Just ain't worth a damn anymore.

Really?

Agree with your objection to this punitive reaction. Maybe not as innocuous as the old show me yours I will show you mine, but putting adolescents on sex offender registries for life is jurisprudence run amok. I was in Dallas for work this week, and they had a similar situation, where the photo sender was not charged, but the boy who received her picture was charged, and is facing similar criminal charges and a lifetime label. Same statutory justification, but different application. What purpose or end this serves is beyond me. It may even provoke more anger and animosity in the future from those punished in this draconian manner than serve as a tool for corrective justice. You are right, it could be handled much better at the "inferior" level with the school and families. I would not go so far as your prescription that this 15 year old be charged with sexual harassment, even that seems overreaching. It is an unhealthy criminalizing of human sexuality, and there are more positive ways to educate young people.

Whatever your opinion might be on this, you have to make sure it is consistent, whether the kid who's throwing out naked pictures is a boy or a girl. It still seems as if broadsheet favors girls over boys no matter what the scenario might be, and taking this approach isn't what wins the type of audience that broadsheet needs more of for feminist thinking - and that's more men.

This story also doesn't answer endless questions as to why the young lass did what she did? Was she pressured by her peers? Would she be in the "cool" circle if she did what she did? Or does she actually truly see a career in porn, and decided to put her feelers out there and see where things led? It could be any number of reasons.

This situation is about 2 steps from playing doctor. There was a girl in my HS who routinely eschewed underwear so she could flash the guys in study hall. It was shocking at the time, laughable now, and there was no identifiable 'predatory' instinct to it.

We're getting to a point in our culture where any sort of personal expression or sexual experimentation is turned into a felony. What's the flip side to this? That we should morally oppose anything potentially offensive to the delicate sensibilities of the most fragile soccer mom in the community?

If that's the case, we'll all end up having heterosexual sex in the missionary position, exclusively, as specified by the Supreme Court.

Color me nonplussed.

Yep, that's what I said, even over here at Salon.

Throw the goddamned book at her.

And the next one, too, and the next, and the next.

Because.

Because only until each and every one of us and you has someone you love listed on one of these silly, meaningless, unbeneficial, counterproductive registries will we and you wake up and say "enough."

Until that time arrives, every politician at every level of government in every jurisdiction in the land is going to continue to write more new and pointless registration laws for the singular sensational benefit of vote gathering. And no one, no one, no one is going to say a thing to stop them until someone has a reason to.

The jury is back: the laws are meaningless, and worse. But yet, the show goes on, day after day, the Emperor clothed.

Throw the book at her, her and everyone else, too.

Law, in this instance, is clearly in uncharted territory here and, as is inevitable in such situations, gone up Crap Creek without a paddle or, for that matter, the canoe. But isn't it comforting that we have the necessary morons in prosecutorial positions willing to go for it?

You'd think they'd name it George Washington High or something.

I wonder if their chief rival HS is Pole Mountain....

chuckle...snort...laugh...guffaw!

Had to re-read that a few times to make sure I was reading what I was seeing, then to see if it was some sort of joke that I wasn't getting.

I heard today that this girl is in foster care. Can anyone confirm this?

If it is true, then this is another classic case of the law going after the indigent and those needing the most help. So not only will this girl be facing serious charges and may be listed as a sex offender, but she has no or little family to offer their support as she is going through this and what will be an even harder life!

The law is written to discourage any market in child porn in order to stop demand. If this girl spread pictures of herself far and wide, it would, so the thinking goes, encourage consumers of child porn, raise demand, and lead to more child porn being made, often leading to sexual abuse. So whether the person pictured was abused is irrelevant. But it does lead to strange results. For instance, it is possible in many states to legally have sex with someone under 18, but to have a picture of them naked is a felony.

They need to decriminalize peer sexual interactions that don't involve force and treat the problem according to whether or not any sort of psychological intervention is needed.

After all, unless she was sending the photos to nine year olds, she really isn't exploiting anyone but herself. Who is the actual victim here?

Her conviction on child pornography charges will pad the resume of the prosecutor's office, as will all the convictions of her classmates.

If the prosecutors can get convictions of the girl and all of her classmates, that's a nice lump sum to add to the office's stats against "child predators."

The facts of the case don't matter to the prosecutors, only the scalps.

It's not uncommon now for even children to becoming victim to these reactionary "think of the children" laws. I still feel so awful for the crimes perpetraited upon Genarlow Wilson. I can't believe how people can close their eyes to the harm we're causing kids by America's unchecked puritanical instincts.