I was talking to some friends the other day, and we were trying to figure something out. We have naked pictures of girls we hooked up with in high school, that we took, consensually, back when we, too, were in high school. So if our apartments were ever raided (for God knows what reason), and they found those pictures (which would be kinda nice, because I can't remember where they are), could we be convicted of being in possession of child pornography?
I said, no, because the photographs were taken by us when we were underage, as well. There's no way you're required to sift through all of your pictures immediately upon turning 18 and throw out any "inappropriate" (i.e. - so appropriate) ones. That pretty clearly seems to be too big of a burden placed on the average citizen in terms of forcing him/her to take action.
A more interesting, grayer-area question would be, what if you were caught in the act of masturbating to said photos? Aha!
Also, as a fun exercise, we came up with a few more intriguing, Talmud-esque variations on this theme: what if you're caught in possession of a picture of yourself from when you were still a minor? And, what if you get caught whacking it to that old picture of yourself?! Is it still illegal, even though it's you?! Furthermore, another friend added this wrinkle: what if you accidentally stumble upon an old picture of a young, naked girl from your high-school days while with a girl (of legal age), and that girl you're with starts jerking you off to the picture of the underage girl, so that you had no active role in it?!
These are the topics they should be broaching in Philosophy 101 at colleges. Not this Descartes and Kant crap... By the way, if anyone has any actual answers or interesting opinions on these matters, please feel free to comment.
(Special thanks to "The Universe," "Paps," and Pete...)
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So not to get all legal-like on you but in California it's illegal to have sex under 18, period. Even if you, the guy who is under 18, is having sex with a girl who's under 18. If you still have those pics and they're found, I'm pretty sure you'll get into legal troubles. So let's just end this blog post with "allegedly"!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sexlaws.org/california_statutory_rape#Q3
Even if you're underage as well, it's illegal to possess child pornography. The law doesn't require you to throw out those photos when you hit 18 because it doesn't allow you to have them when you're 17 either. So, yeah, you could probably be convicted of possessing child pornography.
ReplyDeleteIf the pictures are of yourself, I imagine you can still be convicted of possession of child pornography, though I think it's pretty unlikely a prosecutor would actually do so. But an underage person who distributes naked pictures of themselves is guilty of a crime too, so I'm guessing, at least in theory, that it's illegal to possess underage naked pictures of yourself.
And if you're jerking it to pictures of your 16 year old self, you need more than legal help.
here's the actual law about child pornography.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?PageId=1504
here's what they mean by 'sexually explicit conduct'
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002256----000-.html
so if the girl is just standing they're naked, then no big deal. its like art or something.