Sexting
Posted: April 15th, 2009, 11:34 am
Currently in America, a sixteen year-old girl who takes a picture of her boobs with her cell phone and sends that picture to her sixteen year-old boyfriend with that same cell phone can be prosecuted under laws designed to counter pedophiles, i/e “kiddie porn.”
Some years ago here in Oregon a federal sting operation was done to catch and break up a ring of “kiddie porn” producers, only to find that the people producing and distributing through the Internet this “kiddie porn” were the high-school-aged children who in fact “starred” in these productions themselves. It’s my understanding that they were prosecuted.
Police are able to cast a dragnet through the Internet by posing as underage girls seeking to have sex with adult men, which would seem to imply that there is in fact some quantity of underage girls actually seeking to have sex with adult men.
Clearly, some rethinking of the matter of adolescent sexuality in our society is called for.
Should children “sexting” pictures of themselves to each other be prosecuted under “kiddie porn” laws?
What about the children in Cannon Beach, Oregon? Was prosecution for production of “kiddie porn” the best way to handle their case?
What about all the underage girls seeking to “hook up” with adult men through Internet chat rooms? Are “To Catch a Predator”-style efforts doing anything for those girls? Are the police putting psychological professionals in the chat rooms to try and talk those girls out of what they’re doing?
Bearing in mind that the adult men seeking to “hook up” with underage girls in Internet chat rooms, as well as the consumers of the “kiddie porn” produced by the children in Cannon Beach, Oregon some years back are depraved individuals who rightfully should face harsh sanction by society at large, what about the children included in the equation? It seems to me they are overlooked.
The idea appears to be to catch all the predators, thus protecting the children. And to envision the children as non-sexual beings and encourage them to be so. Both of these chains of reasoning and logic are imprudently fallacious. Children think about sex. Some of them have it. They are indeed sexual beings. Our wishing them not to be so will never make them not so. It’s a form of burying one’s head in the sand. It flies in the face of reality.
With the Internet, and cell phones equipped with digital cameras able to access the Internet, the stage is entirely reset. A radically new approach to adolescent sexuality is called for. If a radical new approach is not arrived at by adult society at large, the children themselves will arrive at one on their own. They are doing so now. And I don’t think prosecuting them under laws designed to impose harsh sanction on depraved pedophilic adults is a proper or effective approach in the long term.
Children in the years just preceding their introduction into adult society think about and have sex. This is as has always been. It is as will always be. We will never stop them. Maybe we should consider some means of guiding them instead.
Peace,
Barry
Some years ago here in Oregon a federal sting operation was done to catch and break up a ring of “kiddie porn” producers, only to find that the people producing and distributing through the Internet this “kiddie porn” were the high-school-aged children who in fact “starred” in these productions themselves. It’s my understanding that they were prosecuted.
Police are able to cast a dragnet through the Internet by posing as underage girls seeking to have sex with adult men, which would seem to imply that there is in fact some quantity of underage girls actually seeking to have sex with adult men.
Clearly, some rethinking of the matter of adolescent sexuality in our society is called for.
Should children “sexting” pictures of themselves to each other be prosecuted under “kiddie porn” laws?
What about the children in Cannon Beach, Oregon? Was prosecution for production of “kiddie porn” the best way to handle their case?
What about all the underage girls seeking to “hook up” with adult men through Internet chat rooms? Are “To Catch a Predator”-style efforts doing anything for those girls? Are the police putting psychological professionals in the chat rooms to try and talk those girls out of what they’re doing?
Bearing in mind that the adult men seeking to “hook up” with underage girls in Internet chat rooms, as well as the consumers of the “kiddie porn” produced by the children in Cannon Beach, Oregon some years back are depraved individuals who rightfully should face harsh sanction by society at large, what about the children included in the equation? It seems to me they are overlooked.
The idea appears to be to catch all the predators, thus protecting the children. And to envision the children as non-sexual beings and encourage them to be so. Both of these chains of reasoning and logic are imprudently fallacious. Children think about sex. Some of them have it. They are indeed sexual beings. Our wishing them not to be so will never make them not so. It’s a form of burying one’s head in the sand. It flies in the face of reality.
With the Internet, and cell phones equipped with digital cameras able to access the Internet, the stage is entirely reset. A radically new approach to adolescent sexuality is called for. If a radical new approach is not arrived at by adult society at large, the children themselves will arrive at one on their own. They are doing so now. And I don’t think prosecuting them under laws designed to impose harsh sanction on depraved pedophilic adults is a proper or effective approach in the long term.
Children in the years just preceding their introduction into adult society think about and have sex. This is as has always been. It is as will always be. We will never stop them. Maybe we should consider some means of guiding them instead.
Peace,
Barry
(I´m joking, of course...!) 
and that you don´t believe in my danish-notcontrolled-aedesaegypti-glifosato country´s airs? 