# Minors and pornography **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2002, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289 "2002-12-17T07:48:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ThatGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e5b9ba/32.png) [@ThatGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThatGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/1 "2002-12-17T07:48:19Z")
This is for anyone with lots of legal knowledge. Obviously minors are not supposed to purchase porn, but objectively is it illegal for minors to posess it? Say an adolecent has a video or two stuffed under his bed ( I believe many if not most do)…is this in any way illegal? If so to what extent would this law be enforced? And what about internet porn, if a minor clicks past a few screens saying he/she must be 18 to enter…can he/she actually get busted for this. These are just strange curiosities, I am intrested in American law by the way. ---
**Author:** ![SmileyDeath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@SmileyDeath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmileyDeath)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/2 "2002-12-17T08:07:40Z")
Well, nudity is annoyingly prohibitied. There’s nothing wrong with nudity. But when the kid wants to start watching all this hardcore leibian crap it’s wrong for him to see that. ---
**Author:** ![ThatGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e5b9ba/32.png) [@ThatGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThatGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/3 "2002-12-17T08:14:49Z")
Yes i agree on nudity being ‘annoyingly prohibited’. But i don’t want to really delve into ethical problems with porn(that could be a debate)…i only want actual laws dealing with minors and pornography…and how clearly defined they are ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/4 "2002-12-17T13:33:43Z")
Laws are not clearly defined and vary from state by state. I don’t believe possession by a minor is usually a crime – it’s selling to a minor. Also, prosecutors make the final decision on who to prosecute, and probably won’t bother to put a kid in jail for having a Playboy. They will go after people who sell porn to minors, and will vigorously go after people who possess child porn. The Internet warnings are not to keep the kid from getting busted; its to protect the owners of the website (“See, we tried to keep children out.”). ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/5 "2002-12-17T14:04:54Z")
I used to work in a Stop-N-Rob[sup]TM [/sup] that sold porno mags and one day I got to thinking, “Ya know, when I was 16, I was buying cigarettes for all my friends since I looked 18, what would have happened if I tried to buy a porno?” I never even thought about it when I was that age, and working in the store, I never even thought about carding anyone who tried to buy a porno. I asked a cop about it, and he said he wouldn’t bother arresting anyone. Might confiscate the issue if it was a good one, though. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/6 "2002-12-17T16:52:50Z")
When I was about 14 I asked a store clerk if I could buy a national geographic magazine that had a lot of pictures of naked women in it & he said sure. They weren’t white women in the photos though 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/7 "2002-12-17T17:32:59Z")
I’ve studied media law in some depth, and I’ve never seen a case where the MINOR was prosecuted for possession of questionable materials. Invariably, the stuff was confiscated and the minor remanded to the custody of his parents (‘his’ because no cases I could find involved minor females). No charges were filed against the minors in any of these cases. In each case I examined, though, they sure’s hell went after SOMEONE with a vengeance, typically the vendor – convenience stores and porn bookstores, usually. ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/8 "2002-12-19T17:10:50Z")
Glad you started this thread instead of me (I was thinking about it). I have a question. What happens if a minor gets caught with Child Pornography? Say a 15 year old has a mag or pics of 16 year old girls? Can he get in as much trouble as an adult, or any trouble at all? (I’m asking this because I recently found a whole lot of this on my 15 yr old brothers computer) ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/9 "2002-12-19T17:18:47Z")
Here’s some more info, the computer is in my brother’s room and he is the only one that uses it, my sisters all share a different computer and my dad has his own laptop. I must say _smiles with pride_ he did a VERY good job of hiding them. The folder was burried very deep in the file structure in a hidden and encrypted folder and further more every pic was encrypted in a ordinary looking picture of a fractal. I know he did it because the password to decrypt the pics was the Handle he always uses. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Dickerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Scott\_Dickerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Dickerson)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minors-and-pornography/143289/10 "2002-12-19T17:38:59Z")
Most if not all states have “statutory rape” laws. It’s illegal to have sex with a person under the legal age of consent, usually age 18. And “sex” doesn’t just mean “penetrative intercourse.” It includes a lot of second- and third-base-ing. (To be precise, suppose these are considered something like lewd acts with minors, not litarally stat rape.) So: a 16-year-old has committed some degree of criminal act in getting it on with his 16 y.o. neighbor’s kid. “Consent” is not a defense, by definition. So the kids on THAT 70’S SHOW, your own highschool buddies, all kinds of people, are likely going to the slammer, may become registered sex offenders, etc–just like you read in the papers. Right? Nope. Prosecutors don’t prosecute, juries don’t convict, etc. Because, language of the law aside, the real purpose is not the Sisyphusian task of preventing teenage sex, but rather to restrain “adults who should know better.” Same diff on the porn.