Is a girl who posts nude photos of herself a "child pornographer?"

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2004-03-29-child-self-porn_x.htm

Teen girl charged with posting nude photos on Internet

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A 15-year-old girl has been arrested for taking nude photographs of her self and posting them on the Internet, police said.

The girl, whose identity was withheld, was accused of sending out photographs of herself in various states of undress and performing a variety of sexual acts. She sent them to people she met in chat rooms on the Internet, police said.

Police seized her computer and found dozens of photographs stored on the hard drive. Authorities did not say how police learned about the girl.

She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.

Suicide is still illegal in many places - not that you'd be able to charge the successful with a crime.

No. Confused and unguided? Most definitely.

On edit: Speeling.

of major problems with this girl. Most likely she is/was being abused.

She's certainly violating our customary rules of behavior for a 15-year-old girl--not to mention violating the law, which is based on the easily forgotten fact that the Internet is public, not private. But she's hardly the first 15-year-old to be engaged in sexual behavior. It used to actually be normal for 15 year old girls to be sexual, in the context of marriage anyway.

Kids do incredibly stupid things all of the time. Sometimes they involve setting stuff on fire. Sometimes they involve other things.

Adults do incredibly stupid things too - look at who we elected (kinda) president.

but after puberty, she has the same sexual desires as a 25 year old. It isn't wise for her to post photos of herself online like that, but it isn't unnatural for her to have sexual feelings.

age 6 months to 18. Some of what she encounters there is way beyond this.

:shrug:

We've gone from a child in need to a juvenile criminal. Yeah, that will help. :sarcasm:

I wouldn't jump to conclusions about her mental stability.

No, this goes beyond "I've got a killer bod". She needs help.

Except she has a digital camera and an internet connection.

I still remember what it was like when I was 15, and this doesn't sound odd at all. Raging Hormones make you do strange (and sometimes dangerous) things. It's been that way for all of human history.

ENORMOUS difference.

be safer for her than people she knows? If she's looking for positive responses she'd not likely risk rejection from aquaintences. By her way of seeing it, maybe the 'strangers' part is the safe part.

She certainly has some self-esteem issues, but criminalizing her actions won't address them.

her safety. Even if it turns out that she did an incredibly stupid thing and nothing more. I'm not necessarily commenting on her mental stability. Perhaps someone is manipulating her, coercing her, abusing her in a variety of ways. But to not wonder at all what is going on isn't thinking of the child, and at 15, she is still a child.

"She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography. "

We have departed from our senses. The kid needs to see a therapist.

all through my teen years ... alone in my room ...

I 'Michael Jacksoned' myself!

Well, time for some self-flagellation, and maybe I'll throw on a few cilice and use my socket wrench to make them extra-tight!

:rofl:

My guess is that this is a young girl with problems, a young girl that needs help. Charging her with a crime is not the right approach.

Will they arrest my neighbor's 3 year old next? She runs around shirtless outside all the time.

If a teenager wants to photograph herself, that's her business. It used to be called "freedom" in this country.

:shrug:

The freedom of workers to work for 10 cents an hour in asbestos dust, the freedom of people of colour to sleep in beds if they can find a landlord who will rent to them, the freedom of women to leave their abusive husbands when they have nowhere to go ...

Ah, I love a little "liberalism" in the morning.

Some people are v.u.l.n.e.r.a.b.l.e -- because of historic patterns of discrimination, economic power imbalances, physical and psychological abuse leading to diminished ability to act in self-protection ...

Children are V.U.L.N.E.R.A.B.L.E. That is why we don't allow people to leave them home alone when they're seven, or send them out to work in the mines when they're twelve, or have sex with them no matter how painted and perfumed and wantin-it they are.

Children are vulnerable mainly because they are, let's be honest, stupid. They do not have well-developed bullshit detectors, or risk assessment capabilities, or consequence foreseeing skills. Children are not like adults. And YES, a 15-year-old is, in terms of social and neurological development, a child.

Children are to be protected from themselves.

Prosecuting a child for exposing herself to harm is probably not the best way to go about this.

But:

If a teenager wants to photograph herself, that's her business. It used to be called "freedom" in this country.

is bullshit "liberalism" in one of its uglier forms.




typo fixed

Thanks. I was going to say much the same but you put it so much better than I ever could. :)

I'm at my, uh, sharpest when I haven't slept all night. It's that much harder to tolerate vicious stupidity. ;)

I wasn't abused nor was I sexual active at 15, BUT I wouldn't have wanted anyone telling me I couldn't photograph myself at that age or any age. That's really all I'm saying.

She certainly made a mistake putting her photos online. Everyone makes mistakes, especially at 15. She should probably be grounded by her parents, not arrested for gawd's sake.

And having worked with children of all ages who have done incredibly stupid things because they're young and dumb to children who act out because of neglect and abuse. It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes because many of the behaviors can be quite similar. This young lady may just be incredibly naive or she may be acting out. Arresting her is counter-productive, but wondering what is going on and if her parents are aware of anything is productive to keeping this child safe. Who knows who the hell actually has these pictures, what they might do with them and if these people know who and where this child is. There are all sorts of dangers brought on by this event.


And I loved this part of your post:

Children are vulnerable mainly because they are, let's be honest, stupid. They do not have well-developed bullshit detectors, or risk assessment capabilities, or consequence foreseeing skills. Children are not like adults. And YES, a 15-year-old is, in terms of social and neurological development, a child.

Children are to be protected from themselves.

Prosecuting a child for exposing herself to harm is probably not the best way to go about this.

There are all sorts of dangers brought on by this event.

All these net-savvy and media-savvy folks hanging around here just not knowing anything about that. I posted an example down thread.

I can't imagine that this girl will be prosecuted. I do think that police may have been a little dumbfounded in trying to decide what to do. We don't know how the photos on the net came to police attention, and we don't know what they were expecting when they arrived. And while it isn't a binary choice, I still prefer a little arrest to a big abduction and assault and possibly death. And even to the girl going on behaving this way.

A google news search for girl nude photographs internet arrested:

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/mchenrystory.asp?id=311064&cc=k&tc=&t=
A Fox River Grove teen is due in court May 21 to answer to charges he tried to coerce a Lake Barrington girl into sending him nude photographs of herself. ...
Colles sent the girl messages indicating he was aware she was involved in teenage drinking and would keep quiet about it for a price, Fusz said.
Colles told the girl he would remain silent and give her $2,000 cash if she would send him several nude photographs of herself.

www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_5762053&cid=0&sig2=OncpshmidyOHOy_a68yq0w
A man arrested last month after arranging to meet who he thought was a 14-year-old girl pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to the charge of use of ...

http://www.whas11.com/news/local/stories/041807whasrtTopPornCharges.1eb4b430.html
The girl said she was blackmailed to take nude photographs of herself and send them to the person or pose nude in front of a Web cam for the person to view ...


We don't know what was going on, really. I'm comfortable knowing somebody is going to figure it out.

:-)

You got it. She can't photograph herself nude because that act creates child pornography, whether nor not anybody else ever sees it. Child porn is illegal for very good reason, as you succinctly stated above.

And absolutely she needs something besides a federal felony conviction to help her.

Love this so much! Kids are stupid. Sure, people used to get married by age 14, but society was different and expectations for kids that age were far different than they are now.

Kids are stupid. They don't know what's good for them, or more importantly, what's not good for them. To me, this is one of the contributing factors to so many children having sex with teachers and priests. People in power can manipulate stupid kids so easily, they may not even recognize it as manipulation. And then you have the adults who say stupid crap like, "Damn! Lucky 14 year old kid doin' his teacher! I sure wish I could have done that with my crush teacher!" These are people who are probably really still just stupid kids who still don't know what's good for them.

Taking pictures of yourself and posting them on the internet cannot be good for a 15-year-old girl, no matter how "grown up" she thinks she is. Nothing good can come from this.

Pornographer? No. Stupid kid? Duh!

She's not a "pornographer", and the charges are bullshit. This child has massive self-esteem problems, and she clearly has nobody at home helping her work through that.

Flagging her as having issues was certainly correct; sending in the pigs to raid her home and invent charges took a horrible situation and made it a thousand times worse.

Great job, boys.

She might very well have some issues that she needs help with. And if she didn't then, she certainly does now, thanks to this.

sending in the pigs to raid her home and invent charges took a horrible situation and made it a thousand times worse.

Police seized her computer and found dozens of photographs stored on the hard drive. Authorities did not say how police learned about the girl.

Hmm. I wonder whether maybe police didn't actually know it was a 15-year-old girl voluntarily posting photographs of herself on line? Hmm.

And then there's that law thing. I wonder whether police might have thought they had little choice but to charge her at the time, knowing that the charges could always be withdrawn by a prosecutor -- and that this way at least a child obviously in need of protection might get some.


Flagging her as having issues was certainly correct

Not necessarily any more "issues" than your average teenaged girl these days. Lordy, it's been many a moon since I've been a teenager, but I somehow seem to have a better grip on the pressure teenaged girls live with today than a lot of people here.

The "self-esteem" etc. issues she has are representative of the issues of millions of other girls her age. She is taught by every billboard and every whisper and every note of music in her society that she is a commodity. And so she has commodified herself. Quelle surprise.

And the seriously risky behaviour is one of those characteristics of being a child, and in particular a teenager. Little kids take risks negligently. Big kids take them with forethought. That's part of maturing. But their forethought is still not working right, and they take risks that no adult would take -- and of course are at greater risk than an adult when doing similar things. Like posting pictures of themselves on the internet with no clothes on.


Here ya go:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/211112

Sex predator used website to lure teen

Markham man sentenced to jail for violating parole
May 07, 2007 04:30 AM
Peter Small
Courts Bureau

A judge has handed a tough 20-month jail sentence to a "sexual predator" who breached an order to have no contact with children by seducing a 15-year-old he contacted through the popular Friendster website.

It also shows how an experienced predator can overwhelm a sexually naïve girl, he said. "He was playing in the NHL. She was in the minors."

Fong suggested a walk in Brimley Woods. She said he kissed and groped her, which she discouraged, saying she wanted to go home.

... The judge noted the girl still communicated with Fong on MSN that night and let him into her east-end home at 7:30 the next morning, when he knew her parents would be away. He arrived with condoms, and they had anal, vaginal and oral sex over three hours, she testified. She complained to police shortly afterward, and they found injuries on her body.

Canadian hockey metaphor. And Canadian sentence.

I'd rather a little hasty arresting than what predictably lay in wait for her otherwise.

To keep from getting into trouble. Yet another layer to be peeled.

Basic mental health care for all Americans would go a long way toward helping girls like this, as well as many other troubled kids we see in the news every day.

At least this one only shot herself with a camera... and she didn't bring any other kids down with her.

How can she be charged with sexually abusing HERSELF? She's 15 years old, for crying out loud. It's not like she shot someone in the face.

I'd like to formally form a line to slap each of them upside the head FIRST. Then I'll address the question. :grr:

were my students,) that was always my first question: Where were your parents?

I disagree with this. She might need some help of some sort but it isn't fair to call her a child pornographer. She can't be her own victim.

So that everywhere she goes for the rest of her life she will be forced to register as such.

She should probably have an RF device surgically implanted in her abdomen so that HSD can monitor her location at all times with predator drones.

by treating her like a criminal.

Re: the sexual abuse of children charge - unless the state has some arcane law against masturbation, that charge should be thrown out. Otherwise our courts and jails would be filled with the vast majority of teenagers. The girl obviously has some emotional issues, and probably a history of being sexually exploited/abused. Hope this stays in juvenile court and she gets a female judge, cause some of our male judges would be enjoying "reviewing the evidence" way too much.

It's NORMAL and NATURAL to explore one's own sexuality at 14 or 15.

It is perfectly natural and normal to explore one's own sexuality at that age. I completely agree. But would you want them sending pictures of this normal exploration to strangers on the Internet? That is what the issue is, not the actual exploring of one's own body.

I'm a retired lawyer/law professor. This is exactly the kind of issue one would throw in to a law exam hypothetical question, to see how students reason their way through it. What one finds "interesting" is a subjective matter. Save your anger and indignation for someone who misstates facts.

Many are in sexual relationships with other teenagers. I have friends with teenagers and a decent number of the teens are using birth control.

Maybe she is sexually active and had the same motives as 25-year-olds who put nude photos on the internet. I'm not sure what those motives are as I don't share them - but if 25-year-olds can have motives to do that, then 15-year-olds can too. There's nothing different in their level of hormones or in their interest in sex. I'd hope there would be a difference in their level of sexual experience, but that isn't the case for every 15-year-old.

Of course, maybe she's a victim of some kind of sexual misconduct, but I don't think that can be assumed based on her posting nude photos of herself on the internet. It's worth an investigation.

She certainly shouldn't be arrested for anything.

I am seeing this as someone in education who has worked with abused children for years. I'd have to report this behavior if I knew about it and I know the first thing that would be investigated would be the home. I don't necessarily think she's being abused, but I also wouldn't be surprised.

because that is a possibility. So we're apparently on the same page.

Ask yourself: What kind of a country allows any jurisdiction to arrest and charge a child for posting nude pictures of herself?

:cry:

Say they prosecute this girl as a "Child Pornographer." They'll have to try her as an adult. So...

If she's an ADULT in the eyes of the law, then pictures of her in ANY format are pictures of an adult. No foul.

It's where I'd go if I were the defense attorney. Not that this little girl doesn't need big time psychiatric help, mind you.

I reckon they'd have to build a prison the size of Alaska to house the offenders.

That's not exactly a widespread practice, I'd wager.

Or, just plain stupid behavior.

You would be surprised what goes out on cell phones and digital cameras today.

I'm guessing the abuse of children thing will depend on whether there were other parties involved, if not and unless masturbation has been criminalized then this is bullshit. The possession charge is bullshit (how can you be charged with the crime of having taken and saved pictures of yourself?). The dissemintion charge is the one that will most likely stick in some form or another...

There are obviously much more serious issues involved here as to the mental state of the teenager...

What is wrong with these people? What crime did she commit?

First of all, there's been a lot of "Where were the parents??!??!??" stuff in this thread, which is just naive. She's 15, not 4. If she wants to hide something from her parents, she can, and will.

Second, the child porn and dissemination charges i can roll with. She did indeed posses underage porn, and she did indeed send it to other people (which, depending on how she did so, and which age she claimed to be, could put innocent people into a world of hurt. Or guilty people. Anyway...) But the child abuse thing is just fucking ridiculous. Do they charge an underage drinker with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor?" uh, no, because THEY'RE the minor. Same deal here, imho.

Thirdly, saying "she needs therapy," etc, is really jumping the gun. We don't diagnose medical problems over video, and we don't diagnose psychological problems from a brief newspaper story. Sexuality, especially at that age, is a very strange thing, and in most cases is only relevant on a case by case basis. I'll be interested to see what happens with this, if anything.

The pictures of herself in sexual acts I could consider it porn.

when she was starting to "develop".
Along with a couple other of her "girlfriends" at the time, and they were showing the photos to each other and some other friends as a way of showing off and pretending they were older than they were.
Luckily, the kidlet used a digital camera and the pictures were printed out on the home computer. Another of her friends was stupid enough to use her disposable camera and send it to WalMart for developement one too many times, and her family was investigated for child abuse and/or child pornography. It ripped that family apart for about 3 months; the younger kids removed, investigations, threats to jobs - and it was all over a bunch of silly, hormonal 12 and 13 year old girls being stupid and egging each other on.
I'm sure this sort of thing has gone on as long as there's been gaggles of adolescent girls trying to pretend they were "all grown up". I remember some of the things I and my peers did during puberty, and they weren't all sugar, spice and sweet innocent childhood games. What we would have done with digital reproduction and the internet - as they say, there's nothing new under the sun.

My personal opinion, this is more of an issue of appropriate behavior rather than of child pornography or sexual abuse.

Haele

Had digital photos been around when most posters were 5-18 there would be tons of photos.

I look at their MySpace pages (without them knowing), I check out the memory card in their camera and their files on the computer.

Although my daughter and her friends take tons of "glamorous" and/or "emo" photos, they never involve nudity or sexual acts. And their public postings are limited to MySpace. All of this is a result of their own good judgment (at least in this matter).

A 15 year old girl taking photos of herself having sex and posting them on the internet? It's NOT the norm, despite the speculation on this thread. There could be any number of reasons she is doing it, but it certainly shows very, very poor judgment.

I agree with the excellent posts earlier on the thread that the police may have charged her simply because it was a way to make sure she gets whatever help she needs.

....until I saw some of the other posts.

These charges are just stupid. How can one be charged with sexually abusing one's self? Or of child pornography for possessing pictures of one's self in the nude? The distribution charge may stick, but the first two charges are status offenses and are only considered illegal due to her age.

As for the question where are her parents? The fact is that most teens live in a different world than most of us. They remain there until they become adults. Most of the risque' things my kids did (all in the 20s and 30s now) I never knew about until they told me later. That's the whole point!

How much did each of us do that our parents didn't know about? And how would we have used the Internet to accomplish our own attempts at self-expression when we were teens had it been available back in the stone age?

As for the idea that she's being abused, I have my doubts. Kids today (much as my own generation did in its time), have a totally different viewpoint about sex and sexuality than older folks nowadays. And after being inundated with sexual imagery from almost birth through the mass media now, what do we expect?

IMHO

~DeSwiss

to determine how bad they are. Strictly for research purposes.

:hide:

stripper who married a millionaire and went on to be famous...

What about girls gone wild? Girls these days are expected to show their stuff... She is only doing what she learns from TV and the public and it is a damn shame....

And lets not forget those perverted teenage sex offenders that stick their bare butts out of windows of moving cars, or commit the perversion known as "skinny dipping."

At least I like the post were people say that. As if the norms of society are the norms of mentally healthy people. Our society is very backward sexually. I doubt that this behavior would get the same reaction in European countries.

I don't think she should be arrested but I think she should stop the behavior with strangers. I once was looking at a house that we were thinking of buying. In one of the bedrooms which was obviously a girl's room was a Polaroid picture tacked up on a bulletin board of a teenage girl sitting on the toilet with her knickers down . I thought "what a crazy kid and that she should have taken the picture down before the house was shown." I didn't think she was mentally ill or should be arrested.

Is she her own pimp?

Yes, there is something wrong with an under-aged girl posting nude and sexually-explicit photos of herself on the internet, and I'm glad someone stopped her before something bad happened because of it. However, I'm not sure charging her of being a child pornographer (of herself) is a bit of bullshit, especially if that is the best way to deal with this in our system.

And this is a problem that should be dealt with in a non-legal setting.

Counselling and supervision should be paramount in the list of options, and punishment by the legal system is not needed.

However, if she does not reform her behavior, she will meet the strong arm of the law (at age 16 in many states) which could result in her being labelled a 'registered sex offender' for the rest of her life --and all the consequences flowing therefrom.