The interesting thing I’m noticing here is that people seem to be shedding the legal issue and focusing on the physical, mental and emotional development issue. I think that when it boils down to it, legality is the bottom line. I’m in medicine. I’ve done plenty of rotations in pediatrics and psychiatric wards. I’ve seen 30 year old men who have the mental capacity of a 14 year old. I’ve seen 8 year old girls who have reached menarche. There are literally thousands upon thousands of instances which could support or negate the developmental issues, which is why the laws were designed the way they are.
Some states have laws regarding adulthood vs consenting age insofar as consensual sexual activity is concerned. Florida is a good example. At the age of 16, a male or female minor can legally engage in consensual sexual activity with a person within 5 years of their age, progressively until 18, at which time all bets are off because it no longer matters as they are legally an adult. Now, where this comes into play with the case of the kid in Florida who got busted for sexting is that, as pointed out earlier, the explicit material was sent unsolicited to multiple parties. The act negated consent and therefore broke the law. The people sending or receiving these sext messages will be prosecuted by state and federal law. Sexting photo galleries are all over the net and we has rightful and tasteful human beings need to stop. Sexting images and sexting pictures only cause harm to those being ph0tographed.
These kinds of laws are in place so you do not get cases like you used to where an 18 year old boyfriend of a 17 year old girl would get arrested for statutory rape when it was completely consensual (if you’ve ever read or seen “A Time To Kill”, you’ll understand the scenario better from the scene where the shrink is discredited).
So it boils down to being appropriate and understanding what can get you in trouble. I knew the laws concerning age when I was in high school and while I cant say that said knowledge is universal for kids of that age, they should still consider what I like to refer to as the “mom and dad” factor. I’ve never met a kid whose parents did not attempt to snoop (and usually quite successfully) into their kids lives. I knew it from a very early age and as such made sure that any of my dirty deeds stayed evidence-free. That is something that ALL kids do. Nobody wants to get in trouble, we all learn to lie at a very young age as a defense mechanism. It’s common sense to think twice before sending pictures of your genitals to a 14 year old girl’s cell phone, regardless of whether or not she asks for them, if for no other reason than “what if her parents see her cell phone?” Like any other crime, it happened because of sheer stupidity and failing to think it through.
Hell, I know a guy who used to date one of my female friends in college who graduated and became a Pennsylvania cop. A year after he graduated, both he and his partner were caught sexting with a 16 year old high school girl. Sure, he was only 22 at the time, but when it comes to the law, “my massive manhood was sapping the blood flow to my brain and impairing my judgment” is not an excuse.
So its precarious and it depends on the municipality. If you’re going to do something, you better know whether or not its illegal. Ask any of our law enforcement officers here, ignorance is not an excuse, regardless of age. If you’re a kid sending sexually explicit material over the phone, you better be damn sure that the person you send it to is not going to get you in trouble for doing so. So do I think they should be sex offenders? If they broke the law, yup. I’d expect no different for myself if I were stupid enough to do something of the like.
Just because your cell phone has a nifty camera attached to it does not mean you HAVE to take pictures of your fun parts for others to see. Nor does it mean that just because someone asks for said pictures that you should send them. Stupid is not an excuse.
Mobile device users commonly use the term “texting” for the short messaging service that allows them to quickly send a note to another user, but they may be less familiar with “sexting,” the trend of sending each other sexually explicit or suggestive content, usually photographs. While sexting can take place consensually between people who are in a relationship, it also occurs unknowingly or against the wishes of a person who is the subject of the content.
Sexting includes a variety of risqué stunts, from a girlfriend sending a nude photograph of herself to her boyfriend to a stranger snapping an indecent picture of someone in a locker room and forwarding it to his friends. With cameras being a popular feature on mobile devices, technology readily allows users to create and spread this content purely at whim.
Not surprisingly, the trend is popular among teenagers, who tend to view the activity as a method of flirting. In a survey by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and Cosmogirl.com, results showed that 21% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys have sent or posted nude or semi-nude images of themselves. Numerous cases exist, however, where this type of “flirting” has eventually led to public humiliation after a relationship is over and a spurned lover spreads the compromising images around the school. A widely publicized case involved young actress Vanessa Hudgens whose ex-boyfriend spread fully-nude photographs of her online.
“Sexting” the exchange of explicit photos through text messaging has become the new craze all over the country among 11- to 17-year-old adolescents.
According to a survey of 1,280 teens and young adults by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com, 22 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys said they have electronically sent or posted nude or semi-nude images.
Nearly half of the surveyors said they have received images from boyfriends or girlfriends, while others said they were sending the pictures to secure a date or while chatting with someone online.
Recently, teenagers have been arrested on child pornography charges. Some high-school students have even lost their college scholarships as a result of being identified in sexually suggestive pictures that have appeared on the Internet.
Today “sexting” is growing as wild as hormones. This issue has been reported in over a dozen states.
Monday, a 24-year-old Virginia man who received a nude photo message from a 16-year-old girl was sentenced to one year in prison .
In Wisconsin, police are considering felony charges against a teen who distributed nude photos of his 14-year-old ex-girlfriend to more than 100 fellow high school students.
And in Pennsylvania, a 15-year-old girl faces child pornography charges after police say she sent nude pictures of herself over the Internet.
In the past month, police confiscated five cell phones from teens in Scranton, Pa., and in New York, police charged a 16-year-old boy with allegedly enticing a 15-year-old girl to text him sexually explicit photos and a movie of herself which he forwarded to friends.
Is “sexting” out of control? Should it be illegal? Here’s what some think.