For clarification:

Dimples - OK for thong:

No dimples.  Not ok for thong:

Zero tolerance equals zero individual thought.

Yep.  It's a really well written chapter.  Hell, the whole book is fantastic.  I recommend that one over Dawkins to most run of the mill theists.  He did a great job of writing for people on that level.

Holy crap! Yeah, I agree with you on the whole thing, Hamby. 

Several years in juvi for taking pictures of herself? Really?

This just doesn't seem justified. I mean, she's going to be punished by society, not based on her actual crimes, but because of their implications. It's like a crime of morality.

And, sex offender? I thought this was reserved for people who actually molested other people. This girl is going to be listed in the same category as rapists? How does that make sense?

As an 18 year old myself, I would argue that virtually all of them DO understand the consequences. In fact, it is partly the very thought that men will be enjoying their pictures that inspires them to do this. It gives them a sense of recklessness, power, and  accomplishment 

Generation Y and Z already understand the Internet better than the previous generations. If they know how to use html to post a picture, then, certainly they can figure out that the Internet is public. 

That's why teenagers make their stuff public in the first place, so that everyone on the Internet that visits the page can see it. To suggest that most teenagers actually want their stuff to be private, but "screw up" because they didn't know how the Internet worked........this is beyond ignorant.

Strange, although this is undoubtedly true, I doubt that most 13-14 year olds would actually admit to this, for fear of their parents finding out. So, how did they conduct this study?

Also, why is this supposed to be surprising? Doesn't anyone remember their childhood?

What? 

Wait, am I not interpreting this correctly? They're going to be condemned for receiving the pictures? What the fuck? What the hell were they supposed to do? Delete the picture before they looked at it? 

Fail.

Even the subtitle is extremely biased.

Of course, don't get me wrong, I don't support child pornography, but this kind of thing should simply be condemned and left up to the parents. Several years in jail? Phooey.  

Lol.

Should we even condemn it?  Why?  Instead of having a cow about some nudie pictures being sent to some friends, wouldn't it be better to take an entirely different route?  "Listen, Little Suzie, I understand you sent some naughty pictures to your friends.  I hope you know that if you're thinking of becoming sexually active, you owe it to yourself and all of your friends to make mature decisions about it.  It's fun to experiment with sexuality, but remember, when you do it with the internet or cell phones, it could stay around for a long time.  Are you going to be ok with that?"

If we think about it, all those stories about people losing their jobs because of photos from their youth... is that a representation of them being bad people, or is it just a bunch of prudes getting their panties in a twist about stuff that isn't their business.  Who fucking cares about nudie pictures?  It's just bodies, for fuck's sake.

Technically it was the writings OF "harlots" (pornos was the name for a low-class prostitute. ) It literally was grafitti advertising by them.

If you'll permit me to use you as an example, this is exactly what I'm trying to change in the world.  Our preconceptions of sexuality are so dominated by religion that even among atheists, it often doesn't occur to us that a particular thing might not be inherently wrong just because our parents would think it so.  The fact is, it's normal and natural for teenagers to experiment with sexuality.  It's best if they do it with each other as opposed to old people because they're just learning.  They're usually not sophisticated enough to know all the subtlety involved in adult sexual talk and activity.

The bottom line, though, is that we Americans tend to believe that there are magical lines between nonsexuality and sexuality, and that some things are just plain wrong.  The fact is, some fifteen year olds are mature enough to have sexual relationships and others aren't mature enough when they're twenty five.  There's nothing inherently wrong with a picture of a fifteen year old's boobs.  And if I may go one tenuous step farther... is there really any crime committed if a twenty one year old has a fantasy about having sex with a young girl while looking at a picture of a girl who may or may not be eighteen?  Is thoughtcrime really illegal now?  (Consider:  If this girl's picture is on the internet, and some guy finds it, guesses that she's underage, and jerks off, has anyone -- anyone at all -- been harmed?)

Look, exploiting teens for the sexual gratification of adults is bad because it exploits teens.  But come on, people!  Teens enjoying the exploration of their emerging sexuality is awesome!  Don't you remember how awesome it was the first time you saw someone of the preferred sex naked?  Your first session of "hands in the pants"?  It's all new and magical and wonderful, and if we cynical adults would just stop telling impressionable kids how horrible it is that they're growing up naturally, they could probably enjoy it more, and more responsibly.

The sex gene , the big bang, DNA, atomic attraction, always fucking .... the cosmic dance of attraction , with rejection on the other side fucking as well , plus minus, yin yang, matter anti matter always fucking, getting it on , as the middle of the one of fucking , as says thermodynamics as all fucks ....

I remember that game.  It's actually what I was thinking of when I wrote that part of the OP.

The thing is, there are two completely different issues when it comes to minors.  The first is adults using prepubescent or adolescent children for sex.  That's the really scary stuff that fucks people up for the rest of their lives.  It's obvious when a child is prepubescent.  There's no wiggle room or "I thought she was 18" bullshit.  That's pedophilia.

The article I critiqued equated 8 year olds seeing sex on the internet with 15 year olds taking pictures of themselves.  These two things are not connected.  Furthermore, what does it matter whether the girl is 15 or 25 if we're talking about 8 year olds seeing porn?  If we're talking about porn on the internet, let's talk about that, but if the subject is 15 year old girls, then it's another matter.

Generally speaking, all 15 year olds are aware of their sexuality, and many of them are well on their way to physical sexual maturity.  That is, they are difficult to distinguish physically from 18, 20, or sometimes even 22 year olds and older.  Emotionally and intellectually, they are often naive and inexperienced, and so we have laws about adults exploiting them for sex.  But let's get this absolutely clear.  There's a very big difference between a 21 year old dating a 15 year old and any adult having any kind of sexual contact with an 8 year old.

A very big difference.

I'm not suggesting that we ought to clap our hands and do a jig when our 15 year old daughters bring home 21 year old boyfriends.  However, treating that as pedophilia is just wrong.  It's not.  Ninety five percent of the time, It's a horny 21 year old and a horny 15 year old who both want to have sex.  They're both sexually mature enough to have sex.

But this article isn't even about 15 year olds having sex.  It's about seeing their breasts naked.  Again, your point is very well made.  Just looking at a photo, it's really damn hard to guess the age of the subject.  Seeing a sexually developed 15 year old naked and getting turned on is not perverted or criminal.  Evolution has designed women to be most attractive to men when they're young, and men to be attracted most to young women.

I'm sick and tired of people equating pedophilia with teenage experimentation.  The two are profoundly different.  It's a direct result of a culturally enforced attitude that sex suddenly becomes magically ok on a person's 18th birthday, but that it's evil, perverted, and degrading before that.

We should protect teens from predators, but hell, we should protect everybody from predators.  Underage girls shouldn't be forced into prostitution, but neither should 30 year old women.  At some point, we really ought to look at the draconian laws addressing teens and sex and ask ourselves if what we're doing is for the protection of the innocent or the enforcement of morality.

We all are born not only atheists, but also naked, and through sexual organs. This is the God's standard, which the Christian morality should accept. If not, we should remind them on every ocassion.
Reputedly, the sexuality is very effective way of controlling people. The fear from people discovering their sexuality might be a fear of losing control over them.

"Sexual offense"? What the hell is this nonsense? What idiot usurps the right to decide by what people should be offended?
Naked people, male, female, pretty, or ugly, never offended me. ( because fortunately I had been raised so) Sexuality is not a form of offense. (unless they don't invite you)
Of course, I don't say I'd take a pics of myself, or found myself on a nude beach, but I respect the right of everyone for that. The right for nudity and sexuality should be expressed in a chart of basic human rights, so no old pervert, or a hag with cellulitis can ever threaten young hot teens for not hiding their body. Also, the informations about a function of sexual organs (which is moral, by the way) should be made available to uninformed children, just as there are advices about hygiene, nutrition or traffic rules, meant for protecting other aspects of our health. I hope this shows well how de-tabooized these informations must become.

The antisexual bigotry itself is a form of sexual perversion. It directly creates a perversion by suppressing the sexuality, this is why it's unhealthy. For example, there wouldn't be practically no misuse of children by priests, if the priests would have their girlfriends.
Sexual activity (including gay and lesbo, which is also common among animals) doesn't cost lives, quite oppositely. Only open-minded, guilt-free sexuality provides a safety from thoughts of harming others sexually, and it's the best way how to discover a real deviants, (if any) who would be otherwise well hidden. How can we otherwise differ a hidden deviant from a "chaste" person?
Also, if a sexuality is an expression of love, then we should support the love. Love is moral.

I had read about some american standards about nudity and sexuality. Reputedly, people can't be naked even witin their own house, if the neighbours can know about it. The highway drivers, who in Europe used to urinate at the side of the road, are now yelled upon by American drivers. Skinny dippers and nudists are arrested, if their bare ass is seen by anyone passing by. They're not flashers, they're people enjoying the comfortable state of nudity, a comfort which the clothed people can never know.

 

Luminon, right on friend, you too Hamby. Yeah, out law clothes, unless it's cold .... Kidding a side, I vote to enact a national, world wide, yearly "nude day" or more .... I want freedom.

This is United States of North America, theo-memetic bullshit. It is strictly a religious (more specifically, a Christian) value judgement and legislative law.

How could I dare say such a thing?

Question: Have you ever watched a man being literally cut right down the center, spleen and spinal chord vertebrates visibly bursting-out his back like pearly champagne corks? I have. Where did I see it? On the screen of a computer in my high-school computer lab. When? When I was 17, watching snuff footage from the Iraq conflict (namely, what happened to Saddam's guard units when the heavy American munitions hit them. I'm the last person t condone armed warfare or violence, butI've got to say: it looked really fucking cool). The 3rd person to find-out what I was watching? My Lab teacher.

Did cops get called? Did the local media get stirred-up? Was I referred to a psychiatrist?

Of course not. The teacher told me that it was disgusting, and to turn it off.

Are kids chastised for wearing jewelry dipicting the crucifixion? Is there panic whenever kids are present in an audience where footage from the 9/11 attacks is shown?

Of course not.

The moment anyone shows-off these to children, though, or children start showing-off their own set:

...Someone fucking flies off the handle.

So, why is it okay for me to watch a few thousand people die in a terrorist attack on an office building, or a watch a man in graphic detail get unspooled into his individual bits by depleted uranium, but definitely not okay for sex to be a topic introduced to me while I'm developing?

Answer: Because Christianity is perfectly fine with gratuitous violence - always has been, always will be; it's a central tenet of the faith - but it is certainly not okay with sex. At all (and, of course, Islam is even more extreme in this regard).

If sex is introduced at a young age, the faith loses that level of control over it's membership. It's that simple. The orthodoxy wants to maintain it's flock of sheep, and it knows that easiest and most effective way to do so is to control what our genes are after (even if they don't necessarily know the specifics).

Perhaps I can corroborate my hypothesis a little further:

Anyone from a more secular part of the world, could you tell us what sort of laws your country has that governs this sort of activity (Personal prediction: there aren't any)?

In Norway last year a similar case made the news. The girl was 15.

The article, prompted by a school director's publicly stated fears, centred on the naivety displayed by the girl in question essentially posting sexually explicit images of herself into the public domain. More particularly, the possibly long term negative impact this might have on the individual if she was unlucky enough for that image to be exploited in a manner which included reference to her identity, direct or oblique.

The girl and her schoolmates were counselled and decided, with parental involvement in the decision, that she would stay on at the school. The recipients of the image voluntarily deleted the image from whatever media they had saved it and alerted "Krypos" (the Norwegian police body with responsibility for data protection crime) concerning which ISPs and phone networks had been used in its further transmission. Damage limitation in other words.

I accept that the girl, and the girl in Ohio, are guilty of nothing more than teenage exploration of their sexuality. However the method they both chose to conduct that exploration increased their vulnerability to being hurt in the future. Punishing someone in that situation is stupid, and almost a bigger crime in any case than the event might subsequently lead to since by the nature of the process of punishment it cmpoundly increases the vulnerability of the individual.

The Norwegian article was published only after the police reported that they had tracked down and secured the image's deletion through agreement with various ISPs etc in as much as they could. The girl's identity and even that of the school and its director were kept out of the papers - neither were germaine to the point of the article in any case.

Children and sexual behaviour is probably the most difficult topic possible to have a rational discourse on.

According to the politicalcompass, my views are way to the left of most Americans, but I do have Nelson Mandela, Ghandi and the Dalai Lama for company

Despite this I think the article does have a point but it makes it very badly.

Thinking back to my schooldays, (10-15 years ago) a female friend of mine (I think we were 16/17 at the time) wanted to be a model or actress and she had been offered some work modelling swimwear in a catalogue. We laughed and another (male) friend asked her if she knew that dirty old blokes were going to be wanking all over her pictures, she said she was fine about it because it just meant she was really fit, the more cum the better. A couple of days later she cancelled the gig because she couldn't get the image of our (fat, sweaty, unshaven, alcoholic) science teacher, wanking all over her, out of her head. She never got any more offers of modelling and went off to uni instead.

In contrast, a couple of my girlfriend's friends were sexually active at a very young age, the 2 of them, at age 13 had a bet with each other to see who could give the most blowjobs in a month. The winner managed 5 in a single night. Both girls spent the rest of thier school years being teased mercilessly and branded as sluts. The last I know of the winner is that she became a stripper, developed a drug problem and moved to London. The other girl is now married with a child but lives in constant fear of her husband or child ever finding out about her sexual past.

In 10 or 20 years when the innocent naked photo is spread across thousands of porn sites I'll bet money that the 15 year old girl will regret having sent the picture. Would you have enjoyed your childhood if you spent all of it being teased about the naked picture of your mom on the internet? Threatening children with prison time or being registered as a sex offender is clearly excessive, (IMO sensible sex education works much better) but setting boundaries for sexual behaviour as kids grow up is, I think, reasonable.

Careful that you don't read too much into my critique.  I don't advocate that teenage girls give as many blowjobs as they can in any length of time as a bet.  What I advocate is a sensible, nonreligious approach to developing sexuality in teens.  Experimentation is natural and normal, and it should be sensibly condoned.  Where there is real danger, we should discourage certain behaviors, but let's be clear about this.  Regardless of the degree of mortification experienced by your friend, she was in no real danger from old men wanking off to her picture in a swimsuit catalog.  If she decided not to do it for that reason, that's her decision, but even if we're talking about an old man getting a private naked photo of her and wanking off, there's still no real harm.

The law is not there to protect us from our own sense of indecency.  It's there to prevent crime against citizens.