Sexting and America’s Moral Bankruptcy
Here’s some bullshit: these 13-yr-old kids got caught sending pictures of their nude classmates amongst themselves from cell phone to cell phone – so the Falmouth Police Department (508 457-2527) is planning to charge them with felony child porn charges. I’ve included the phone number so that you can call and complain – their website is dead.
Now when I first heard about this story, it was on a CNN video that featured some woman saying that they were planning to ruin these kids’ lives by charging them with possession and distribution of child pornography – because although the charges are probably not applicable, they wanted to “send the message that this is not acceptable behavior.”
That’s fucked up. That’s like if we decided to go ahead and take all underage kids that have sex with their peers and charge them with statuatory rape to send the message that “that is not acceptable behavior.” Why don’t we make them all pin special patches on their shirts too?
Here’s another question – why isn’t the girl getting charged with producing child porn? That just sends the message that girls should be loose and irresponsible and there will be no repercussions, and that the boys better stay away from nude pictures or they will be branded as child pornographers. Clearly this isn’t about sending a message about what is or isn’t acceptable behavior – it is about perpetuating America’s puritanical right-wing positions around the ever-touchy subject of teenagers exploring human sexuality. What these kids need is a responsible dialogue on human sexuality and the consequences of their actions, not to have their lives ruined by being convicted of producing and distributing child pornography.
America: kids sending text messages with naked pictures of themselves is regrettable – but convicting teenagers on child porn charges just for acting like teenagers shows just how morally bankrupt this country is. Ruining a child’s life just to send a puritanical message of repression is just PLAIN WRONG.
He dicho.
