Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children!?

A 16 year old girl and 17 year old boy got busted for the production and distribution of Child Pornography in Florida. The two face rather serious criminal charges and face a lifetime on the sexual offenders list. The catch? The pictures were of themselves.

The letter of the law makes no such provision for self portraits, a photograph of a child is kiddie porn, emailing the photos to yourself is distributing it.

I think this case is complete BS. For starters we need to get off this asinine thought that someone under the age of 18 is incapable of rational thought yet that magically changes the moment one turns 18. That however is the least of the problems with this case.

The rational behind them being in trouble for this is two fold. 1) The photos COULD be sold to pedophiles. 2) Transmitting photos over the internet and storing them on a computer is insecure.

So for those of you keeping score these kids are in trouble because of the fact that someone could potentially illegally invade their private property and steal their private photos.

The whole reason Child Pornography laws exist is to stop children from being exploited by adults. There were no adults involved in this case (save for the potential computer hackers out there.) More importantly, how can you exploit yourself?

How backwards are our laws where these 2 could have had sex together for 3 weeks solid, resulting in a teenage pregnancy, and that's all kosher. A girl sending her boyfriend a picture of her own boobs, on the other hand, is creating and distributing Child Pornography (which is about as far up the "Sex Offender-O-Meter" as it gets.)

When did this country lose its damn mind with anything relating to sex and children? For that matter when did it turn into the Minority Report? There have been numerous reports of people who's jobs put them in contact with kids losing their jobs for having sexually explicit chat with kids. No biggie? They really have sexual contact with other adults on line. They lose their jobs because of the fact that since its possible to lie about ones age on the internet they could actually be talking to a minor. No one knows, so let's err on the side that ruins your life...for the children.

Now before anyone misinterprets anything I say as "pro-Pedophilia" I want to point out that my beef is not with trying to protect children from the sickos of the world. My beef is that is has turned into a modern day witch hunt. Its gotten to the point where any male wanting to teach at the elementary school level, or do anything that involves kids, sends up red flags all over the place. We put anyone that does something criminal that may also involve sex on the sex offender list. People who get ticketed for public urination are added to the same list as child rapists because technically they exposed themselves in public.

There are 175 sex offenders in Eau Claire, WI and who knows how many of them are for offenses against kids. The problem with this list is that "offense against a child" can mean a 60 year old guy having sex with a 7 year old and getting caught with an attic full of pictures of 3 year olds. It can also mean an 18 and one day old guy had sex with his 17 and 364 day old girlfriend who's parents feel like teaching him a lesson.

Any time a "Zero Tolerance" law is passed only bad things can happen. The whole point of the list was a shameful "Scarlet letter" that has to be carried around with you forever. If 1/50th of the population is on the list it kind of takes the stigma away.

We need to focus on the 45 year olds kidnapping 4 year olds. Not on the 19 year olds hitting on the 17 year olds. In my mind a 50 year old being attracted to an 18 year old is a much bigger problem then a 18 year old that likes a 16-17 year old.

We certainly don't need to waste our time protecting "kids" from themselves.