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Item: Is sending racy ‘sexts’ flirting, or is it porn? High-tech teens face felony charges/Seattle PI
More Info: Though youth is fleeting, images sent on a cell phone or posted online may not be, especially if they’re naughty. Teenagers’ habit of distributing nude self-portraits electronically — often called “sexting” if it’s done by cell phone — has parents and school administrators worried. Nationally, some prosecutors have begun charging teens who send and receive such images with child pornography and other serious felonies. But is that the best way to handle it?
Question: Should teens who send or receive racy ‘sexts’ be charged with felony sex crimes? How would you take care of the problem?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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idawa on February 05 at 1:23 p.m.
Kids today sure do have a different set of issues to deal with than I did only a decade or so ago. I couldn’t get a girl to show me anything in real life let alone send me an instant image of her naughty bits…who would have guessed we could ever do such a thing anyway.
Anyway, if it is between two minors and it isn’t for profit or exploitation, that I wouldn’t treat it as a criminal matter. It is something for the parent to deal with.
toadman on February 05 at 1:25 p.m.
“Should teens who send or receive racy ‘sexts’ be charged with felony sex crimes? How would you take care of the problem?”
I dunno. I’ll need to see more evidence.
;-)
Sisyphus on February 05 at 1:30 p.m.
Well, sure, the government is always a great substitute for good parenting.
How would I take care of the problem? What is the problem again that a good dose of consequences can’t take care of?
Bent on February 05 at 5:23 p.m.
I don’t know, Idawa. Maybe you just didn’t know the right girls. The way I see this, it really is no different than when I was a kid. Other than the fact that we didn’t photograph things, and post them on the web.
But, we definitley played “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine…” We also had spin the bottle, and we slept outside as much as we could in the summer time…
/Cue Bob Seger… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN1_3zHjhW8
saraeanderson on February 05 at 6:19 p.m.
If kids are going to get in trouble for this kind of thing, it shouldn’t just be the girls who get in trouble, even though it often is.