take as many pictures of herself that wants, it’s distributing them that’s the problem. Hopefully common sense comes into play with the charges and prosecution as jail time and ‘sex offender’ lists seem ridiculous, but some kind of reasonable punishment for distribution makes sense to me, even if only as a deterrent to others.
Troy makes good points. Yes, outlawing child pørņ is supposed to protect kids, kids like this young lady. Ideally, the person we’re trying to arrest here is some ugly greasy creepy looking loser who takes photos of runaways and sells them to other weirdos.
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But it’s also illegal just to have the stuff. Or post it even if you aren’t the one to produce it. In the abstract no kid is harmed by someone having child pørņ or making a webpage devoted to it or printing a magazine. The kids harmed were harmed before those things were produced. One could argue that it makes no sense to prosecute people who are not actually producing the child pørņ.
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And I think that would be a bad argument. Allowing it to exist encourages it to be made. So while the penalty for producing the stuff should be higher than possession or distribution, I don’t think we can entirely ignore what this girl did. I don’t think she should go to jail for child pørņ but maybe getting this story out there will make others think twice. At some point the law should be amended to make clear what the offense is when someone does this and what, if any, the penalty will be.
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I can almost guarantee that even if she gets off scott free her life in school will be dreadful. She is probably dumb as a stump but I feel sorry for her.
Maybe it shouldn’t be ignored (and I certainly hope the parents don’t ignore it), but jail time is just an absurd response to this. Maybe a fine? Community service or something? (And no jokes about how her original action was “service” of some kind.)
Would it be too cynical of me to say that “dumb as a stump but willing to get naked” potentially qualify her for a lifetime of fame and fortune these days?
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Mr Mulligan is right (again, dammit) about those in possession of child pørņ. Basic economics say that demand fuels the market that then gets supplied.
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Cheers.
Why don’t start from the beginning and try to define exactly why or how child pornography damages the child? Of course, I’m not saying I’m at all unconvinced, but I wonder whether people have different reason for thinking it bad.
It’s the only crime I can think of, where viewing photos is highly illegal.
(Or in some countries now, viewing drawn sketches of fictional never-been-harmed children is equally serious.)
That’s a curious, and – I guess – somewhat draconian extension of the law… Out of interest, which countries?
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(Honesty compels me to admit though, as father of a daughter, that hearing that anyone who gets their jollies from any kind of kiddy abuse related material had fallen into a pirahna tank would probably not completely ruin my day)
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Cheers.
“Which countrie”?
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The US, for one. Last i heard the law applied to “depictions or descriptions”.
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And in Virginia, at least, the law also states that child pørņ involves depictions of participants who *appear* to be under 18 – that is, if a film showed a five foot tall 25-year-old girl with a small bust and narrow hips with braces on her teeth and wearing her hair in pigtails doing the nasty with a guy dressed as a teacher in a high-school classroom set, that would be child pørņ.
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And, according to someone who claims to know whereof he speaketh, producing the federally-required documentation *proving* she was twenty-five would be no defense in a VA court.
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Obviously, this law is based on the “child pørņ stimulates perverts to go out and rape children” school of thought, which is probably not valid, rather than on the “child pørņ is harmful to the children involved” school.
That certainly seems like an overkill piece of legislation, but…
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“Obviously, this law is based on the “child pørņ stimulates perverts to go out and rape children” school of thought, which is probably not valid,”
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See, it’s the “probably not valid” part that’s hanging me up. As posted elsewhere in here, I’ve seen this point argued both ways and I still think it’s going to have different effects on different individuals… I’m not instantly comfortable with scenarios where kids will “probably” not get assaulted/molested.
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Cheers.
Tim, I agree. Putting the kid in jail would be ludicrous. Community service plus the shame of it all will be ample punishment.
The ACLU and federal courts are now involved in one of these cases: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29964324/
Interesting article, seeming to confirm that a lot of these cases are where the kids have gotten so out of hand and the prosecutors have had enough of it so they’re hitting them with the only legislation they have even though they know it’s overkill…
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I think we may actually have bred a generation without a shame gene though, as one 18 year old, who sent his 16 year old girlfriend’s naked picture to 70 people, says “I made a mistake, a small mistake”.
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Cheers.
Peter J. Poole, I think John means Australia.
I read something about an Australian “pedophilia” scandal involving Simpsons characters appearing nude in the Internet.
It’s a victimless crime, but one could argue that it is bad because it encourages pedophiles. By the way, I wonder if pedophiles are more prone to attack real children if they have constant access to this material, or if the opposite is true.
I’ve seen it argued both ways, that it allows those so inclined to sublimate worse activities, or that it’s one more step moving them from dark fantasy to actualising said fantasy… I’d tend to suspect it would be either/or, based on the individual involved, so any single answer is not globally applicable or pragmatically reliable.
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Then again, one of the things I’m reasonably grateful for is that I can not understand the mentality of anyone so inclined…
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(Umm.. I’ve assumed by “this material” you mean the drawings, not the naked Simpsons. That’s just totally wrong!)
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Cheers.
I hadn’t read PAD’s original post, and i assumed he was referring to the case in Penssylvania where three 14-year-old girls are facing similar charges.
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In that case, the whole thing seems to boil down to a prosecutor with am agenda, like former Fulton County Solicitor Henson McAuliffe, here in Georgia, who conducted a personal crusade against pørņ stores, using tactics that were marginally legal at best.
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And apparently at least one judge agrees with my opinion:
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{snip}
{snip}
Sorry Mike, I’m going to get “in your face” on this one too…
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“The photos surfaced in October, when officials at Tunkhannock Area High School confiscated five cell phones and found that boys had been trading photos of scantily clad, semi-nude or nude teenage girls. The students with the cell phones ranged in age from 11 to 17.
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Skumanick met with about 20 students and their parents last month and offered them a deal in which the youths wouldn’t be prosecuted if they took a class on sexual harassment, sexual violence and gender roles. Seventeen of the students accepted the offer, but three balked and sued Skumanick last week.
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The suit, filed by the ACLU, said the teens didn’t consent to having the picture distributed and that the images are not pornographic. The ACLU said Skumanick’s threat to prosecute is “retaliation” for the students’ refusal to participate in the class”
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That sounds to me like a prosecutor doing what he can, within the laws currently available, to make some kids face up to the fact that they’re seriously overstepped the mark. I don’t have a problem with that.
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Cheers.
Yeah, right.
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I didn’t quote this bit:
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Apparently he began with the threat of kiddy pørņ charges – and my point was that even the possibility of such charges in a case like this is ludicrous.
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And this bit (which i did quote)…
…implies to me that Skumanick was (over)reacting on a personal basis.
Which is a conclusion you’re free to arrive at, and which I’m equally free to not arrive at…
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The phraseology – to me – suggests that he started with the soft option – an education program. It could be argued that he should have asked for the kids to do so voluntarily, he may or may not in fact have have done so, but a choice of ‘would you agree to take a punishment or walk away scot free’ is not likely to be too effective.
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On your second quote, unless you’ve seen the photograph in question, why do you seem to automatically assume that the girl was not in fact “posing provocatively”? I don’t know if she was or wasn’t so I’m not assuming anything either way.
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Cheers.
Okay, leave out my opinion of the prosecutor – which may ne coloured by (a) having worked (briefly, almost forty years ago) in an adult book store and (b) watching the Fulton County Solicitor bend the law in a personal crusade against such stores and material (about thirty years ago, but i suspect it’s fairly accurate.
That said, the mere possibility of child pørņ charges here is ludicrous.
And the ACLU (and, more importantly) a judge seem to agree, which was my basic point. (Or, i guess, were my basic points.)
I mean, it certainly sounds like prosecutorial zeal (to use a polite term) when a judge looks at the facts in the case and issues an order that says:
and
Get in my face all you like.
If the Prosecutor up there is elected, and if i lived there, i’d definitely be voting against the guy next election.
mike weber says:
March 31, 2009 at 9:41 pm
“In that case, the whole thing seems to boil down to a prosecutor with am agenda, like former Fulton County Solicitor Henson McAuliffe, here in Georgia, who conducted a personal crusade against pørņ stores, using tactics that were marginally legal at best.”
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And if I lived there, and if, and if, I’d probably vote for the guy. But I live in Scotland, so I’d go with the Scottish verdict “Not Proven” on your indictment above, which is what I’m really arguing about with you. I’ve agreed all along that the child pørņ charge option is overkill.
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This thread seems to be fast approaching it’s sell-by date, and I don’t want to get into an “Is!” “Is not!” contest with you, so I’m quitting here. If you do want to reply though I would genuinely be interested in what you think should have been done about what these kids were doing.
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Cheers. (BTW, thanks for the pointer to gravatar.com, as you can see, it works!)
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I agree with Peter J., forcing the kids to attend a class sounds like a pretty mild thing to do, no matter what your views on sexual politics happen to be.
“If she’s convicted.” That’s the key phrase. Or better yet, “if it goes to trial.” Hopefully it never gets to that point, that someone in authority with some degree of sanity will ask how this same 14-year-old girl can be both the perpetrator and victim with regard to these charges.
The fact that this girl would think about posting naked pictures of herself– let alone actually do it– online is disturbing enough, but for her to face the possibility of having to register as sex offender because of it is criminal.
I imagine this is all over the news in her town, if not across the state of New Jersey, and that she’s gotten a lot of flack for it (including a lot of cutting comments from other girls). She’s probably feeling mortified and humiliated. She might even be feeling like an utter fool.
So what’s the state got in mind for her? Punish her as harshly as possible for, what?, 25 years? While they’re at it, why not send her to prison for 19 years on charges of stealing a loaf of bread? Then have someone continue to hound her after she’s served her “time”, both in jail and on the sex offender registry?
If she’d posted pictures of some other girl, that’d be another (and considerably more serious) matter. But she didn’t. She posted pictures of herself. An utterly stupid move, yes, but to label her a sex offender because of it? That is beyond insane.
This girl needs to face some legal consequence for her actions, but these consequences should, as they say, “fit the crime.”
Whatever else happens with regard to this case (and similar ones across the country), I hope it makes other girls reconsider any thoughts they might have of posting nude pictures of themselves online (and I speak as someone with teenage female relatives, though they all seem much too sensible to do anything so stupid). Hopefully even those girls who might’ve considered taking a film photo of themselves for their boyfriends or whomever have also decided otherwise, aware that someone could always scan such a photo and put it online.
But this one girl shouldn’t be made a pariah for at least a quarter century (if not longer) in order to impart this message to girls (and boys) in general.
Rick
Isn’t the law designed to protect people like her boyfriend from her?
I see this kind of thinking to be part of our society’s “it’s ok to expose teenage boys to sex, because they want it” attitude that causes such a different uproar when a school teacher has sex with a teenage girl instead of a teenage boy.
Like some other posters have commented, it seems as if the real issue (in this case)is dissemination [insert double, nay, triple, entendre here]. She might be classed as an offender, not because she took pictures of a naked girl of teen age, but because she exposed a teenager to nudity.
Given that distinction, I’m not saying she should be labeled a sex offender by the state. It seems that she already has via discussions like this, and with Rick this might be a good case of “time served” to address the issues of discouraging people of any age to share pornography with teenagers and pre-teens, whether or not they are their “boyfriend”
I know it makes me not want my kids to have cell phones until they’re 21, but I don’t suppose that’ll happen…