Posted on 12/10/2008 11:26:19 AM PST by Fractal Trader
The high school in Salem, N.H., was abuzz last month as a photograph of a topless 15-year-old girl was sent from cellphone to cellphone.
School staff intervened, and by the time they met with students in assemblies the next day they had discovered another compromising cellphone photo, this one of an eighth-grade girl. They soon found two more photos of naked or nearly naked girls on students' phones. Two weeks later, a similar incident occurred at nearby Sanborn Regional High School. The photograph in question was of a teenage boy.
A report being released today shows that these were not isolated incidents but part of a national trend. One-fifth of teenagers surveyed have sent or posted nude or seminude pictures or videos of themselves, usually to a boyfriend or girlfriend, and almost a third have received such images, according to "Sex and Tech," a new study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com.
Among young adults (ages 20-26), the numbers are higher: One-third said they have posted or sent racy images of themselves, and almost half have received them. TRU, a company that specializes in youth research, conducted the survey online with 1,280 teenagers and young adults selected from its database of research participants.
A spokesman for the National Campaign, a nonprofit group that advocates for sex education and access to contraceptives, said he is concerned about the link between what happens online and what happens in real life.
"What young people report is that this sort of online behavior contributes to a casual hookup culture," said Bill Albert, the group's chief program officer. "The overwhelming majority of teens and young adults don't do this, but when you get numbers like 20 percent and higher for young adults, that passes the threshhold of concern."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I agree. I don't think these laws were meant to apply to a 16 year-old girl sending her boyfriend racy pictures of herself. Labelling either/both of them as sexual offenders, potentially for the rest of their lives, serves no legitimate purpose whatsoever. These laws exist to prevent the sexual exploitation of underage kids, not to punish teenagers for doing, frankly, what teenagers naturally do.
“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”
-Charles Dickens
I've heard about cases like that. Our hysteria over sexual offenders has turned activities that deserve, at most, a ticket into criminal offenses with long-term consequences.
I support a sexual offender registry. However, it should be limited to people who have committed sexually-based crimes against individuals, such as rapists and child molestors. Someone caught urinating in public or having sex in the back seat of a car should not be on any such list.
Agreed..............
“You see, Guns aren’t allowed on school property, either.”
They should be.
They were when I was in school, and that wasn’t very many years ago. Nobody ever got shot either.
This is not a debate site, it is a conservative site. Leftist indoctrination doesn’t fly here.
Lest you think I am interested in any more of your “logic”, take a look at my tag line.
My Senior Citizens group does the same thing. Want to see some pics?
Those girls will have plenty of time to study.
Hey, I only said cellphones should be turned off at school.
You are the one who used horrible logic in an argument and tried to debate. I only merely pointed out your idiocy.
You are ignorant beyond belief. Check out my profile and go to my Youtube channel. I am a vocal defender of the 2nd amendment.
I have all the credibility a Conservative would ever need and I make money doing it.
You, on the other hand, are a joke.
“Leftist indoctrination”-whatever. stick it in your piehole, buddy.
But it’s not purely a question of principle, though.
America can be excessively litigious and to some extent much of what you see as “leftist” controls are a reaction to the risk of being sued, as they are about a principle of control freakery.
If a school has a policy saying “no guns onsite” and some kid walks in with a gun, the school is far more insulated from the financial risk if something awful does happen, than if it allowed anyone to walk on the premises with weapons, with complete impunity.
The frequency of something bad happening as a consequence of letting minors take guns to school might seem to you to be miniscule, but the severity of the outcome if something does go wrong can be catastrophic.
Accidental injury and a few holes in the ceiling are repairable and of minor consequence compared to handling the psychological impact.
Gunshot suicides and/or spree killings destroy the lives not just of the victims and their families, but the perp’s families, the faculty, and anyone who witnessed the attack. Which could be hundreds of kids.
What’s the worst that can happen as a DIRECT consequence of minors NOT being allowed to take guns onto school premises?
If the bad guys do come into the school I would expect the authorities and the school staff to do what they’re paid to do... protect the children. I want my kids out of the line of fire, not walking into it. So, I don’t see the need for my kids to take guns to school.
Unless you’re prepared to pay ludicrous sums for indemnity insurance to allow ANY kid to go into school with a gun, for no apparent reason whatsoever, the litigation threat needs to be addressed before you can have your kids tooling up for school.
Although why you’d actually want your kids to take guns to school, escapes me completely.
In my day (the 70s) it was common for some kids to go hunting in the morning before they had classes, and then go directly to school. It was not thought the least bit unusual to see a shotgun in the rack in the back window of a pick up truck.
Do that today and they will throw the kid out of school, have him arrested, lock down the school, and in general act like a bunch of panty waists.
I also think there is no reason responsible adults should be banned from having one.
Who the freak said I wanted minors to take guns to school? You make it sound like I said that the kids should be “packin’ heat”.
I said guns shouldn’t be BANNED from school. There is a difference.
One thing I will no longer put up with is idiots putting “words in my mouth” here on FR.
Go pound sand.
Well, in your day, society wasn't the pussy-whipped, risk-averse, ambulance-chasing place it is now.
A gun that stays in the rack of the pick-up is less likely to be involved in a school tragedy, than a gun that is taken onto school premises without the school, or the gun's owner, knowing about it. A gun can be taken onto school premises safely, but the "panty waists" won't risk it. Not just because they're scared, but because it's not possible to allow that to happen for all manner of "practical" reasons.
It suits the financial interests of insurance companies to identify small risks with potentially catastrophic consequences and charge more to cover it. It suits the lawyers to prosecute any and every perceived injury, no matter how slight. And so they feed the nanny state, which in turn feeds them.
Conservatism needs to embrace the idea that the litigation industry forms a symbiotic relationship with social authoritanism. If you're free to do XYZ but someone's able to sue you into financial ruin for exercising that freedom, then freedom is an illusion.
I find nothing in your reply with which I disagree.
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