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[pmcd9]

Who hasn't sent a sexy picture of themselves over the internet? 

If a minor sends a nude picture of themselves over the internet does that make them a child pornographer?

Apparently So.

I foresaw this.  Not that kids would be getting in trouble, but that they were up to this.  It seemed fairly inevitable.  All kids have cell phone cameras these days and they love to text.

Anyway, I really love the word sexting.  I wish I had thought of it.

[miles]

I haven't sent a sex picture of myself, well, anyhow.

Dahlia Lithwick wrote a good piece on that subject.

[CortJstr]

I'd heard about kids getting arrested for this and it is really strange to think that the girl can be the victim and the perpetrator of the same crime.

[littlefallsmets]

"Suzy?"

"Yes, Mom?"

"What's sexting?"

"Uh..."

"I'm told its all the rage with the kids but no one will tell me what it is."

"It's... using a sextant."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you know, the rich kids with yachts do it all the time and, you know, it started a trend."

[miles]

I'd heard about kids getting arrested for this and it is really strange to think that the girl can be the victim and the perpetrator of the same crime.

Yeah, it's really bizarre. They should just make it illegal to be a kid and everyone will be institutionalized until adulthood.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Yeah, it's really bizarre. They should just make it illegal to be a kid and everyone will be institutionalized until adulthood.

Absolutely. Theres more of us than them, and they don't get to vote. Let's do this. Let's make this happen. We tried with mandatory education, but apparently that wasn't far enough.

[CortJstr]

Yeah, it's really bizarre. They should just make it illegal to be a kid and everyone will be institutionalized until adulthood.

I'm surprised they don't just charge the guy she sent it to and let the girl off the hook since normally this kind of stuff falls 100% on the guy's shoulders.

Supposedly if you meet a girl who looks young, ask her for ID, she shows you a fake license , then you have sex with her you're still guilty of statutory. I heard this many years ago and I forget where but I feel like it was somewhere less that trustworthy. Like the local news or Rikki Lake.

[miles]

I think in a lot of states statutory rape is a strict liability law, so the state doesn't have to show mens rea to convict somebody of it. A professor compared it to traffic violations. You don't have to know that you were speeding to be convicted of it.

I think this type of sexting prosecution would be analogous to charging two minors having sex with raping each other. Clearly these laws were meant to protect children from adults. If sexting is a problem, we haven't figured out how to deal with it, and we shouldn't use laws created for other purposes.

[smick]

This really dilutes registered sex offenders and makes the term meaningless.

[pmcd9]

This really dilutes registered sex offenders and makes the term meaningless.

I think you are being smart, but what you say could be actually true.

"There's a sex offender moving into the building."

"Oh he probably just texted a picture to their girlfriend when he was 15 or something.  I wouldn't take no mind of it."

[littlefallsmets]

I mean, a lot of people already say things like "oh, he probably just had sex with a seventeen year old when he was twenty" or whatever.

I think that's a GREAT point, yeah.

[jay-ell]

I've seen articles about this trend before.  I work with teenagers at church, and part of me wants to sit them down and tell them that if they do this, they will regret it -- maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of their lives -- but I think I would probably get in trouble with parents if I even broached the subject.  Especially with the middle school kids, who might not have though of it yet. 

Also, when I was 17 I posed for some tasteful nudes taken by my boyfriend, who was also 17, and they were developed by a friend who worked at a camera shop, another 17-year-old.  We still have them.  I'm not sure if that makes any of us criminals or not, but the thought of it sure is creepy. 

[pmcd9]

I mean, a lot of people already say things like "oh, he probably just had sex with a seventeen year old when he was twenty" or whatever.

I think that's a GREAT point, yeah.

That IS a great point because I know someone who spent 3 years in prison for the crime of being 20 years old and having sex with his 17 year old fiancee.

Also, JL = Pervert

[smick]

Oh, no sir.  I'm not being a smart mouth at all.   If people end up registered sex offenders, and have their movements tracked, they better have done something to deserve it.

Really, I say this for both sides of the fence.   An 18 year old that slept with a 17 year old in the wrong state... vs. a dude who will touch kids again and again... one of them needs to be stigmatized, and one needs to be left alone.

If we're handing out scarlet letters, they better be deserved, and if they're deserved there better be no questions about it.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Oh, no sir.  I'm not being a smart mouth at all.   If people end up registered sex offenders, and have their movements tracked, they better have done something to deserve it.

My understanding is that most states have a romeo and juliet clause that prevents the 17/18 year old and 16/15 relationship from resulting in registered sex offender status. I heard this on an NPR interview with a lady who is permanently labeled a sex offender because she got caught giving her younger boyfriend oral sex when she was a teenager, before her state passed the R&J clause and refuses to make it retroactive so now she is getting evicted from her house because the school wants to put a bus stop on her corner.