January 29th, 2009 -- by Bacchus
It Might Lead To Dancing
From the front lines of the hopeless intergenerational war against user-generated, re-mixed youth culture in the internet age:
“Taking nude pictures of yourself, nothing good can come out of it,” said Capt. George Seranko of the Greensburg Police Department.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 11:01 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=3013
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=3013
I completely agree with Violet Blue on this one. Making a 15 year old a felon for child porn we’re ruining their lives in an effort to “protect” them. I think they should be punished, but it should be a parental issue, you’re grounded/ take away their car. If this must be a law enforcement issue, it should be left to Juvenile court.
Do a PSA: “If you’re making personal porn, protect yourself, use Polaroid. Save yourself and the economy too”
Re: “Taking nude pictures of yourself, nothing good can come out of it,”
um… officer… I’ll bet there’s a girl out there somewhere who’s made a million bucks off of posting her beautiful body on the internet. …Maybe even more young ladies than you can count! It makes you wonder if the officers just want to make sure these girls don’t get too uppity or *gasp!* become empowered enough to make a profit without the benefit of a pimp involved…
I read the link by Violet Blue, with a certain amount of incredulity by the way…
Right after they made the President re-take his oath because of a mere transposition of the sentence structure, I heard on the news where Virginia drew up a law to make it necessary to have a “hands-free” device when making a cell phone call from your auto. It seems there may be a problem though, because they didn’t say you had to actually use it… (My guess is that they also didn’t specify that it had to work, or even work on your particular model of phone…)
So I wonder, as long as were being specific, if pornography is defined in the dictionary as literally “the writings of a prostitute”, can these girls now be charged with a crime for merely doing their math homework? Also, if they didn’t include any text with these photos, can they still be charged? Will the authorities have to prove any accompanying text was actually typed via the girl’s fingers? Does she have to engage in a form of “…physical relations that could result in the production of offspring…” for “monetary remuneration” to be guilty of “prostitution”? (In other words, in some States, even oral gratification for money, or the “manual manipulation” of “a certain part of the male anatomy” for compensation, may not be considered prostitution under the law…).
If every 17 year old girl who’s ever given a blow-job has to be dragged into court every time she gives one, then every county in America will have to build a parking deck by the local courthouse the size of the World Trade Center!
If underage nudity is a crime, can the girls’ physicians be charged with contributing to their delinquency when giving examinations? Are Sally Mann’s photos of her naked daughter now illegal? Can the girls even look at themselves naked?
So many questions… so little government money lying around to investigate… so few bolts of black cloth to cover the mirrors in teenager’s bedrooms…
From what I recall of one story I saw about this a few weeks ago, most of the state laws have specific exemptions for parents/guardians and doctors, not *not* for the teen themselves.
Which is a little messed up.
-Michael
First time comment from a long time reader.
WTF!?!?!?!? This really is the most ridiculous thing ever, talk about political correctness gone totally fucking insane. They really are ruining adults lives before they are even adults. God forbid these teens should be confident enough to show off their bodies to whom ever they want. lets just take them out…. yeah, great plan, fuckwits. It makes me mad, angry and so, so sad.
Its sheer insanity. I have two teenage kids – both thankfully too old to be trapped by this sort of madness. Similarly we have laws in this country where sex is legal at 16 – but movies of sex are legal at 18… so a 17 year old could be charged with illegally watching a movie of themselves having sex…. weird and pointless.
i agree with nobody :/
but cameras, especially digital ones, are idiot magnets. parents…yes, parents…need to really instruct the kids about being responsible photographers.
and technology has outpaced laws
So we’re unhappy that a cop is advising against people taking nude photos of themselves? Do we know that it was His decision to charge them? If yes, I think he’s being an arse. If it was the DA’s decision, let’s lay the blame there, or with the lawmakers who didn’t consider that people will take nude photos for private use.
However there Are digital nude photos of me out there, and I’m DAMN scared of them becoming public. My job could be at risk and that kind of thing tends to stick around. I would probably have to move to a different state, get a new job, all kinds of shite, if those photos went up on a website/are sent around in an e-mail and the wrong person finds them. It might not matter to everyone, in fact certain groups of my friends would find it absolutely hilarious/want to see them, but others would be horrified, and that very much includes the people I report to at work.
I agree that whomever decided to charge these kids with porn offenses is an arse (I’m not sure who makes these decisions in that town/city), but warning people of the dangers of having nude photos floating around is surely a good thing, right? Isn’t it a key role of a good authority figure to remind people that actions have consequences, and nude photos aren’t accepted in all parts of our society, so perhaps keep those in a safe place. I agree that the laws are being horribly applied in this case, but are we actually angry with the policeman for warning high school students about the dangers of passing around nude photos?
There’s a difference between “warning people of the dangers” and claiming that it’s all danger, all the way down. He didn’t say “bad things could happen”; he said “nothing good could come of it.” Which would come as a horrible surprise to anybody who’s ever gotten laid on the strength of the risque self-portrait they used on a dating site. Note he was not limiting that advice to young people.
That cop is ruling out an entire realm of artistic self-expression, because all he can see is the (very real) danger. That’s risible, yes.
Remember this is a blog about sex. Sex has plenty of danger to it, right? What if the cop had said “Having sex, nothing good can come of it.” Would anybody still be saying “Oh, he’s just doing his job, reminding people of the dangers, warning people of the downsides” and so forth? I sure hope not.
“That cop is ruling out an entire realm of artistic self-expression, because all he can see is the (very real) danger.”
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, amirite?
I agree this is stupid beyond comprehension, but I disagree that it is “political correctness”. What could be more politically incorrect than asserting that females don’t own the rights to their bodies?
This is just sexist authoritarian reins-slipping panic.