When Teens Make Their Own Porn, Who's Being Exploited?

Not so long ago, you could take an album or two (of music, not photos) and record a bunch of different songs, copy them to a cassette tape as a mix, and give the music to a friend. Now, if you do the same thing with online tools, it's called "file sharing" and has gotten many individuals sued. It also used to be easy to grab a Polaroid camera, take a naked photo, and hand it to a friend. That friend might pass the photo around without you knowing it, but these things happened and this was the risk you took when you pointed the camera at your uncovered bits. It was not totally uncommon for people under the age of eighteen to do this; hormones raging, it happened, and if you got caught you'd be in a lot of trouble. But you were likely mostly embarrassed. And then totally grounded.

Now if people under eighteen do the same thing with online tools and cell phones, they're being charged with trafficking child pornography or charged as sex offenders - even when they've taken the photos themselves. In March 2004, a 15-year-old Pittsburgh girl was arrested for taking nude photographs of herself and posting them on the Internet; she was charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography. Okay, so maybe in 2004 the people interpreting these laws were slightly more ignorant about how the Internet works and that the legal system just needed to "catch up." Or so you'd think.

In October 2008, a 15-year-old Newark, Ohio girl was charged with felony child pornography charges for sending nude photographs of herself to a classmate in a text message. Charged with "possessing criminal tools and the illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material," she'd taken a nekkid pic of herself and sent it to a 13-year-old classmate (male). She currently faces felony sex offense charges, and the likelihood of having to register as a "sex offender" for the rest of her life.

But wait, there's more. This month, three girls from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, that police say are "14 or 15" years old, allegedly sent nude self-portrait phone camera images to three, male Greensburg Salem High School classmates aged 16-17 - and police there have decided to charge all the kids involved with trafficking in child porn. Never mind that school officials and police had seized the images, "investigated" and has had possession of the photos since October of last year. That's creepy to think about, actually. This month, officers arrested all of the teens and according to WPXI.com, the girls are "being charged with manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys face charges of possession."

"It was a self portrait taken of a juvenile female taking pictures of her body, nude," said Capt. George Seranko of the Greensburg Police Department. "Taking nude pictures of yourself, nothing good can come out of it," said Seranko.

Yes, nothing good can come from taking nude self-portraits of yourself - as if this is a reasonable justification for filing charges that will ruin these kids' adult lives. Never mind that there's a difference between the healthy desire to communicate normal erotic self-expression, and sexual exploitation. These things are one and the same for Captain Seranko.

Let's do a little "where are they now" with teens who have been charged with felony sex crimes: take the case of Wendy Whitaker, now 29 years old. She's been on Georgia's sex offender list for more than a dozen years. Last year, Whitaker was evicted from her home; a nearby church was running an unadvertised daycare service and Georgia's law prevents sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, swimming pools, school bus stops, day care centers, parks, recreation centers or skating rinks. At a November 13, 2008 hearing, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper declined to halt Whitaker's eviction. Whitaker sued, but how did she become a sex offender in the first place? When she was 17, she gave a 15-year-old high school classmate a blowjob (and obviously, got caught). She said she feels "punished over and over for something I did as a teenager."

Yes, this is all crazy-headed. For a teenager whose sexuality is blossming, peer validation is the social glue that binds their identity together. These kids aren't being sexually exploited; their sexuality is being criminalized. The people enforcing and deciding how to apply adult sexual laws to kids (across the nation, it seems) are like totally not paying attention that what kids have always done, is what they're doing now. It's like they've become so entrenched in ideology that intellectual honesty has been thrown out the window; baby, bathwater and all. They've forgotten about the kids they're trying to "protect." And that's losing far more than an argument about teens taking nudie pics of themselves, posting them online, or sending them to each other.

Local reporter for Ars Technica Jacqui Cheng writes, "This might seem like a one-off story, but last month, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy released survey results that said 20 percent of all teens have sent a nude photo of themselves to someone else electronically. More than two-thirds of those who have sent photos claim they sent them to a boyfriend or girlfriend, but 15 percent say they have sent them to people they only "know" from the Internet. And they're not staying private, either - a quarter of teen girls and a third of teen boys said that they've had nude images originally meant for someone else shared with them."

So, rather than the cultural perception of the Internet being the means by which kids are ever in danger from supposed hoards of predatory pedophiles, it looks like they're more at risk from each other - of consensual sexual contact. Let's not forget that one in three girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before their 18th birthday; most sexually abused children know their perpetrator (60-80 percent), and the abuser is typically a family member or family friend.

Actually, kids are at significant risk at having their lives ruined by adults when kids self-initiate sexual expression with technology: they're at risk for having their lives ruined by adults like Captain Seranko. So, since underage porn is illegal, what should be done with underage people who make it themselves?

Original report here



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