Here’s the situation. You’re 15. You are bored, you take nude pictures of yourself, and put them on the internet. You are promptly arrested.
What kind of bizarre, dystopic universe did this happen in? Pittsburg, PA!
A 15-year-old girl has been arrested for taking nude photographs of her self and posting them on the Internet, police said.
The girl, whose identity was withheld, was accused of sending out photographs of herself in various states of undress and performing a variety of sexual acts. She sent them to people she met in chat rooms on the Internet, police said.
Police seized her computer and found dozens of photographs stored on the hard drive. Authorities did not say how police learned about the girl.
She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.
Cops could be busy going after actual child pornography, or actual rapists, or actual child molesters, but instead focus their resources on booking someone who felt so good about her body that she felt the need to show it off. God save us.
Unlike in Europe, America has an uncomfortable position on sexuality, a holdover from our Puritan days (say what you want about Massachusetts, the place was started by a boatload of killjoys), and the continuing impact of America’s incredibly religious people. Fewer than 5% of Americans don’t believe in God, a religious fervor long since banished in Europe, Japan, and many other industrialized nations.
As such, we have rigid, sometimes unfathomable, laws regarding sex that hold the Age of Consent as a magic firewall separating the uncorrupted innocence of youth from the lewd world of adulthood, a concept that is not all that old. The concept of an age of consent arose in the Victorian era, but has been left largely unadjusted since. Rapid advances in health have marched the age of sexual maturity farther and farther before, while the age of legal majority remains at 18.
We saw the effect of this in the case of Genarlow Wilson, who almost served 10 years in jail for receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old while 17. Since the State of Georgia set its magic firewall at 16, Wilson was to be branded as a sex offender for life. Even murderers spit on sex offenders! Had the Georgia Supreme Court not saved him after two years, his life most certainly would have been destroyed completely. This is not to say that laws regarding sex should be completely abolished. But the difference between a 15-year-old taking pictures of herself and a 40-year-old abusing a toddler seems to be completely lost on our laws today.
This case is even more egregious than the Georgia case. Here, a 15-year-old posted pictures of herself on her own free will and risks being treated the exact same way a pedophile is treated when forcing a child into sex. This isn’t the first time, either–two teens in Rhode Island faced the same situation.
Rather than a rigid regime that makes no distinction between abusing others and enjoying oneself, it’s time for a set of laws based not on a puritanical belief in the magic age of adulthood, but takes into account the reality of development.
6 Comments
I think this will become a *huge* issue in the next decade or so, and will ruin not a few lives in the process. I don’t think most adults understand the ubiquity of digital cameras (and the sharing that goes on with it). I suspect there are thousands upon thousands of kids out there who would be subject to massive jail time if current law were applied to them.
Kenton–you missed the best example of all. In Florida, a 16 year old girl took pics or herself and her 17 year old boyfriend having sex, emailed them to him, and showed them to noone else. Under Florida law, the sex wasn’t illegal, but they were both convicted of child pornography. What’s more surprising is that appellate court upheld the conviction. You can read about it here: http://www.news.com/Police-blotter-Teens-prosecuted-for-racy-photos/2100-1030_3-6157857.html
Yes, totally agree. How unfair that legislation disallows children from debasing themselves before they’re mature enough to grasp the fullness of the issue or ponder the consequences. We need to let kids be kids and just learn their lessons (adult predators, etc.) the hard way. You can’t legislate morality.
Excellent analysis and commentary Kenton.
Our entire justice system (including the prisons) is in serious need of an overhaul. We are locking folks up for so many non-violent crimes. The United States now locks up folks at 9x the rate of China and the Soviet Union….We have become the thing we detest “a police state” with harsh penalties and the judges’ hands are tied so that individual circumstances that might make a crime more understandable and less heinous are not taken into account.
The whole system is extremely costly and causes many law abiding citizens to get nervous whenever a “law enforcement officer” stops them for anything.
We need to get back to having public safety officers and only lock folks up for violent crimes or cases of extreme financial damage when they take out folks life savings (like the Enron folks….who got off very easy btw)….
We need to have a system of JUSTICE and FAIRNESS….which is no longer happening….
Buzz…Buzz…
Justice has nothing to do with our justice system.
Our system is based on fear, self-loathing, hypocrisy, and convenient sweeping of facts under the carpet so we look good.
But you left out the most delicious irony of all: If the same “child” who is deemed incapable of sexual autonomy at 14 or 15 is married - perhaps to a 35 year old - all is well.