It might be an idea if we oldies started to get a sense of perspective about all this sex stuff, and simply "get over it".

>>the girls responsible for taking the photos were charged with manufacturing, disseminating and possessing child pornography and the boys were also charged with possession of child pornography<<

While I'm sure this gave the arresting officer a buzz, and will brighten up the magistrate's day when it gets to court, it hardly makes sense to the man on the Clapham omnibus. "Child pornography" is something transacted by dirty old men in raincoats, when they're not lurking outside schools.

I agree with the author that:

>>We might also ask whether it is appropriate for us to group healthy, sexually curious teenagers with mentally unwell criminal pedophiles<<

Equally, we might ask whether it is appropriate for us to group healthy, cartoon-loving ordinary folk with mentally unwell criminal paedophiles.

"McEwan was convicted of possessing child pornography and using his computer to access child pornography in February after his computer was found to contain pictures of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson having sex with one another."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24771973-16947,00.html

Sadly, this fixation with what is sexually "healthy" and "unhealthy" has always been with us.

In Victorian times:

"A medical and moral campaign was waged around the sexuality of children. Parents, educators, doctors were all alerted to hunt out any traces of child sexuality through a myriad of surveillance techniques and upon discovery subject to a seemingly inexhaustible array of corrective measures."

http://www.isis.aust.com/stephan/writings/sexuality/vict.htm

There is no cure, unfortunately.

Not for healthy/unhealth sex, of course. That will be with us forever.

But there's clearly no cure for those who wish to impose their own prurience and frustrations on others.

Regardless of the shock and horror it seems to provoke in my generation, sexting is a fairly harmless activity. Somewhat less harmless is the behaviour it generates in American adults. They are throwing the kids who do it in jail:

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/sexting-pennsylvania-teens-land-in-jail_100143241.html

In my eyes at least, this cure is far worse than the disease. Still, I took some enjoyment in watching where the Americans puritanical instincts took them. Obviously, we would not do anything quite so silly. On Monday, my smug balloon was punctured when took the first steps along the same path.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25291147-5014239,00.html

A 13 year old Sydney schoolgirl sent nude photos of herself to her boyfriend, leading the police to investigate the possibility of charging her with child pornography related offences. This incident ended well: in a fit of common sense the kids involved deleted the pictures, and the investigation can not proceed without them. But obviously it is only a matter of time before we drag some kid through the judicial process for taking pictures of themselves and giving them to friends.

Good article.
We definitely need to stop empowering the authoritarian factions of society. The ignorant, the scared, the prudish, even the loony religious Right have a right to their opinions, but the rest of us have a right not to be abused and degraded by their limited world view.
Ignorance and god given arrogance are a *bad* combination.
The US jails more kids than any other country due to their stupid "zero tolerance" approach to social and health issues.
Jailing kids for experimenting with sex in one of the safest ways possible? Criminal Idiocy of the highest order.
We need to start jailing the perpetually outraged authoritarians, especially the ones that use imaginary friends to justify extremist views and ignorance.

I agree with the previous posters.

The current hysteria around anything to do with sex is doing enormous damage to our children.

What sort of message are we sending our kids when anything to do with sex is immediately legalised, moralised and classified.

It's disgusting really. Children are getting the idea that sex is a horrendous thing which must be treated with the utmost care lest you end up on some register which will ruin your life.

Just when we seemed to be getting over the enormous damage done by the churches we now have a new set of secular extremists damaging our youth. Growing up in the current climate would give children enough sexual hang-up to make the Catholic church proud.

Single issue lobbists like Hetty Johnson have much to be proud of.

While these sorts of behaviours might not be advisable for young people even in the pursuit of healthy sexual experimentation or curiosity, an over-reaction merely diminishes the true child pornographer or paedophile.

We have to be careful in our attempts to reduce the dangers for our children that we don't minimise the act of child pornography as 'normal' sexual curiosity.

I cannot see how a 13 year old could be charged with distributing child pornography if she perpetrated the 'crime' apon herself and then chose to send the pics off into cyber space. It would be a different matter if she sent naked pics of someonelse, though I am not sure what the legal charge would be but I doubt it would be child pornography.

Two entirely different problems which require entirely different solutions or approaches.

At the end of the day our society has brought this all upon ourselves. Sex is everywhere and seems to be encroaching more and more areas of everyday life.

I am far from prudish and yet I feel there is time and place for sexual reference and/or exposure - and for very good reason. That gap is becoming thinner and thinner as the days go by. Young people are exposed to more than they should via Magazines, TV, Music etc and even though we remark about the unfortunate result of it - what is happening to limit it.

For example: In all the service stations in my town (a capital city) the porn mag's are a thigh height EASILY viewed by all with an array of marginally blocked covers, leaving just enough to let the imagination figure the rest out.

Crappy role models, bad parenting, low self esteem, whatever/where ever it stems from .... it all goes into the pot and ends up with the younger population getting bad press over it. Sex sells and money rules the world - it's an obvious truth.

We are products partly moulded by our environments, and if there is nothing but tacky crud plastered in every direction - what do we expect