Monday, February 12, 2007

So, I'm over at Funkaoshi where I found the link to this article about two teenagers (girl 16/boy 17) who got arrested for taking naked pictures of themselves and sending them to each other.

Then, I'm reading the comments at Metafilter and marvelling.
Jokes about it being like "pics of themselves as babies naked on the bearskin rug", and insinuating that the charges are ridiculous.

The thing that seems to be escaping some people is that they were 16 and 17 years old.
And I suppose that in Florida, they're considered minors, and..GOLLY... there...it's illegal.

It doesn't matter who took the pictures.

If you're stupid enough to take pictures of yourself naked and send them to anyone when you're a 16 year old girl, or boy....you need someone to tell you to keep your emerging tits in your shirt, or penis in your oversized pants.
(about 50 google hits with just that last sentence, people.)

And if you're not going to listen to your parents...you might very well listen to Officer NotCoolWithNakedKidsontheNet.

I remember a few years ago, there was all this bawling and crying about a high school girl who let her (then) boyfriend use a camera phone to take pictures of her giving him head.
When they broke up, (as high school romances tend to do) he posted the photos on the internet, much to her embarrassment and mortification.
She wasn't charged with anything because of the state she was living in, but she was maligned and suffered greatly for her stupidness through how she was treated by, and made fun of by her peers. She had to transfer schools.
I think that perhaps she would have fared better if those photos had have been found, confiscated and destroyed by police.

Now, for all the TV and video crap that teenagers heads are filled with, most 16 year olds these days are significantly less mature than I was at 16.
I think a lot has to do with how overprotective parents have become.
So, many don't even consider the consequences of their poorly (if at all) thought out decisions to do things.
There is a false sense of protection there.

Maybe kids do need to learn the old fashioned hard way...like the camera phone headgiver...and not be protected from themselves by Mummy and Daddy, pesky minor laws and Officer JustSayNOtoPedophiles.

Because there just aren't enough photos of naked 16 year old girls (another 50 google hits from degenerates) . on the internet
Let girls post them of themselves, instead of waiting for their immature 17 year old boyfriends to do it after they break up.

And then, we can all tsk, tsk and shake our heads about how terrible it is that there is all this child porn online.