
The New Pornographers - echair
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/02/20/sexting_teens/index.html
======
jrockway
It is nice to see something mainstream take such a liberal view.

I can't believe that children are being put on trial for possession of
pictures of themselves. It's the thought process that bothers me. Child porn
is illegal because it encourages abuse of children, who cannot legally consent
to sexual activity. Fine. But the problem is, it's hard to not consent to
something you do to yourself. So I don't really see a crime here. The kid
isn't a victim. Society isn't a victim. Sure, there may be consequences for
taking naked pictures of yourself, but no worse than any other dumb things you
can do.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the solution to this is. Maybe change the age of
consent to something lower than 18, so that these kids can consent to
pictures, and everyone is happy. (But of course, then porn sites featuring 14
year olds will be mainstream, and I don't think society is ready for that.)

~~~
mixmax
In some countries there are varying degrees of consent. If you are over 16 you
can do anything you want with everyone else over 16, if you are between 14 and
16 there is an age consideration, so if you are 14 and screw around with
someone that's 14 you're OK, but of you're 25 and screw around with someone
that's 14 it's not OK.

I think that's a pretty good way of doing it: Let the kids play, as long as
they don't do so with adults.

As a strange aside: In Mexico the legal age of consent is 12!! Source:
<http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm>

~~~
jrockway
Interesting.

I don't think 12 is an unreasonable number. I had a pretty good understanding
of sex at 12... so it would be dumb to put me in jail for having sex at that
age.

OTOH, I could see how pressuring a 12 year old to consent (and not tell anyone
about it) could be pretty easy... and that's not good. (FWIW, people over 18
are also pressured into sex they don't really want, so I am not sure how to
deal with this.)

~~~
electromagnetic
I think teaching kids from an early age that sex is okay and being pressured
to have sex isn't would solve your latter problem.

In the UK there's a close-in-age exception for anyone under 16 (the legal age
is 16). Canada just last year changed their age of consent to match, moving
the AoC up to 16 from 14.

This is just a simple equation I use in my head to figure out if a
relationship is creepy-weird when dating and it's quite simple. Here's my
example, (21 - 13) / 2 = 4, so in this instance a 21 year old can date a 17
year old or a 25 year old without the age difference being weird. It seems to
hold up for most 'accepted' relationships, including the like 80 year olds
married to the 50 year olds, but not the 80 year olds married to the 20 year
olds that people find disgusting.

Personally I'd say it's okay for 12-13 year olds to have sex with 12-13 year
olds because as a culture we seem to be subconsciously pushing for it. 14 and
over I'd say the close-in-age exceptions apply well, a 14 year old can have
sex with someone within 5 years of their own age without it being a crime and
over 16 you have the right to choose who and how you do it, although I
wouldn't disagree with a law making a bigger close-in-age for 16-18 of like
10-15 years. It's socially accepted that a couple are usually within a 10-15
year age difference of each other.

~~~
mixmax
I have another formula that works very well, and takes into consideration that
the older you get the wider the age gap can be.

your age > (her age / 2) + 7

So:

if you're 16 she should be at least 14

if you're 20 she should be at least 17

if you're 30 she should be at least 22

if you're 50 she should be at least 32

These all seem to fit nicely into the acceptable ranges. Doesn't work too well
if you're under 14 though :-)

~~~
joeyo
If you define it more generally:

    
    
      younger_person >= (older_person / 2) + 7 
    

it has the added advantage that it proscribes anyone younger than 14 ever
having sex (with anyone of any age) since the inequality could never be
satisfied.

For example if the older person was 12, then the younger person would have to
be at least 13, which is impossible.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_your_age_plus_seven>

------
tptacek
Very disappointed that this article isn't about the band, which is awesome
(but not great live!), but instead a Salon article rehashing a topic Dahlia
Lithwick at Slate covered much better last week:

<http://www.slate.com/id/2211169/>

For whatever it's worth, Slate has totally and thoroughly trounced Salon.

~~~
unalone
Slate's reporters set me on edge. Quite a few of them take extremely one-sided
views of topics and get very arrogant about their position. As a result, I
feel myself repelled subtly when I see a Slate link, and I've seen a lot of
similar Slate criticism. Trounced? I'm not certain.

For what it's worth, Salon's literature articles are still among the best out
there. Slate can't touch that division of Salon.

------
Maro
"The photographs show three naked underage girls posing lasciviously for the
camera. The perps who took the pictures were busted in Greensburg, Pa., and
charged with manufacturing, disseminating and possessing child pornography --
and so were their subjects. That's because they are one and the same."

"... the trio text-messaged the photos to some friends ... in addition to the
girls' being indicted as kiddie pornographers, _three boys who received the
pictures were slammed with charges of child porn possession._ "

Someone texted them some data, and they're charged? It's not like they
requested it. Expecting 15 year old (horny) guys to delete nudies their female
classmates sent them is... unrealistic.

~~~
jrockway
_Expecting 15 year old (horny) guys to delete nudies their female classmates
sent them is... unrealistic._

Agreed. The law is being very stupid here.

I didn't see much in the way of details about the trial. Apparently one kid
didn't take the plea bargain? Does anyone else know of any more information
about this?

(As an aside, I wish there was a social news site where I could indicate
ongoing interest in a topic, and see new articles whenever they are written.
It is very hard to follow news stories, since followups are sporadic and
spread around the Internet.)

~~~
smokinn
You're not going to hear details about a trial involving minors, especially
given that it was sex related. I imagine the court documents were sealed
before they even existed.

------
xenophanes
> There's been plenty of outrage to go around: Some parents are angry to see
> teens criminalized for simply being sexual, while others find the raunchy
> shots pornographic, another blinking neon sign of moral decay in a "Girls
> Gone Wild" era. In both cases, it amounts to a tug of war between teenagers'
> entitled sense of sexual autonomy and society's desire to protect them.

But jailing kids obviously isn't protecting them. The tug of war is _not_
between protecting and empowering the kids. It's between _punishing_ the kids,
or not.

------
kenkeiter
.. is a great band: <http://www.thenewpornographers.com/>

------
DanielBMarkham
The tone of this article is "just let kids be kids, okay?"

I agree with the tone.

The nagging part is the fact that "kids being kids" never included making
media of their naked selves doing sexual stuff before. Media which can easily
be distributed to millions, including some very sick people. Media which can
last a lifetime (or longer)

Sure, we smoked pot when we were kids, and we read Playboys too. But nobody
has videos of us doing all of that on YouTube. The electronic records problem
here is extremely disturbing.

With the current FB conflict, I'm sure that most _adults_ don't realize what
kind of electronic record they're leaving all over the place, much less their
kids. As a society, we've generally tried to protect kids from doing things
that could have lifelong consequences. Do we want to give that up?

The underlying philosophy is a tricky-wicket. We don't necessarily allow kids
to do stuff simply because "kids will be kids", i.e., it's natural for them to
do it. So while I'm all with the emotion of the article, the underlying issues
are a lot trickier than I think the author lets on. You can't just skim over
the fact that 30 years from now when you're applying to be Supreme Court
Justice that videos of your 14-year-old self doing stupid people sex tricks
could be out there circulating. Fair or not, people aren't going to
understand.

~~~
asdflkj
Actually, people _are_ going to understand, because they'll have grown up in
the world of MySpace and cellphones themselves. To a generation still alive,
it would be unthinkable to admit in public that one has smoked pot and "read"
Playboys, and yet you've just done it, and your career is unlikely to be
harmed.

That "very sick people" bit gives away your true motivation for these
opinions, though.

~~~
jerf
You are advocating the position that people will be rational about seeing
videos that speak to our animal core selves.

I don't buy it. Even if people intellectually realize that a stupid sexy video
made when you are 18 is no big deal, it will still unavoidably color people's
opinion of you, and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it except make
sure they can't get that video in the first place.

~~~
asdflkj
If porn speaks to your "animal core self", I envy you. It stopped doing that
to me around age 15.

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josefresco
Clicked the link and got this: "We're sorry, the Ultramercial advertisement
did not start correctly."

Fail. Flagged for removal.

