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For the high crime of sharing a semi-nude photo of a friend's girlfriend, six teenagers from Falmouth, Massachusetts, are waiting to hear if they'll face child pornography charges that could follow them for the rest of their lives. Before they decide to demonstrate their hard-line bona fides, local officials may want to do a little snooping at home. A recent survey found that one in five teens are doing just what those unlucky teens were caught at -- and the sons and daughters of ambitious prosecutors aren't excluded.
Thirteen-year-old Ben Hunt has become the face of the latest "sexting" scandal, since his father, Brian, has taken the lead in apologizing for the incident while calling for a sensible response. Ben and five of his friends were caught sharing a photo among their cell phones of one of the boy's girlfriends raising her shirt and flashing a breast.
After they were nabbed by officials at the Lawrence School, Principal Paul Fay went to the modern default response, calling police instead of parents. Local officials are now sitting on the matter pending a hearing at the Falmouth District Court where the teens will discover whether their minor lack of discretion will result in felony criminal charges that could land the kids on the sex-offender registry.
You don't want to overreact if your kids are engaging in this. These types of (sexual) urges are not perverse.
The only local official who seems to have a sense of proportion is Dr. Shannon Scarry, the medical director for behavioral health services at Cape Cod Healthcare, who told the Cape Cod Times, "You don't want to overreact if your kids are engaging in this. These types of (sexual) urges are not perverse. They are all the same age. It's different than if it was an 18-year-old with pictures of a 12-year-old. That's a felony that is going to follow them. It was impulsive, not well thought out, immature behavior, and they should be punished, but this is really an opportunity for a moral lesson."
Proper punishment, it would seem, would involve the offended girl breaking up with her jerk of a boyfriend, with a round of groundings and cell phone confiscation all around for the rest of the teens, courtesy of their parents.
Instead, the police and courts are involved.
If it seems to you that horror stories like this surface every couple of weeks, you're right -- they do. There's good reason for that. "Sexting" -- sharing nude and semi-nude images via ever-prevalent technical means -- is a popular form of flirting among the young set. A recent survey (PDF) published by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com found that 20% of all teens "have sent/posted nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves."
Don't expect them to grow out of it. The numbers go up as they get older, with 33% of those 20 to 26 sharing risque snapshots with their friends.
Ben Hunt and his buddies deserve whatever punishments their parents decide to dish out in an effort to knock a little judgment into their heads.
And local officials? They deserve a reality check. Sexting is going on closer to home than they think.
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Comments
How did breasts get to be pornographic??? Women's breasts and men's breast are equal under the law. What is wrong with these people? I will never understand.
Angela: they were always pornographic if the breasts were on someone that is under the age of 18 years of age. Stupid but true fact about America.
My teen son has received his share of scantily glad pictures from girls in his school. I have notified several parents that their daughter's photo was found printed out in my son's bedside table. That seems to put a stop to it.
I can't possibly imagine where they get ideas like this from. Could it be related to pushes for sex-ed in kindergarten? The ParisHiltonization of America where values are not taught or allowed to be taught? Where planned parenthood exists to serve the same role as an eraser on a pencil and violates the law, instructs girls how to skirt the laws and avoid their parents knowledge. Government has involved itself in the parenting of children from providing all their education and meals.
No, that can't possibly have anything to do with it.
These kids are certainly guilty of first-class stupidity, but how on earth could a silly teenaged girl taking a nude picture of herself fall into the category of child pornography worthy of felony charges? I'm not sure whether to laugh or weep uncontrollably. Goodbye, sweet America.
Thank you Angela! If girls had sexted the nude torso of a male teenage peer... none of us would be reading or writing about it. European teenagers have no problem with topfreedom! So American teenagers and adults alike will most likely adapt also to seeing a female breast in public, the way we all adapted to seeing a woman's knees, thighs, belly, belly button, etc... In 1905 in CA, women were sent in jail for 25 days if any of these body parts quoted above were exposed as they "sunbathed" on the beach. We have come a long way and today men do find it in themselves to respect a woman who is showing those sometimes very sensually attractive parts in public!
But more than mental "adaptation" which will naturally occur, it is a matter of equal rights! Gotopless.org is US based organization founded by spiritual leader, Rael, claiming women's constitutional right to be topfree wherever men already enjoy that right. (www.gotopless.org) Next Gotopless International Rally: Sunday August 23rd 2009 (in honor of women's equality day)
Aug 23rd was chosen for our protest to commemorate Women's Equality Day. It is indeed on Aug 26th, 1920 that US women won the right to vote. Thanks to our Constitution, it is now time to expand women's equal rights from their intellect to their body, specifically to their breasts and finally rid our society of this dangerous, malignant taboo associated with exposing this noble part of their being in public –a privilege enjoyed by men for over 70 years!
Massachusetts? Say no more. The state of zero tolerance and zero intelligence.
What Henry Bowman said, but expanded to include teachers, police and prosecutors damn near everywhere. All have ambitions and if ruining lives over nothing is the price of achieving those ambitions they are willing to pay it. The real obscenity here is that the state is involved in any way.
As for that type of behavior by young teens, it has been going on since there first were young teens and if you have one who does not have these natural, though sometimes foolish urges, yours is the kid who is wierd.
I find obscenity in sick-minded control freaks making "sex" out of something that isn't. This whole incident greatly expands the definition of "sex" or even "sexual" and certainly there is nothing "pornographic" in it. There is something wrong with the minds of such people.
Repression is unhealthy. It's what makes perverts like these officials. These kids have nothing to apologize for. Quite on the contrary, these officials need to apologize to them. But, they are too sick to be able to see their own sickness!
What century is it in Massachusetts, anyway? Is this another Massachusetts somewhere in the Middle East?
Once again, zero-tolerance over-ruling common sense. The list of better ways to handle this would cause me to wear the letters off of my keyboard, however we have brought this on our collective selves.
As a society, we no longer ALLOW those in position of ANY authority any discretion out of fear of a lawsuit.
I can remember when if a cop found you with a bag of grass or a few beers they would just make you dump it out, and then read you the riot act. If they were feeling _really_ prickly,
they would 'bring you in' and call your parents..... well that was what seems a lifetime ago.
To the matter at hand, is this really anything more than "If you show me yours, I'll show you mine"? Something that virtually all of us did at that same age?
For the sake of argument, let us assume that it IS pornographic, I hardly think that this was the pornography that the law was trying to suppress. Peer pressure aside, the girls are not being forced to do anything they don't want to do. If th
If they were, there would be other charges like assault, rape, or what have you.
The scar of a felony conviction, for this is absurd and will last a lifetime!
Thankfully we have states like Vermont, where the legislature albeit a little late, can recognize this and attempt to do something about it.
As for the scars of a nude photo circulating the internet for a lifetime, I would much rather have my teenage daughter live under the weight of that, than having to answer to the "have you ev
As for the scars of a nude photo circulating the internet for a lifetime, I would much rather have my teenage daughter live under the weight of that, than having to answer to the "have you ever been convicted of a felony" check-box on a job application for the rest of her life! Although having the felony may keep her from ever being able to work at Walmart, which may be a blessing in and of itself
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