Levine, Judith; Decent Exposure?, Apr 29 2009
I’ve been peeved all month about the latest panic: “sexting.”
More and more states are bringing child-porn charges against teenagers who take racy pictures of themselves and send them electronically to lovers or pals.You might call sexting a dunderheaded act — who knows where your immortalized nipples might end up — but also a victimless “crime.”
Yet here is the amazing part: Child-porn law is based on the minor’s inability to consent to being photographed; the model is ipso facto a victim of the photographer. Sexting, in which the model is also the photographer, is a crime in which a person can be both perpetrator and victim at the same time.
U.S. sex law is like a black hole: Once reason falls in, it can never re-emerge.
Can all this get any stupider?
Parker-Pope, Tara; The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity; New York Times, Jan 27 2009
The myth of the rampant teenage promiscuity is simply not true. Teens are more conservative now, less busy with sex, and far more careful in preventing unwanted births. In the long term, those births are lessened. Frequently, oral sex replaces genital sex.