Boy Meets Girl, Boy Gets Arrested

A middle school girl takes a naked picture of herself and sends it to a boy as text message on his cell phone. The 13-year-old boy gets caught with the image on his cell phone and is arrested for child pornography possession. The girl does not face any charges for the production and distribution of said "child porn," and it doesn't look like she will.

Here's a news story regarding this injustice.

If anything could represent the injustice of the sheer hypocrisy of the legal definitions regarding youth, this story covers almost all the bases for any rational argument against them in and of itself. First, we realize that child pornography laws do not protect children when they have the pornography in their own possession. Second, we realize that children are not always the victims of child pornography, sometimes they are the photographers themselves.

Thridly, we realize that children can be criminalized and otherwise held responsible for things they are not legally able to comprehend--that they can have these ridiculous laws out to protect them against being the victims of child pornography on the basis that they can't comprehend sexuality, but they can be held responsible for being sexual if it is convenient for arrest and conviction. Lastly, we realize that justice is not fairly executed in the state of Texas (not a shocker), that girls are not given the same treatment as boys, and that one boy can be targetted when it was multiple boys that this so-called child pornography was sent to.

“I know some girl was taking pictures of herself and sending it to multiple guys. Obviously, they’ve still got their picture on their phone because they are now getting in trouble,” said Bethany Mitchell, a classmate.

So far only the 13-year-old boy has been arrested.

If they are going to execute this ridiculous charge, they might as well have executed it fairly. Otherwise, this is just another example of how normal childhood and youth relations are increasingly being criminalized and made illegal. It's just part in a long chain of injustices carried out against a demographic that does not have the legal right to protest these actions. They are criminalized, and held responsible, but not considered incapable of responsibility when it can't be used to get a conviction. This is sheer hypocrisy. Youth are sexual beings, if you criminalize their sexuality, you are criminalizing their humanity.

This is unacceptable.