Sexting: The process whereby one individual sends naughty pictures to another via text message.
Why don't you want your 15-year-old daughter sexting booby-pics to her boyfriend? Because he might spread them around. The boyfriends of 15-year-old girls are notoriously immature.
Why doesn't the state want your 15-year-old daughter sexting booby-pics to her boyfriend? Because the state has an interest in protecting children from explicit danger -- the danger of online exploitation of her image, say.
Which is why the state can, and occasionally will, declare your daughter a sex offender and ruin her life forever if she should thusly sext her boyfriend in a fit of hormonal teenaged horniness. It's for her own good.
Except it's not. It's a ridiculous, punitive, evil system we've got going, and it's gonna stop -- thanks to House Bill 75 and Senate Bill 888, which will decriminalize minor sexting for first-time offenders, and soften penalties for repeat offenders.
Unless, that is, your child is sexually excited in the sexted images. In which case she's going on the registry.
Check out this language, which appears in both bills:
This section does not prohibit the prosecution of a minor for a violation of any law of this state if the photograph or video that depicts nudity also includes the depiction of sexual conduct or sexual excitement...That's okay for girls, maybe, but what about guys? What self-respecting male of any age would attempt to impress his girlfriend or boyfriend with a flaccid nudie pic? Does the legislature feel protective only of those sexting teens who turn bashful once they get a cell phone in their hands? Do they believe tumescence before a camera is a sign of sociopathy? What, precisely, is the point of this language?
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