[Oxymoron]

Parents should be arrested not her.

[Donna]

It's illegal to distribute child porn and she broke the law.

[Little von]

So much finger pointing..., ain't it great to blame somebody/something?

She was a 14 year old kid. She did not really understand the significance of her actions. We should not use our adult brains to imagine the thinking process of her 14 year old brain. She is innocent by law. Her arrest was bogus. Family counseling is in order and nothing more..., except maybe her parents aught to find a very good, ambulance chasing attorney to investigate civil legal actions.

[Zyx]

A 14 year old doesn't understand the significance of its actions?

What 14 year old kids do you know?

Also, she and her family would have to live under a rock--her boyfriend too. Everyone knew that this stuff was illegal. It's not that she did not know, insomuch as she was a child who thought that she couldn't get caught [like people who smoke and get lung cancer]. Well, she did.

Right now, hundreds of underage girls are giving out nude pictures of themselves. This girl was not the only one caught. No, her punishment does two things: makes the images harder to catch and makes other kids not want to send their images. That's the whole point of this law.

It's not about issuing 'family counseling' to problem children, it's about getting desirable results.

You seem to think that every kid is ignorant and should be pet on the hand whenever they do something bad. Once you do that, there is a market of 'consenting kids' pleasing adults on child porn websites. Why? Because kids being abused can act innocent too.

That is what you don't want.

[Little von]

Zyx
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 1:55 am

A 14 year old doesn't understand the significance of its actions?

What 14 year old kids do you know?

My youngest son just turned 14 and his older brother is 16. I know first hand and in great detail about two different 14 year olds, but more importantly, I myself remember very well what it was like when I was 14. Sure, I, too, thought I knew everything there was to know about everything when I was 14, but looking back to that time from where I am in life now, I know that I did not know jack crap about anything that mattered to society as a whole, nor to the people that surrounded me in my life. I was just too young, naive and inexperienced at that age to do so.

It was not until I had children of my own that my mind expanded and I came to understand life on this planet with some depth and meaning beyond myself and what I wanted. Oh sure, academically I knew what it was like to be a father because I read so frikin' many books and I had the memory of my own father, but to be a father myself... wow..., revelation! I came to know what it meant to be a father by becoming one myself. My little world that was about me and me alone, swelled and became this huge world that encompassed me, my children, their mother and all of the new concerns and selfless planning that their well being required from me.

Another epiphany about life took place when I was in my 40's. It was during that decade of living when I first saw life and my role in it with a clear eye. My marriage had gone from bad to absolutely horrible and my businesses were being torn apart, shattered and diminished at that same time. I was being tossed into the forge of hell and it was up to me to see if I would melt away into nothingness, or be tempered into someone much, much stronger than the person who first was tossed into the fire.

Fortunately, it was the latter that held true and my perspective on life and the people in it became oh so very much more encompassing, perceptive and relevant than that which I had before. This is what experience does for one and this is something no 14 year old can ever have. Sure the young will have experiences of their own, but they will not know what it is to have children of their own and they will not know what it is like to have what you have built up from scratch and made very successful for most of your life get destroyed and taken away from you. They just have not lived long enough at 14 years of age.

There is a reason they have an age requirement of 35 to be potus, and personally, I think they should raise that requirement to the age of 45.

But enough about me. Tell me how many 14 year olds you know and in what context?

Also, she and her family would have to live under a rock--her boyfriend too. Everyone knew that this stuff was illegal. It's not that she did not know, insomuch as she was a child who thought that she couldn't get caught [like people who smoke and get lung cancer]. Well, she did.

Right now, hundreds of underage girls are giving out nude pictures of themselves. This girl was not the only one caught. No, her punishment does two things: makes the images harder to catch and makes other kids not want to send their images. That's the whole point of this law.

It's not about issuing 'family counseling' to problem children, it's about getting desirable results.

Family counseling does not get issued to individual children, it gets issued to the entire family. That is why they call it family counseling. Yes, I think counseling would help the girl understand "what is what" about herself and how she might define and achieve her goals in life. From the actions she has taken online, though, her parents, and maybe her siblings, need to go, as well, so that they might get an insight as to why their daughter among the millions of daughters out there online, decided to become one of those few that need to express themselves and communicate whatever she was trying to communicate, by being completely nude to the entire world.

A legal system's punishment, as you described it, will do nothing for this girl. It will only make the punishers feel better about themselves and about their role as punishers. Personally, I think those that punish and advocate punishment for a child - except when that child is physically endangering themselves or others - should have THEIR heads looked at to see what makes them tick in that they would wish to hurt a child, or hurt anyone else, for that matter.

The desired result is to have a well adjusted, productive member of society, no? Using the our legal system to punish through incarceration, fines, or degraded societal status has been proven ineffective, even counter productive, as well as being extremely expensive.

You seem to think that every kid is ignorant and should be pet on the hand whenever they do something bad. Once you do that, there is a market of 'consenting kids' pleasing adults on child porn websites. Why? Because kids being abused can act innocent too.

That is what you don't want.

I agree, that is what no sane adult wants, but this example you have given takes things to an extreme, no? However, be that as it may, I still do not agree with how you have portrayed my way of thinking. I do not believe in overlooking/dismissing bad behavior from children. Quite the contrary, I believe a parent must be vigilant and concerned with every aspect of their children's lives until they are out and on their own in the world. It is both our duty and responsibility as a parent to do so. The part that separates good parents from bad parents..., and good parents from GREAT parents, is how one goes about accomplishing this parenting goal.

Personally, I try to be the father I always wished had been mine. I get to take the few things that were positive and good about my father, and add to them the things I wished my father had been when I was growing up in his house. So far, it is working very well. My kids love me as much as I love them. They are comfortable for me to be around them when they are with their friends. My kids say their friends tell them what a cool dad they have, plus their friends are polite to me and well mannered when they come around.

The main thing I have worked at instilling in my children is the meaning of the word "no." It seems a simple thing, yet it took a while for them to get what it really meant. I rarely use the word, so as to preserve the power of it, but when I do use it, they get what it means.

The parents of the underage children who are involved in pornography are the ones that need to be rounded up and punished, not the children themselves.

[Zyx]

The idea of blaming parents is wrongheaded, honestly. Parents can only do so much, especially against the tide of cultural norms. I'd wish that parents had more power, but truthfully, they do not and that's the shame of our parenting situation.

As to kids that I knew, I know the kids doing this exposure. If you want to know the kids too, then do some research like I did. Go on to meebo.com and log in however you can. Then go to 'rooms' and search 'sex.' There you will find pornographic images easily accessible to children, and adults and kids interacting for picture trading among other things.

Chatrooms, not only meebo's, are the underbelly of society and children, bored in their households, eventually degenerate into the lower echelons of communication and become those who expose themselves in exchange for other people's exposure. They all know that it is illegal, but some, claim themselves 'horny and uncontrollable' and others can be coaxed by clever adults. This is not an uncommon occurrence like you make it out to be. See for yourself, this stuff is the 'norm' as far as the technological people are concerned.

You can see how easy it is to get pictures yourself by being yourself, pretending to be a kid or whatever, and you can see how common these kids are by asking them about themselves and inquiring why they do what they do.

Little von, for all that is right though, try to keep this stuff away from your kids. If they are on chatrooms, however, and you do not know about their sexual vices, then they are not truly being as honest as you think. The 'sex' rooms are the most obvious manifests of internet degeneracy and for the most part are sausage fests sprinkled with young women--the other rooms, like "chat," are frequented by young girls who, too, given the attention will show themselves to be willing to expose themselves frequently. Even rooms themed for "Lesbians" or "Gay men" are grounds for child pornography. The truth is that the exchange of images is common, and you are free to find this much out yourself. Anyone is!

--

I do not doubt that being older has its perks, but this law is well known and it is commonly broken, we need to do something about it.

[ThereBeDragons]

Wow, meebo is quite the collection of moral degeneracy.

Something about that is pretty wrong.

[Dr House]

It's illegal to distribute child porn and she broke the law.

But she's not a child. And if she is she's not old enough to face fucking felony charges.

So this is fucked up any way you spin it.

[Zyx]

Wow, meebo is quite the collection of moral degeneracy.

Ha ha, you took the bait. Expect the feds tomorrow.

Anyway, I agree. Sometimes, you can meet some cool, pathetic souls there, though. The people who just want to die and tell someone about it before they do. My superior intellect saved a few lives, actually.

[ThereBeDragons]

Ha ha, you took the bait. Expect the feds tomorrow.

Depending on the age of the girl whose picture just graced the chatroom, I may or may not have just violated 18 USC § 2252.

Horrific but fascinating, kind of like a train wreck.

[Zyx]

You're joking, right, ThereBeDragons?

(Say yes! I know what you mean, but say that you are joking since . . . that's illegal!)

The more normal rooms are just as bad. There once was a room called 'cybersex' that went private or got deleted. Anyhow, kids galore. There was also "horny teens" or something, and it had adults galore.

Yeah, looking into the underbelly of the internet is not something that the weak-willed should do. I only went there for the C . . . for the fact that I was a crusading feminist at the time. Yeah, that was it.

Anyway, I warned you guys.

--

I hope that you notice, too, that men do not really care for the age of women. You can see in the images that we are bombarded with.

[Little von]

Zyx
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:42 pm

The idea of blaming parents is wrongheaded, honestly. Parents can only do so much, especially against the tide of cultural norms. I'd wish that parents had more power, but truthfully, they do not and that's the shame of our parenting situation.

Maybe blame is too concise of a word to use. Rather, I feel the parents are responsible for their children, in every sense of the word, for the time that those children are living under their roof..., no matter what their age is. I disagree with your belief that parents do not have the power to control the intellectual and moral upbringing of their children. As a matter of fact, that is a parent's main duty in this society and those that dump their responsible onto some other authority than themselves, are the parents most likely to have unhappy, badly adjusted children bumbling through life on their own.

As to kids that I knew, I know the kids doing this exposure. If you want to know the kids too, then do some research like I did. Go on to meebo.com and log in however you can. Then go to 'rooms' and search 'sex.' There you will find pornographic images easily accessible to children, and adults and kids interacting for picture trading among other things.

I only know of kids doing the exposing and I do not know any parents that have, or have had, children sexually displaying themselves. I think knowing about them is enough. I am not a social worker, nor a law enforcement agent, so I have no reason to know them on a more personal level. I have no curiosity to find out how depraved they are and any fool that goes to the meebo site is either a true fool, or overly curious like that doomed cat.

I am quite sure that you and anyone else that visits that site, or any of the many other ped sites on the net, are now residing in some law enforcement agency's data bank where you will sit until they choose to draw you up from the depths to expose you against yourself in a courtroom, or while you are campaigning for political office, or while pursuing many other venues in life where the fact that you visited a ped site will destroy your character..., publicly. No, I do not wish to visit your site.

Here is a pertinent saying for you from someone famous I don't remember: You can not pull anybody from the mud by getting down into the mud with them.

Chatrooms, not only meebo's, are the underbelly of society and children, bored in their households, eventually degenerate into the lower echelons of communication and become those who expose themselves in exchange for other people's exposure. They all know that it is illegal, but some, claim themselves 'horny and uncontrollable' and others can be coaxed by clever adults. This is not an uncommon occurrence like you make it out to be. See for yourself, this stuff is the 'norm' as far as the technological people are concerned.

You can see how easy it is to get pictures yourself by being yourself, pretending to be a kid or whatever, and you can see how common these kids are by asking them about themselves and inquiring why they do what they do.

Little von, for all that is right though, try to keep this stuff away from your kids. If they are on chatrooms, however, and you do not know about their sexual vices, then they are not truly being as honest as you think. The 'sex' rooms are the most obvious manifests of internet degeneracy and for the most part are sausage fests sprinkled with young women--the other rooms, like "chat," are frequented by young girls who, too, given the attention will show themselves to be willing to expose themselves frequently. Even rooms themed for "Lesbians" or "Gay men" are grounds for child pornography. The truth is that the exchange of images is common, and you are free to find this much out yourself. Anyone is!

--

I do not doubt that being older has its perks, but this law is well known and it is commonly broken, we need to do something about it.

I have talked about my chat experiences elsewhere here in PoFo. I was not a pioneer on EFnet, or whatever early IRC venue you choose, as I was never a DOS computer user. I bought my first PC when MS brought their first Windows machine out..., and I started chatting in Yahoo shortly after that.

I have had many years of quality experiences in chat rooms. I am very selective about what rooms I spend my time in. I prefer a quality experiences with people I feel a kinship with and so those are the experiences that I have, and have had, in chat. I never go to "adult" chat rooms, nor porno rooms and especially I'd never go to a ped chat room. I suggest you be as discriminating as I and perhaps you will get a different attitude about chat rooms in general.

I have no problem with my children being in chat rooms, but I do monitor the rooms they are in and encourage them to stay out of the scum rooms. They will be exposed to chat rooms in their lives, so I try to help them develop good habits at an early age in order to make smart decisions when they are on their own.

[Zyx]

I disagree with your belief that parents do not have the power to control the intellectual and moral upbringing of their children.

You must have forgotten your young adulthood. As to me, my mother that I lived with was computer illiterate for religious reasons. You can claim that she was responsible to forsake her religious beliefs and become more computer literate than I (or even plainly deny us of the computer because . . .), but it is an awkward claim. Beside from that, she works night shifts, sleeps during the day and has other things to do beside stand over her kids. The freedom to be an overseeing parent is just not there. My observations and my understanding of the world suggests that the government ought to play a role in parenting, but as it allows adults to be overworked yet expects them to be omnipresent, its people also agree with this arrangement and hence these problems.

One of the girls who I managed to speak with who cybered (although she was not a picture swapper) allegedly had a sexually abusive father who had to live away from her. Beside from this, she would do this cybering thing in the privacy of her room: calculating efficiently when her mother would show up and yadda yadda.

As a matter of fact, that is a parent's main duty in this society and those that dump their responsible onto some other authority than themselves, are the parents most likely to have unhappy, badly adjusted children bumbling through life on their own.

You describe the majority of us for the above reasons. One can claim that feminists blah blah, but one should also realize that a dual income household is plain necessary for most, and do not forget about the single-parent households that are becoming, if not already, normal.

I think knowing about them is enough.

It is not, because you simply can not 'know' of them without knowing about them. This underbelly is a fascination because it is so enlightening. One can not guess that the average honors student also spends her free time cybering with adult men.

What's strange about society at large though, is that they have an idea of this all along. They know that fourteen-year-olds are gaining significant others, yet they refuse to admonish this institution even in this rather sexualized culture. So, even though the girl in this story has a boyfriend, this is nothing bad in our minds. Naturally, she's having sex with him and we encourage as much. In a way, we don't really care about these kids and their problems. We simply say that what they are doing is proper and clap our hands to drown out the tears that they shed.

I have no curiosity to find out how depraved they are and any fool that goes to the meebo site is either a true fool, or overly curious like that doomed cat.

I've no doubt that I am a fool. This is why I try to enlighten myself.

I am quite sure that you and anyone else that visits that site, or any of the many other ped sites on the net, are now residing in some law enforcement agency's data bank where you will sit until they choose to draw you up from the depths to expose you against yourself in a courtroom, or while you are campaigning for political office, or while pursuing many other venues in life where the fact that you visited a ped site will destroy your character..., publicly.

I welcome an arena to speak of what I've observed. Expect the speech to be eloquent. .

You can not pull anybody from the mud by getting down into the mud with them.

True, but close proximity to the mud is key to assisting them.

I suggest you be as discriminating as I and perhaps you will get a different attitude about chat rooms in general.

Gender rules play in the internet world. Gender rules are such that this sort of stuff happens. It's important to those in adult to regular chatrooms that a picture be shared. Heck, even these forums stresses that a picture is shared: oftentimes, it comes up in general dialog that picture sharing has its privileges. This said, it's only a matter of time difference for when pornography inhabits our relationships.

[The Antiist]

If the victim in child pornography is actually the distributor, who are you protecting by prosecuting such a person? This is just a kid. At most, hold the parents accountable. Plus, MySpace should make sure this kind of crap shouldn't get on their website.

[Evilive]

[monotone] Oh my god, an adolescence teen sending naked pictures of herself to her boyfriend, dear lord what could motivate someone to do such a crazy unatural thing? [/monotone]


After all humans don't have sexual urges untill the day they turn 18 right? RIGHT?

[Verv]

We shouldnt cultivate such sexuality and market it to children.

I think there should be better parenting, for one, but there should be a social phenomenon where people just stop supporting the sexualization of females.

Women shouldn't always be treated as sexual objects, and they should not view their worth as defined through this.

[Cheesecake_Marmalade]

I agree. We should go back to the good old days where women were just secretly viewed as sexual objects.

[Verv]

I agree. We should go back to the good old days where women were just secretly viewed as sexual objects.

Haha, well,

I think they were more viewed as future wives and housewives...

Believe it or not but I have actually met males who view women not as sex objects... They view them as equally sexist, but sexist in a different way.

[Cheesecake_Marmalade]

I was just joking around. I personally don't view women as sex objects, but of course my respect for them has only grown since I embraced social conservatism. At the detriment of their role in society, I'm afraid.

[Donna]

If the victim in child pornography is actually the distributor, who are you protecting by prosecuting such a person?

Other children, obviously. The logic behind charging this girl with an offense is to deter minors from creating and distributing their own child porn, which typically ends up in the hands of adults.