A Pornographic Problem

[Sharp-kun]

Its legal for 16 year olds to fuck, but take a picture of eachother while naked? CHILD PORN EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gah!

One of the few Lib Dem suggestions over here I though twas quite a good idea was to lower the age of appearing in porn from 18 to 16 (same as the age of consent). You should have seen the uproar from some people.

[Dark Sider]

"But that is the law"...certainly you are not endorsing such stupidity?

Sometimes laws have to be blunt and far reaching. Making it illegal for some 16 year old guy to possess nude photos of his 16 year old girl friend is but a very small price to pay in the effort to counter child pornography. The more exceptions are made the more loop holes there will be to exploit.

I would agree that the "Letter of the Law" should be blunt or black and white solely as a deterent. But this smacks too much of "Zero Tolerance = Zero Intelligence." It is insane to punish an underage person taking nude pictures of an underage partner when it is completly consentual for the sake of being young horny kids. Nobody put the pictures on the Internet, they were not sold..hell...nothing evil was done with them. My suggestion? Scare the hell out of the boy, take the pictures and shred them. Maybe...MAYBE...probation at the most. I can already see the boys life destroyed over something that is so harmless. It is also in my opinion, an insult to charge and convict the boy on possession of child pornography. Nobody was abused, nobody is being exploited. I think this specific case (if the facts are true) should allow the magical loophole.

[Jawawithagun]

In anycase, the law enforcers are tasked with dealing with the big paedophile rings rather than cases of a teenager in love or former teenager in love with some visual memento of a time gone by. It'd be a sad time to live in if a case like this was pushed through court rather than that time and money be directed to those true offenders.

But that's just my two-cents.

As I said above, most law enforcements don't give a shit aboout the stuff the OP was talking about unless it's been reported to them and they're forced to take action, and even then I'm sure there would be ways around it. Let's face it, most people in high school (including judges, lawyers, lawmakers, officers, etc).. were pretty sexually active in high school and took those pictures themselves as well.

And then there comes some bright-eyed young public prosecutor willing to kickstart his career and and reputation as new hard-arse in town on some easy child-porn cases like that.

[Queeb Salaron]

Technically, if the ex-gf comes to court and testifies that these were pictures taken with her consent some three years back, and that they were never meant for publication, and if it could be shown that the pictures had sat in the back of that closet for a long time, and if both parties agreed to have the pictures (as well as any negatives that might exist) destroyed immediately, then I don't know a judge in the world that wouldn't let the guy off.

Of course, technically the posession of these pictures is illegal. And, as has been pointed out, while two 16 year olds having sex is legal, taking naked pictures is not. Granted, I'm not saying that nude photos of 16 year olds should be legal, but it is a strange quirk in the system.

[Queeb Salaron]

My suggestion? Scare the hell out of the boy, take the pictures and shred them. Maybe...MAYBE...probation at the most. I can already see the boys life destroyed over something that is so harmless. It is also in my opinion, an insult to charge and convict the boy on possession of child pornography. Nobody was abused, nobody is being exploited. I think this specific case (if the facts are true) should allow the magical loophole.

Except that if you convict the boy of posessing child porn, he must register as a sex offender. That's the kind of blemish that keeps you flipping burgers for the rest of your life. No es bueno.