I'm not up on all the legalities behind child pornography arrests, I'll admit it. I've never had to know. But last time I checked, a child has to have been somehow objectified, right?
So how does a 15-year-old teen girl taking nudie pics of herself and sending them to her classmates qualify? I'd be calling in counselors for the teenager. Instead, Central Ohio school officials called in the police. Now the teen has been charged with illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material (a felony) and possession of criminal tools. That's right, she used herself. And then she possessed the evidence of it! Not only that, the high schoolers who received the pictures may face charges too! Because, well, they possess child porn too!
In Ohio, adults convicted of possession of child porn have to register as sex offenders - I'm all for that. But the judge in this case will have flexibility according to a spokesperson with the district attorney's office. OK, so she may have to register as a sex offender for, um, having pictures of herself naked? Please call the authorities. My daughter climbed out of the bathtub this evening and ran past the mirror. She stopped and made raspberries at it. Naked. She looked at herself naked. What are we going to do?
The worst part of all this is that this girl is a foster child. Which would point to a childhood that's already been disrupted in some way. Teen girls sharing their naked bodies with other kids usually suffer from low self esteem, and there are possiblities of everything from depression to an eating disorder. This, people, is what we call a child in crisis. Not a sex offender!
Child pornograpy is serious and seriously scary for me as a parent. But the fact that a child is naked and a picture is taken does not make it child porn - anymore than a picture of a woman breastfeeding is adult porn. Maybe money would be better spent keeping kids out of trouble than chasing down every picture of a naked kid.
Source: Az Central
Image: AdaptiveMobile
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