So-called “sexting” is such a disastrously bad idea that I shouldn’t even have to explain why it’s a bad idea. Here is the thing: The “sexting” participant provides his or her partner with evidence — a permanent digital record of text messages and images — that the partner can then use as he or she pleases. Any young woman who sends nude selfies to a guy can just presume that he will immediately show the photos to all his friends. They always do. That’s why guys ask for nude photos from girls, in order to display them to their buddies as trophies. Any guy who asks for a nude photo is a creep, and any girl who sends a nude photo is a fool. The fact that we now have laws against so-called “revenge porn” (i.e., the unauthorized distribution of nude photos and/or videos, typically as revenge against an ex-girlfriend) does not change the reality that only a fool would ever send a nude photo of herself to a guy, and it is not “victim-blaming” to say so, no matter what any feminist tries to tell you.
“But Stacy, all the kids are doing it!”
No, they are not, and that kind of peer-pressure excuse is part of the problem. Responsible adults do not endorse foolish behavior simply because it is common behavior, and “sexting” is foolish behavior. Even if you did want to engage in reckless promiscuity, it would be foolish to create a permanent digital record of such behavior. Trust me when I say that my kids have been sternly warned to avoid doing this, and to avoid associating with anyone who does it, because nothing good can ever result from it. (See also, “Hit-It-and-Quit-It on Tinder.”) Unfortunately, other parents have not perceived this danger and have not warned their children, thus leading young people into predictably disastrous results:
Later this month, a North Carolina high school student will appear in a state court and face five child pornography-related charges for engaging in consensual sexting with his girlfriend.
What’s strange is that of the five charges he faces, four of them are for taking and possessing nude photos of himself on his own phone — the final charge is for possessing one nude photo his girlfriend took for him. There is no evidence of coercion or further distribution of the images anywhere beyond the two teenagers’ phones.
Similarly, the young woman was originally charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor — but was listed on her warrant for arrest as both perpetrator and victim. The case illustrates a bizarre legal quandry that has resulted in state law being far behind technology and unable to distinguish between predatory child pornography and innocent (if ill-advised) behavior of teenagers.
On July 21, 2015, the young woman took a plea deal whereby the felony charges were dropped, but she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, which will be expunged after she completes a year of probation. Over the next 11 months, she is not allowed to possess a cell phone, among other restrictions.
Professor Glenn Reynolds comments: “They’re too young to consent to naked pictures, but not too young to have their lives ruined for doing so.” Such is the libertarian reaction, but this is one of those instances (like the Kaitlyn Hunt case) where my social conservative impulse overrides every other concern. At first glance, the prosecution of teenagers for such behavior may seem unnecessarily draconian, yet we have to consider the alternative. What would be the consequences of a libertarian laissez-faire attitude toward minors producing what is, as a matter of law, illegal child pornography?
The laws against child pornography proscribe it in every manner — production, distribution, possession — and therefore, under existing law, the minor who takes nude selfies must be regarded as having committed a crime (production). Another crime (distribution) is committed when the minor transmits the nude selfies to anyone else, and the recipient of such a photo commits a crime (possession) the minute he or she views or downloads the illegal image.
In an age where digital photographic technology is ubiquitous, should minors themselves be exempt from prosecution under these laws? If you answer “yes” to that question, then you are saying that illegal images of your young son or daughter could be circulating online — every kid in school could see this stuff — and no crime has been committed unless an adult gains access to these images. No. We don’t want that.
A pornographic image of anyone under 18 is forever illegal. We may call this the “Traci Lords Rule,” in honor of a once-famous porn performer who lied about her age and started doing nude modeling when she was only 15, appearing in her first porn video at 16:
After being featured in the September 1984 issue of Penthouse magazine, Lords appeared in dozens of illegal videos between 1984 and 1986, and became one of the most sought-after pornstars of the era. In May 1986, when authorities discovered she had been underage while making all but one of her pornographic films, distributors were ordered to remove all her material to avoid the risk of prosecution for trafficking in child pornography. The withdrawal of her films cost millions of dollars and her case became the biggest scandal to affect the adult film industry.
No one at Penthouse knew Traci Lords was a minor, a student at Redondo Beach High School, when that pictorial launched her to porn stardom. Yet anyone today could conceivably be prosecuted for possession of child pornography if they have a copy of that 1984 magazine or an old VHS tape of any of the films Traci Lords made as a minor. It is contraband, like heroin, and no one can legally possess contraband. We return, then, to the case in North Carolina, where 16-year-olds are prosecuted as adults for having exchanged illegal images while “sexting.” Certainly, we may agree that these teenagers are “too young to have their lives ruined,” as Professor Reynolds says, but what is the alternative? What would be the consequences if law enforcement took a laissez-faire stance toward such behavior?
Any responsible adult must shudder to think of the conditions that might prevail if this behavior became normalized among high-school kids, because we know it would not stop there. If you give 16-year-olds a get-out-of-jail-free card for this stuff, how will you draw the line when the 15- and 14-year-olds do it? Next thing you know, the middle-school kids will be sending each other pornographic selfies, and there will be no feasible way to draw the line at all.
“But Stacy, all the kids are doing it!”
No, they are not — but even if it were that common, the law is still the law, crime is still crime, and evidence is still evidence.
Adults who grew up before this kind of digital technology existed may be tempted to think of stuff they did as teenagers that was illegal (or simply embarrassing in hindsight) and thus, in their mind, deserving of leniency. Be that as it may, there is no evidence of how much dope you smoked in 1976 or what you did with your girlfriend in 1986. Until quite recently, people didn’t have access to the kind of technology to produce digital evidence of everything they did, yet now such technology is everywhere, including your kid’s cellphone or laptop or tablet. Consider how these two North Carolina teenagers came to the attention of law enforcement:
The Fayetteville girl, Brianna Denson, was sexting with her boyfriend, Cormega Zyon Copening, the Sheriff’s Office said. The agency hit Copening with five sexual exploitation of a minor charges — four for making and possessing two sexually explicit pictures of himself and the last for possessing a copy of the picture that Denson made for him. . . .
The charges have already forced [Copening] off the football team at Jack Britt High School. He had been the quarterback. . . .
The Sheriff’s Office investigates sexting incidents several times a month, [Cumberland County Sheriff Ronnie] Mitchell estimated. “More frequently than we would like,” he said.
The investigations usually are into instances in which photos are shared among a group instead of just within a couple, he said. To his knowledge, Denson’s and Copening’s pictures weren’t shared with anyone else. He said they were discovered during an investigation of other explicit photos that were being shared among teens without the consent of the person or persons pictured.
It would appear that Copening and his high-school buddies were sharing around whatever nude photos of girls they had obtained and, when this activity came to the attention of authorities, the investigation led police to search Copening’s phone, a search that led to the discovery of Denson’s photos — illegal images, which any adult would be imprisoned for possessing — as well as “sexually explicit pictures of himself,” which are likewise illegal. District Attorney Billy West told the Fayetteville Observer that “in cases where the defendants and victims were willing participants and close in age, his office typically lets them plead guilty to a misdemeanor with a deferred prosecution.” Denson took the plea, and thus avoided “the life-ruining requirement that she register as a sex offender,” whereas it seems Copening is willing to risk a jury trial.
TAKE THE PLEA DEAL, BOY!
It’s for your own good. Yeah, I know, it seems unfair. “Everybody’s doing it” and “boys will be boys,” but this does not negate the evidence — the unmistakable digital proof — right there on your cell phone, evidence you were too foolish to think of as evidence, and you are the one responsible for that foolishness.
Stupid is as stupid does. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
So, like Reynolds said, the answer is to ruin the lives of a couple of teenagers for a totally consensual act? And that is what they’re doing, and the way the Sheriff rationalizes the charges is by weak moralizing, and saying its for their own good. Prosecutors were supposed to use the greatest amount of leniency in cases like this, but apparently someone must be up for relection, or needs to make a name for himself by punishing young people for a totally victimless crime. They are even charged the girl with taking photos of her own body.
Production of child pornography is illegal, and I would like for you to consider exactly what would happen in the real world if self-production of child pornography were decriminalized.
You are asking me to think carefully. I’ll try. Are you guilty of possession of digital porn if I send it to you, if you open it, or if you keep it? Are you immune if you delete the image and block the sender, or do you have to call the cops and turn yourself in in order to mitigate prosecution. I ask because child porn could be an easy way to entrap someone who never knowingly downloaded porn. It should be easy for someone to embed a child porn pic into a video file, for example. I don’t ask because I have answers, but because I have questions on how to stop exploitation of children.
The issue should not be ignored, for reasons stated in the post. However, it should be remembered that there is a juvenile justice system which allows prosecutions for actions which would be felonies if committed by an adult, i.e. someone aged 17 or older. Seventeen year olds should know better. Younger kids should be prosecuted under juvenile law and be under juvenile court jurisdiction with stringent probation requirements. Then, both interests are served. The prohibition of the production, dissemination and possession of these materials is enforced without destroying a teenager’s life over something which society otherwise celebrates.
Note well, these kids are being prosecuted for this, while their school district is disseminating all manner of sexual “how-to” advice ostensibly in the interest of “public health.” These pages have documented the attempts by the LGBTQXYZ provocateurs to indoctrinate public school children in all manner of perversion. Yet the public purports to be surprised, shocked and outraged to find out that public school kids are actually listening to this filth. Truly, we are reaping what we have sown.
“…ruin the lives of a couple of teenagers…”
They brought this upon themselves.
It doesn’t have to be decriminalized, but having it be a felony seems like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly– way too much collateral damage.
All it takes is some discretion. A major child pornography ring was busted here in Oregon, in the quaint coastal town of Astoria, and the perps basically got off with a warning — because it was a bunch of teenagers sharing selfies and the sheriff chose not to pursue it.
But it has to remain highly illegal, else creeps would simply force their victims to “self” produce.
*we have to consider the alternative*
It’s not nothing, it is the juvenile system. And getting rid of a**holes in the justice system with no sense of justice.
And I say this as someone who has been IN the justice system for 17 years now.
In the old days, if a LEO pulled over a teen and found, say, a Playboy in the back seat, would the kid have been arrested even as possession of adult material would have allowed?
OF COURSE NOT.
Good flippin lord. In the 70s people, including teens, took racy polaroids of each other. Unless some other criminal act was involved, a stern discussion might be in order. But human nature is that we like to look at nude photos of our significant other. Bad judgement? Maybe. But this case shouldn’t even be on a LEO’s radar let alone a DAs.
Here we are trying to get colleges to back off from labeling young men rapists for the crime of breaking up with their girlfriend two years ago and you want people to support this?
(btw, do we even know what HIS plea offer was?)
Wrong, yes. Criminal, hell no.
you can’t be serious.
It is a universal rule that if you are doing anything that you don’t want people to know about, then never, ever do it on the Internet. It shouldn’t even be needful to mention this, it is basic common sense.
Another universal rule is that the Internet is forever. You won’t be sixteen or eighteen or whatever for more than a year, but your stupidity is out there forever. We all laughed at our grade school teachers warning us about not sullying “our permanent records,” but sadly they do exist now… at least they do for everything you put online. And when you don’t get that job you interviewed for ten years later, you’ll never even know it was because of what you posted or texted when you were “just a kid.”
As for Copening, he appears to be getting the same kind of idiotic legal advice that Kaitlyn Hunt got. I have no idea what makes him think this dice roll is even worth it. A misdemeanor will be sealed once he turns eighteen, but a felony conviction is going to hang around his neck for the rest of his life.
As Stacy says…if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. There are consequences to doing stupid shit.
The problem is not enough parents are conveying to their kids the seriousness of posting stupid stuff on the internet. Remember…the internet is “forever!!”
You got that right about the felony conviction. That never goes away.
“So, like Reynolds said, the answer is to ruin the lives of a couple of teenagers for a totally illegal consensual act?
The answer is yes when you don’t hand pick which context suits your own opinion but rather, the law.
“… by punishing young people for a totally victimless crime.
If you’d read the whole thing you would have noticed the part where the Sheriff said “discovered during an investigation of other explicit photos that were being shared among teens without the consent of the person or persons pictured.”
So..their “victimless crime” as you choose to identify it, was discovered during an investigation into one of them participating in an identical crime that did have victims. Are you okay with that one too since the victims were of the same approximate age?
Kaitlyn Hunt, is that you?
To put it bluntly, you’re a total prick. This hurts no one, and is perhaps in violation of the letter of the law, but in no way violates it’s spirit. For people that are supposedly for “small government” you sure do like the state coming in to fix things.
Well, sorry, but Stacy is 100% wrong. This is a totally victimless crime, is criminal only in the most technical sense, and the state should stay the fuck out of it.
Kaitlyn Hunt, is that you? DERP!
The Sheriff is a moralizing prick, and an example of why less, and less people respect police, and downright despise them. This is a totally victimless crime in which they went so far as to claim the young woman who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, is both victim, and perpetrator of the same crime! The term “Kafkaesque” comes to mind here. You guys just love to see people punished for breaking the rules, unless of course one of you are breaking the rules, then the rules are being broken as an “act of conscience”. Reality is you’re just a petty little tyrant, and a complete asshole.
No, they are serious. This obviously must be leading to the downfall of civilization just like every other act with a sexual dimension that falls outside of their narrow views.
Holy schnikes, I can hardly believe that I’m siding with the-moron-known-as-Blue. Did Cern open a wormhole or something? Anyway…
Having been the parent of idiot kids, I have to say that it ain’t right to prosecute idiots to this extent for bein’ idiots. Ain’t like nobody was murdered or anything. My main Numero Uno gripe with the so-called “justice system” (har har) is a total lack of common sense applied.
Furthermore, I also know from experience that, same as the aforementioned idiots don’t mature physically at the same rate, they don’t mature emotionally or intellectually at the same rate, either. Just because one such idiot looks all grown-up bodily, doesn’t mean he/she is emotionally.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but at 16, I myself was built like a brick sh1thouse, and had the emotional maturity of a 13 year old (on a good day), but luckily, the intellectual maturity of a 30 yo. I remember what those days were like, vividly, and I don’t think these kids need the prosecutorial overreach that they’re getting.
Well, maybe you think that young men should be able to distribute sexual images of 16-year-old girls without consequence, but most of us with daughters have a different perspective.
Yeah, discretion. I think they need to apply that a LOT more, not only in this case, but in lots and lots of cases. Hell’s bells, even the DOJ has an article on their site that they wrote, about how the life-ruining sex offender label is applied WAY more often than it should be. And, I think the drug offender label is overapplied, too, but that’s for another gripe.
The problem are the “arrest” and “conviction” quotas with the sole “purpose” of jacking up stats and making career politicians “look good”, thereby turning minor offenders into what amounts to political prisoners. And you know those same low-info sheeple that voted for Barry, and now want to vote for Trump? There’s the audience for these bogus stats.
Cripes. I need to pour a glass of wine and take a rest.
I’ve noticed that a whole host of so-called “victimless crimes” end up ending and destroying lives. The temper tantrums of libertines aren’t going to change the minds of those of us who have to clean up the social trainwrecks and the carnage.
I disagree completely.
If you give a gun to a monkey, you can’t blame the monkey when somebody gets shot.
Where’d the cell phones come from? Don’t tell me these kids bought them and pay the monthly bill. If I were a total a-hole like these freakin’ cops and in-it-for-myself-and-screw-my-victim prosecutors, I guess I’d be sniffin’ around for whoever was paying the bill.
But I’m not an a-hole, so I’d confiscate the two phones, WIPE THEM ON THE SPOT in front of witnesses, tell the parents that I’m giving the phones to abused women to use as emergency phones, and finish up by telling the parents no more phones for a year (or more) for those kids or they – the parents – are goin’ downtown.
Problem sol-ved.
One, he’s not a man, he’s a teenager, and in this case, the only “16 year old girl” is his girlfriend who took a few photos of herself, and sent them to him. There is nothing to suggest he shared those photos with anyone, and she was also charged, even though, she’s also the “victim”. This is not a crime. At best, it’s poor judgment, and shouldn’t result in a criminal record.
Sure, and the perspective ought to be, “I’ll be doing random checks on your phone girlie (or sonny, as the case may be), and if I see anything I don’t like – ANYTHING – you’re out of the phone business for as long as you live under my roof.”
To put it bluntly, you’re a filthy pervert and you better hope that a moralizing sheriff is there to stand between you and the fathers of the 16-year-old girls of this world after you’ve exposed some teens to your depravity.
You know, you were doing ok until you had to go all potty mouth.
As said, a plea deal was offered and, in the case of Denson, accepted. As further said, this case arose because of an investigation into other photos, which were reportedly being circulated without the consent of the individual in the photos.
Simple question: Do we want minors to be portrayed in pornographic images? If not, do we make an exemption for pornographic selfies? If you say “yes” to either question, you open Pandora’s Box, because it will be difficult (perhaps impossible) to find any enforceable limit.
The sheriff and district attorney both describe a certain degree of leniency — prosecutorial discretion — in dealing with these cases. They are attempting, however imperfectly, to hold back the floodgates that would be opened if teenagers were never prosecuted for this. I think such prosecutions are necessary, because I can very easily imagine the downside risks of permitting this kind of behavior to go unchecked among minors. Things are very bad already, and could become much, much worse if society were to turn a blind eye to this problem.
A girl can transmit images with her friend’s ipod via email. No cell phone required. No parental permission for use of electronics required. I don’t intend to supply my daughter with a cell phone until she’s 30, but if she’s stupid enough to send inappropriate images to a young man when she’s still only 16 years old, that does not give the man a blank check to distribute the images without consequence. The young men who distribute these images know that they’re taking a risk and they know what they’re doing is wrong.
Sarge, we know that (1) there are too many laws, period, and (2) there are heaps and heaps of b.s. laws. Hell, we just saw the b.s. “supreme” court recently “legislate” a zinger of a b.s. law.
There are so many laws that even if a person spent their entire lives reading them, they still wouldn’t get finished, and that’s just federal laws, not even state and municiple ones!
That’s not liberty, Sarge. That’s serfdom.
I know some sign language that conveys exactly what I think of all these laws. Can you think of what it is? 😀
God managed to sum up all laws into two: love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself.
Maybe we need more than thise two in this country, but not so many that we need scientific notation to count them!
Would that it were so easy. You can use wifi and email to send images. You don’t need a cell phone at all. Where there’s a will, there’s a fairly easy way. I’m not saying that parents shouldn’t hold their daughters accountable, I’m only saying that parental oversight alone cannot fully address this issue. A young man who is foolish enough to get tangled up with a girl who would send him underaged sexual images needs to understand that he’s not legally free to distribute the images.
Having been the parent of idiot kids, I have to say that it ain’t right to prosecute idiots to this extent for bein’ idiots.
Look, the girl pleaded to a misdemeanor. I’m sure the boy could have pleaded, too, and we wouldn’t have heard anything about this case except — like Caitlyn Hunt before him — it seems that he and his parents think they can try this case in the media, present the kid as a civil-rights martyr, and win.
Hell to the no. Of all the problems our society has, being too harsh on juvenile crime is NOT one of them. I’m not saying every kid who gets caught breaking the law needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I am saying that bad things happen when juveniles think they can get away with stuff just because they are kids. And this particular type of behavior is a plague among teenagers nowadays, because most parents are either uninvolved or not sophisticated enough to effectively monitor their kids’ online behavior. Something must be done. It’s bad out there — very bad — and I’m glad some law-enforcement officials understand this.
Funny you should mention this, because as a counselor, I know someone who was victimized like that, and he just got out of jail. He has to register as a sex offender for LIFE, even though he didn’t know the thing was there, and never opened it, which the prosecutor admitted. He’s pushing 30 now, and will never be able to get a good job, live anywhere he wants to, or even go to Disneyworld – ever – ’cause he’s now branded as a child-raping predator for life.
But, you know, it’s all good because the justice system got its stats.
Agree 100%.
Yeah, he’s a man. He’s in an adult sexual relationship with a 16-year-old and he’s distributing illegal images. He’s old enough to know that what he’s doing is illegal.
Obviously you sir(?) Have no daughters or granddaughters, otherwise you would feel a whole of a lot differently. So you can KMA!
Whole hell of a lot differently.
Sure. And my point being, here, parental involvement. CLOSE parentsl involvement. Seriously, you come to know your kids pretty good, and you know which ones attract trouble, which ones are more (or less) mature than the others, and do forth.
My youngest is 23 and still living at home. My rule is, I reserve the right to conduct random bedroom, computer and phone (which she owns) searches anytime my spidey sense starts tingling. And if she doesn’t like it, she can move out.
Dude, you’re a total ass and obviously you don’t have any daughters or you would feel a whole of a lot differently.
“Maybe we need more than these two in this country, but not so many that we need scientific notation to count them!”
Okay, that’s a great line, but laws against distribution of sex pics of 16-year-olds are just fine.
I like your style!
It seems to me that the answer is to go after the corrupt prosecutor. Admittedly, not easy, since it is lawyers who write the way-too-many laws for other lawyers to game.
RS: “Note well, these kids are being prosecuted for this, while their school district is disseminating all manner of sexual “how-to” advice ostensibly in the interest of “public health.” These pages have documented the attempts by the LGBTQXYZ provocateurs to indoctrinate public school children in all manner of perversion. Yet the public purports to be surprised, shocked and outraged to find out that public school kids are actually listening to this filth. Truly, we are reaping what we have sown.”
“Sex education” is, and always has been, grooming. It is, and always has been, designed by sexual perverts for the purpose of evangelizing the children into sexual perversion themselves.
Give the Democrats a few more bites at the apple; they’re working on it.
“…if a LEO pulled over a teen and found, say, a Playboy in the back seat…”
Possession of playboy and distribution of underaged sexual images are hardly equivalent.
“In the 70s people, including teens, took racy polaroids of each other….”
I don’t know how explicit the pics were in this case, but we’re not in the 70s anymore and we’re not talking about grandma’s polaroids. Kids in 2015 are completely desensitized to pictures that are merely “racy”. So I don’t think it’s safe to assume that the images were merely racy. And publishing digital images is hardly comparable to trading polaroid prints. Gauzy 70s nostalgia won’t put stories like this in appropriate perspective.
“…human nature is that we like to look at nude photos of our significant other.”
Significant other?? We’re not talking about a young married couple or college students in a stable relationship.
But as you well know, the *cough*schools*cough* are undermining parents, and they’re teaching that having sex at any age really, is perfectly ok. And normal (except for white, male college students).
And when the schools push sex, drugs and rock & roll, but the parents push peity and abstinance – let me ask the 17 yo Stacy – who would YOU listen to?
In this case, I can’t find in me to blame the kids entirely…nor the parents…nor even the local school system. You know who I blame entirely? Satan, but the Solution to the problem won’t arrive for just a little while yet. He warned us it would come to this. Imagine what it’ll be like after the Rapture.
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Listen to the anti-moralizer moralize — and make an jackass of his bigoted self in the process.
Sure. But technically speaking, according to the letter of the law, there was no corruption. According to the cops, “possession is possession, doesn’t matter if you looked at it, or even knew it was there”. Then, according to the “I need 30k up front just to *start* looking into this, going upward from there” defense lawyer, that is absolutely true.
It’s no longer a matter of “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”, it’s a matter of “you goin’ to the big house, brah, ’cause we say so, unless yo daddy rich”. I sat and watched this poor guy in court, where his court-appointed lawyer didn’t even know his name and started arguing a different case. That’s what it’s come to, I’m afraid. Legal malpractice? Sure. Anybody to prove it? Nope. Anybody care? Nope. Little cog in a big, big wheel.
I’m a mean Southern beeyotch. 😀
I read a book recently called Three Felonies A Day– named after how many felonies the average person commits every day without even knowing.
In a world where everyone is a criminal, the only crime is getting caught.