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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
SEX Teens and Sexting
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 10:02 AM
Iowa's Attorney General has an outbreak of sane:
Concerned that Iowa laws could bring overly harsh penalties for teenagers who send explicit electronic images, commonly called "sexting," the Iowa Attorney General's office will ask lawmakers to give prosecutors another option. Under the state's current laws, a teenager engaged in sexting could face an aggravated misdemeanor or a felony charge typically meant for child pornography cases.The proposal would give prosecutors the option of charging teenagers with a simple misdemeanor if they disseminated sexually explicit material to another teen.
Here's an idea: Iowa—all states—ought to make "simple misdemeanor" the only charge that can be brought against a sexting teenager. Otherwise overzealous, sex-negative, sex-panicking prosecutors are going to continue to bring child porn charges against teenagers for the "crime" of using their own camera phones and their own bodies to do what all teenagers have always done: flirt with each other. Unless we're prepared to bring charges against every other teenager in the United States, sooner or later we're going to have to decriminalize teen sexting. Right now twenty percent of American teenagers admit to sending sexually explicit images to their boyfriends, girlfriends, crushes, etc. As most teenagers are aware that sexting is illegal and that some of their peers have been arrested and prosecuted for the "crime" of sending another teenager a skanky picture, I'm guessing the real figure is much, much higher.
Sexting isn't the problem. The sex panic about teen sexuality—the latest in a long, long series—is the problem. The culture is sick. The teenagers are fine.
1
I wonder if the "sexting" panic can be traced back to the efforts of evangelicals somewhere. Seems like every kneejerk freedom grab is related to some deep-pocket moral crusader who's managed to grab the attention of a few elected officials.
2
I seem to remember the panic picking up after some town drove a girl to kill herself, after some pics went public.
It's also possible, thou, that I just mashed three different stories together with out even thinking about it.
It's also possible, thou, that I just mashed three different stories together with out even thinking about it.
3
Whoa, for real Kyle? That's fucked up.
I thought the outcry exploded when nude images of a 17-year-old Vanessa Hudgens that she had taken and sent to then-boyfriend Zac Ephron were leaked to the 'net, thus drawing attention to the entire sexting phenomenon and causing overly protective parents to wonder if their kids were also using cellular phones to send pictures of their cooters and dongs to one another.
I thought the outcry exploded when nude images of a 17-year-old Vanessa Hudgens that she had taken and sent to then-boyfriend Zac Ephron were leaked to the 'net, thus drawing attention to the entire sexting phenomenon and causing overly protective parents to wonder if their kids were also using cellular phones to send pictures of their cooters and dongs to one another.
4
The fact that anyone can get penalized in any way for sending a nude photo of themselves to one other person, consensually, is just fucking insane, unforgivably stupid, and backwards.
5
Nex, I brought that incident up in this thread, in which you were finding it hilarious to publicly shame teenage girls for expressing their sexuality.
http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…
http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…
6
Oh right! The day where you decided that you were going to out-liberal everyone and try to convince people that your trolling was an honest-to-blog attempt at protecting the ever-so-fragile women of Portland from those people who would tie them to cacti, scalp them and wear their skins as clothing.
And apparently "those people" specifically refers to me all because I find it funny that two teenage siblings were embarrassing each other in front of their peers.
Most people would have seen that as an insane leap of logic crafted entirely to further a bullshit agenda, but luckily we have people like A_cat who aren't afraid to spend all their free time annoying others in a bid to get attention -- ANY attention as evidenced by the nearly tearful tirade you launched into when the Blogtown moderators banned you, begging those of us who have some kind of theoretical influence to get your account reinstated -- to replace the years of neglect they went through in their childhood homes, at school, and presumably on to the modern day.
Am I remembering the correct thread Cat? Or was it another thread in which you made yourself the petulant center of attention?
And apparently "those people" specifically refers to me all because I find it funny that two teenage siblings were embarrassing each other in front of their peers.
Most people would have seen that as an insane leap of logic crafted entirely to further a bullshit agenda, but luckily we have people like A_cat who aren't afraid to spend all their free time annoying others in a bid to get attention -- ANY attention as evidenced by the nearly tearful tirade you launched into when the Blogtown moderators banned you, begging those of us who have some kind of theoretical influence to get your account reinstated -- to replace the years of neglect they went through in their childhood homes, at school, and presumably on to the modern day.
Am I remembering the correct thread Cat? Or was it another thread in which you made yourself the petulant center of attention?
7
Ah, yes. Attack the man, not the argument. What a wonderfully subtle rhetorical device. I bow to your superior intellect, Nex.
8
Who said I was aiming for subtlety? I don't like you. If that isn't blunt enough for you I could also throw in a few swears.
You make the jobs of everyone who works here more difficult by refusing to admit that your little "annoy everyone into paying attention to me" game is so incredibly self-serving. Lucky for your childish gimmick the overworked moderators here have most recently chosen to simply ignore you (as opposed to the previous tack of babysitting your supposedly adult ass) presumably out of a sense that you crave the metaphorical hand holding -- or maybe they just don't want to risk your pitching another backstage temper tantrum by banning you yet again. The first one you pulled was on a level of histrionics usually reserved for octopedal Disney villains after they've been impaled on on the jagged edge of an English clipper.
I could waste my time "attacking the argument," but that would just be me playing your stupid game and giving you a free pass to climb up on your cross and perpetuate the egocentric ideology that defines everything you do here (and is most likely an overreacted negative reflection of your meek reality). The goal here is to get you to shut the hell up, not change your opinion with tactically sound debate.
You make the jobs of everyone who works here more difficult by refusing to admit that your little "annoy everyone into paying attention to me" game is so incredibly self-serving. Lucky for your childish gimmick the overworked moderators here have most recently chosen to simply ignore you (as opposed to the previous tack of babysitting your supposedly adult ass) presumably out of a sense that you crave the metaphorical hand holding -- or maybe they just don't want to risk your pitching another backstage temper tantrum by banning you yet again. The first one you pulled was on a level of histrionics usually reserved for octopedal Disney villains after they've been impaled on on the jagged edge of an English clipper.
I could waste my time "attacking the argument," but that would just be me playing your stupid game and giving you a free pass to climb up on your cross and perpetuate the egocentric ideology that defines everything you do here (and is most likely an overreacted negative reflection of your meek reality). The goal here is to get you to shut the hell up, not change your opinion with tactically sound debate.
9
Dude, I pointed out that you're being a bit inconsistent in finding that the topic of this post shouldn't "be universally embraced as hilarious schadenfreude" (your words). You can refute the disparity between these two posts or not, but I have no fucking clue what you're going berserk about right now.
If your goal is to have me "shut the hell up", then just have me banned. You're the one playing the martyr here, with all this frothing spittle about how I'm making everyone's jobs so difficult.
If your goal is to have me "shut the hell up", then just have me banned. You're the one playing the martyr here, with all this frothing spittle about how I'm making everyone's jobs so difficult.
10
meow, he can't ban you. His powers are only theoretical. It's just frustrating, though, because while he can't flip a switch to shut you up, he's apparently feeling a collective burn from all the crap you've put everyone at the Mercury through. And he's like, "I don't care if you're not bugging the shit out of everyone again right now! Enough is enough!"
Also: "decided to out-liberal everyone" - Aren't decisions like this exactly what you're often aiming for, Nex? We're all weak ass pansies, after all. But who's the pansiest?! Comment after the jump...
Also: "decided to out-liberal everyone" - Aren't decisions like this exactly what you're often aiming for, Nex? We're all weak ass pansies, after all. But who's the pansiest?! Comment after the jump...
11
Yeah, I guess I meant "have me banned" more than "ban me".
It's just confusing; aside from the awesome Volm thread, I've been averaging about one comment a week for the past few months, yet somehow criticizing Nex's writing a couple times is enough to render me some sort of ultra-villain that needs to be annihilated.
It's just confusing; aside from the awesome Volm thread, I've been averaging about one comment a week for the past few months, yet somehow criticizing Nex's writing a couple times is enough to render me some sort of ultra-villain that needs to be annihilated.
12
[oh wait, "have me banned" is what I said. I guess I stand by my initial comment. Good luck, Nex. I'm sure you have the sway to have the hammer brought down.]
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