For those of you that don’t know, cell phone nudity is the newest agenda for soccer moms and politicians that are a little too eager to tell everyone one else what they ought not do. 

Now, it is unfortunate that I feel obligated to include a disclaimer.  But:  This is not an appeal to allow child pornography nor is this an endorsement of cell phone porn.  I simply intend to point out the fallacies associated with prosecuting non-adults for sending and receiving dirty pictures on their mobile phones.

Somewhere, some when, some group of elected officials proclaimed that the age of 18 is where individuals magically gain wisdom as to what is right and wrong, good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate.  These officials were elected by the general public and eventually they determined that illicit pictures of individuals under the age of 18 were not acceptable.  In fact, possession of such material will brand that person as a sex offender and bring that person many years in a state prison.  The reasoning behind deeming such material illegal is that minors are incapable of making decision for themselves (or so it was declared by these elected officials acting on behalf of the general population that placed them in such a position). 

Amazingly, some individuals under the age of 18 discovered that they have naughty parts and decided to show them off to others.  Call it a high-tech version of “if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”  Whatever the case is, some “adults” don’t know how to handle this.  They feel these children should be “protected” by pressing charges against other children (or sometimes even the person that is supposedly being protected).  This is lunacy.   This makes no sense!  After all, law is written to protect people.  When the law victimizes those that it is designed to protect, it is time to reevaluate why the law was initiated and how it is applied.

As I see it, there are two ways to deal with a situation like this.  First, we can treat these children as adults in both situations.  That means they are mature enough to understand what they are doing and should be allowed to distribute (and receive) their naughty pictures regardless of how uncomfortable society is with that concept.  The alternative is that these children are not aware of the repercussions of their dirty pictures and, therefore, should not be subject to legal actions regarding them.

In closing, I would like to pass along some advice to those concerned about teenagers using cell phones to transmit dirty pictures to each other:  Rather than prosecuting them, try educating them.  Inform them why you don’t approve of that kind of behavior.  If that doesn’t work, get them a phone that doesn’t have a camera OR get a plan that does not permit picture texting OR take away their phone completely.  Simply put, if you don’t want your children sending or receiving nudey pics, do something about it–and if you can’t, then you just aren’t fit to be a parent.  Don’t expect the government to babysit your children because you are too irresponsible.