That was me and my first husband. We were together for 14 years. As a consenting minor (teehee), I had absolutely no trauma whatsoever.
How is looking at another person’s body parts that are typically covered out of curiosity considered a sexual act? I’ve never considered “playing Doctor” anything other than a learning experience, not a sexual experience.
Are things different when you turn underage sex into underage pornography? Would the simple act of recording & distributing make it worse (or better) than normal?
Innocent typo- but not Freudian
Hmm. I see. Why don’t you lie down on that there couch and we’ll discuss this?
Recording and distributing it will make it worse- not better. No matter how it gets recorded and distributed. Even if the underage parties record and distribute it themselves , at the very least they are not showing any sort of mature thinking about how that porno they distributed when she was 15 might impact her college or job applications just a couple of years down the road if it somehow gets on the internet. Or how it might affect his choices in 15 years.Maybe he decides not to run for the city council because he knows the video is out there- and so is she.Worse in the sense that kids are given the message “sex is dirty and wrong and it’ll ruin your life”. Back then the worst you had to worry about was disappointing your parents now you’ll end up in jail or on CNN.
What on earth are you talking about? Most 15-year-olds are past puberty? I would be surprised if more than 5-10% were. Also, even if the body is developed, that doesn’t mean the brain is.
Hmm… I was thinking of (in this case) the female already having gone through menarche and developing secondary sexual characteristics (breasts!), and the guys… I’m not familiar with what is considered puberty in guys… Ejaculations, erections, voice changes, facial hair? I was told those or a combination of those were signs of puberty in a boy.
If it is semantics, then to say the teens in questions are not pre-pubescent. At least in elementary school I was told childhood (and being called/considered kids) ended once puberty started. The puberty has started, no longer “kids”.
And no, the brain hasn’t developed completely… but then in that case (looking at coworkers) some people should still be considered “kids” by the time they’re deemed (by society) “adults”.
Speak for yourself, but in my highschool, most, if not all girls at 15 had gone through menarche, wore bras (even if they were still using training ones), and some even had gasp sex.
Which underage kids are going to jail? I believe most states have "Romeo and Juliet" laws. To use New York as an example, the only way a 16 year old goes to prison for a statutory rape is when the other party is under 11 years old. I don't really have a problem with that. Aside from that, the only crimes involve a person over the age of 18 having sex with someone under 15, or someone over 21 having sex with someone under 17. Underage kids aren't ending up on CNN either, as far as I can tell.
While neither you nor I were around for the 50’s, I would be interested in a cite for the ideas that kids are more often now given the message that “sex is dirty and wrong and it’ll ruin your life” and the worst you had to worry about was disappointing your parents. I believe girls were indeed given that message, and often faced more serious consequences than parental disappointment if their sexual activity became known. Perhaps you were only speaking of teenage boys?
The simple answer to a complicated question is: Of COURSE! Are you kidding?
But there’s much scarier information and answers in this topic. Like the fact that sexual activity can be pleasurable for very young children with much older people. That is actually frequently the biggest reason for psychological trauma: guilt and shame. The child usually has some degree of understanding that what’s happening is wrong, then, if it feels good, they are bad.
Ask Oprah.
This is such a complicated subject, and people want so much for it to be simple. But it isn’t.
I guess it depends on who initiates it and if you think it’s wrong. I initiated sex with a 21 yr old neighbor at the age of 10 and I didn’t feel it was wrong in any way. Didn’t feel any guilt over it at all. 
What if it’s a case of an older person grooming a younger person? The way pedophiles often do with younger victims who then think that the sex was all their idea?
Take 5 minutes and Google the Dope and CNN for Sexting.
Just did- found a story from January about some unidentified kids on CNN and a a story about an 18 year old convicted after sending nude photos of his 16 year old girlfriend to her family and friends after an argument ,and a link on the dope to a story on ABC which identified a boy who received a photo of a girl exposing her breasts which was apparently being distributed by the girl's boyfriend. I haven't seen an actual kid on CNN, just a story about a practice and one about an adult, and the ABC story is about a boy who wasn't involved in any sexual activity at all. If any of the kids in the ABC story go to jail (and I doubt any will) it will be for distributing/possessing child pornography, not for any sort of sexual activity. I doubt the juveniles will go to jail, when the adult with the felony conviction got probation.
Do laws regarding child pornography need to be tweaked a bit? Maybe. Is it more repressive than the 50s? Maybe for the boys. Are teenagers thinking sex is dirty? Are you kidding - if they had received the message that sex is dirty, it's unlikely the girls would posed for the photos. Ask a woman who was a teenager in the 50's what would have happened if she distributed topless photos of herself around town.On the contrary, I always thought it was the “look at us, we’re being dirty!” mentality that made them do that?
Molestation or rape will always be traumatic. “Sex” however, has no need of being traumatizing. There’s whole cultures where giving fellatio as a child was considered the norm, or where you’re supposed to kiss your child’s genitals.
It’s a question of the intent and how it is received that determines everything.
You mean the girls involved with the sexting, right?
" Look at us, we’re being bad " or “wild” - maybe for some of them. But that doesn’t mean they actually believe sex is dirty.
Ah, ok. Naughty, not I’m-going-to-hell.
You don’t think any of this is a modern day pillory?
The point is that making this stuff a public and legal issue is worse than confining it to a personal parental issue.
Look, I’m not arguing that this is the appropriate way to deal with it. Doesn’t mean it should always be a personal, parental issue either - when a boyfriend sends nude photos of his girlfriend out after an argument, it might not be porn but neither is it a private ,parental issue. If you want to back down about the 50’s being less repressive and teenagers now getting the message that sex is dirty , fine. If not , precisely what do you believe would have happened to a teenage girl in the 50s if she gave her boyfriend a topless photo of herself, and he then distributed it around town after a fight? If you think her parents would have a talk with her and she would be grounded for a few days, you’re wrong. That might be what happened to him, but certainly not to her.