What kind of world is it when fifteen year olds are interested in human sexuality? I’m shocked. Shocked. I think we should all be prosecuted.
So if touching yourself while under the age of 18 is “child abuse”, what is masturbation? We’ve got millions of child abusers, millions I tell ya…
THis is just so wacky! How does one “abuse” themselves, and disseminate said images of themselves as a minor and get charged with this crap?
Sam
The Man with the Golden Gun and BlackKnight, while only trying to make a funny (probably), are hitting pretty close to the truth of the matter.
As usual, I’ll preface this possibly flameworthy opinion by stating that I am completely and totally against child pornography in any way shape or form. I was abused as a 5 year old and I know first hand the scars that sexual abuse leaves, especially at a child’s age. If I ever found someone abusing/molesting/involving my child in pornography, I’d probably end up in jail for life because of my actions.
BUT…there is a BIG difference between child pornography and what this girl is doing. Not legally - until she hits the big 1-8 she is a child - but let’s look at this from a few alternate standpoints besides the legal one.
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She is 15. In all likelihood, she has reached the age of menstruation. Which is your body’s way of telling you that you are ready to become pregnant. To become pregnant, YOU MUST HAVE SEX. Which is exactly what her hormones are telling her to do. Physically/sexually, she is an adult. Of course, in our society (and most every other society today) she is not considered mentally an adult, and therefore needs protection. She’s 15, she shouldn’t be having sex, she’s too young for the responsibility, older men could easily take advantage of her - I agree with all those statements. However it also didn’t stop me and many others from losing their virginity at age 14, cause I was HORNY. Once you start having sexual urges - once you enter your childbearing years - I think the label of “child pornography” should be tossed aside. Paedophilia is an attraction to children. Once you hit puberty, you’re no longer physically a child. I’m not saying its right, but don’t attach the stigma of child pornography to an issue of a clueless 15-year-old exploring her own sexuality.
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I have a big problem with the “either-or” nature of the child porno laws. Either you’re under 18 and therefore a child, or you’re over 18 and therefore an adult. Sorry, life is rarely so cut and dried, and there are ways around this (to a certain extent). How? It’s all in the perception. Traci Lords got away with this for years. She didn’t have the stereotypical teenager’s body - she looked like a fully developed adult. Because she also acted and spoke like an adult, the perception was completed and people took it at face value.
I have met (and up until about 4 years ago, I was one of them) women who are well past the age of 18 and yet they look about 15 or 16. Small boned, fine-featured, petite, etc. They just give off the impression that they are much younger than they are. Throw them in the appropriate outfit and hairstyle and they could pass for even younger. And certain pornography outlets take advantage of models with these features - they proclaim “barely legal” but the effect they are trying to achieve is much younger than that. (Pigtails, sucking on lollipops, baby-doll dresses, etc.) So, legally there’s no child porno, but the pictures are designed to titillate the paedophile or border-paedophile. Why the fuck is THAT legal? That’s just as disgusting as true child pornography - in some ways it is more so, because it involves the implicit approval of the model, who, if she’s over 18, must know what she’s doing because she’s an adult, right? 
I know, I know, no system is ever perfect. But we approve the pictoral infantalization of sexuality because it involves “two consenting adults” - we charge the 15 year old for child pornography because she’s becoming sexually aware of herself and doesn’t know what to do about it (parents, where are you?) - I think sometimes we really have legislated common sense out of existance.
I think she knew what to do about it. Well, except that she could have been stockpiling cash for her legal defense in the meantime, but we all learn our lessons.
Building my legal defense fund from a young age is the most important piece of advice that no one ever gave me. Where were you 15 years ago, erislover?
Under the statute I posted it’s clear that masturbation in and of itself does not constitute the offense. What is required under the statute is the recording of said masturbation or other “prohibited sexual act.” If she took naked pictures of herself and distributed them with the intent of inciting sexual arousal in others, she’s guilty.
Sorry, should have read more carefully.
Sam
Thinking about sex. Lesse, I would have been thirteen then, that would put me in, er, eigth grade. So, yep, about three short months before the glorious loss of my otherwise useless virginity.
Kids! 
Istara, there are PLENTY of 15-year-old girls who will not only take and distribute sexual photos of themselves, but who will FIGHT, tooth and nail, for the “right” to do so. I used to work on the abuse team for LiveJournal, and oh god, the underage boobies. At least when I was there, we considered them such a danger to the site (since they WERE child porn) that we’d suspend their accounts as soon as we saw the pictures and evidence of their age. And then the whining would begin. We couldn’t censor them, they had free speech. It’s just nudity, we must be some kind of prudes. They have their nipples barely covered with black electrical tape, so it’s not illegal because they’re not naked. They were going to make the entries friends only, then it wouldn’t matter. Also we were Nazis.
I’m sure that there ARE skeevy older guys who coax underage girls into taking pictures, but there are also lots of underage girls who get the idea all on their own. I’m glad this girl’s being prosecuted, though not for the sexual abuse part.
For which part, then? What lesson do you want her to learn, exactly?
erislover, thanks for taking my statements with a sense of humor (always appreciated), and for proving the first half of my point. Teenagers are HORNY, where do these movie executives think the stereotypical horny teen came from? You can try to protect them, guide them, and in cases of total parental neglect, you can legally try to prevent them from fucking anything that walks. But that, in my book, isn’t the same as paedophilia.
(I’ll save my rant against the Hollywood/TV portrayal of sexually active teens in a society where their actions are technically illegal/child porno for another Pit thread.)
Again, my point. Hell, I’m twenty-seven and consider myself reasonably kinky and I’ve NEVER put black electrical tape on my nipples. Those chicks might not know what they want but they know how to get it. And one would hope they would read up a little on Nazis before throwing that comment around. Dipshit kids
I agree there should be a law against these kids opening themselves up to predators and the general embarrassment of knowing hundreds of old skeevy men whacked off to your naked photos when you were 15 and too shortsighted to see the negative repercussions of your little “photo shoot”. Just save the label of child porno for stuff that really IS child porno.
Possession and dissemination of child pornography. If she doesn’t get in trouble with the law for this, what’s going to discourage other 15-year-olds with the same idea from distributing pictures of themselves? Even if what she did was entirely her own idea, she’s getting the people she sent pictures to in a LOT of trouble. (Notice that police are trying to find all the people she sent them to.) Yes, some of them may well deserve it, but if you were a teenage boy and a hot girl about your age offered to send YOU some naked pictures, you probably wouldn’t think of it as illegal child porn. You’d think of it as the best thing to happen to you in a long time. 
I’m also concerned that not prosecuting girls who took pictures all on their own may make it more difficult to prosecute things that the laws were meant to prevent - like young teenagers being coerced into this. How’re we supposed to tell which pictures are which?
I don’t dispute that she may have been entirely complicit and willing to create and distribute these photos. But at the end of the day, let us look at these scenarios:
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21-year-old female takes nekkid pics of herself, sends to internet friends
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18-year-old female takes nekkid pics of herself, sends to internet friends
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15-year-old female takes nekkid pics of herself, sends to internet friends
So whereas the others would get away scot free, the youngest - the minor - the juvenile - gets charged with an ADULT crime, even though as a younger person there should be more tolerance of her misdemeanours.
And to try and give what is at worst a precocious, 15-year-old exhibitionist with the same sort of criminal record as an adult who takes sexual pictures of a little child, or make a little child perform sexual activity, or who abuses, maims, rapes and harms children is just an abomination.
What - will this girl have to sign the sex offenders register? It just defeats the whole fucking point of trying to track down paedophiles, if the same list that contains people like Studabaker contains also their prospective victims. Prosecute the ADULTS who allowed her to send them this stuff - maybe, if they encouraged her. Get this girl to meet a few rape victims, victims of paedophila, give her a stern telling off and a fine, and leave her be.
Nothing?
Trouble you want them to be in?
Hell yeah, I would have!
Evidence beyond a reasonable doubt?
Charging a minor for a crime as an adult when it wouldn’t have been a crime if she had been an adult is…
If she distributed it for profit…
If she distributed other kids nude pictures…
fine…but if all she did was distribute pictures of herself just to show herself off or for titilation then prosecute her in juvenile court if it needs to be prosecuted.
A couple of points. First, we have no idea what her actions were. She could have replied to a pedophile or she could have sent these to people in a non-pedophile chatroom, one of whom complained. I’m not saying that’s what happened, I’m saying some relevant facts are necessary before pontificating.
Second, you say you want to fine her, get her to meet victims and/or giver her a stern telling off, but you need to convict her of something if you want to force her to do anything. We have absolutely no idea what’s going on or what the prosecutors plan to do. It’s possible that they are charging her as a type of intervention so they can do exactly what you say they should do.
We simply don’t know what’s going on. This could be part of a bigger investigation and they are charging her in order to get her cooperation to go after bigger fish. Let’s just hold off. You have listed some scenarios, but they are by no means exclusive.
Well, first of all, underage girls do not have the right to distribute nekkid pictures of themselves over the internet.
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They’re underage, and therefore presumed to be incompetent. This is why we don’t let them drive or drink, I understand.
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This opens the door for every sleazebag in the world to be totally innocent if he convinces some dippy teener to spread 'em for the webcam. This is not acceptable, particularly in view of how many of the sleazebags are dads and stepdads.
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This opens the door for every conniving teener in the world to email ME pictures of her nipples, and then report me for being a kiddie porn solicitor if I don’t immediately come up with my credit cards.
This being said, I really don’t think we need to be holding kids to the same standards as we would forty-year-old porno freaks, either. The assumption should be that, while the law was broken, it was broken by someone not really competent or able to grasp the totality of what was being done. This is generally the case with MOST juvie crime, and I don’t see where kiddie porn is any different. Saddling this dippy child with a sex crime record, I think, would be a bad thing. Hell, let her serve a week in the county jail, and I think MOST fifteen-year-old girls would never dream of doing it again…
Save it in its entirety, filed under “wrong information, rant does not apply.”
How do you get her jail time unless she’s convicted of something, and how do you convict her of something without charging her, and what other crime would you suggest charging her with?
Otto, would you (or would you not) support a new law (or support amending the child pornography laws) to cover the situation that seems to be the cause of debate in this thread? I agree with all your points so far - logically, within the framework of the legal system, I believe that all she deserves is education and a slap on the wrist. Under our current child pornography laws (and I’m extremely thankful that they are in place) she could conceivably be charged with a felony, be put on the sex offenders list, etc. Would you favor a new legal response to the debated circumstances?
Myself, I would have to say I do, but I’d like to hear your opinion. If our assumptions are incorrect about the situation of this girl, then I would assume other child porn laws would apply (if she was forced, coerced, what have you.)