Fear-Mongering

Kent Hanlin, an investigator with the Nebraska State Patrol, is passionate about his calling, which is apparently to put all the state's children in jail. He's going all over Nebraska speaking to school children with lines like these:

“We have girls who take topless pictures of themselves and e-mail it to their boyfriends, thinking it will help keep him (in the relationship),” he said.

“Boys do nasty things with video and send it to their girlfriends,” he said. “They may change (the images) to include a sex act.”

“I have seen where they hold the cell phone over the stall and shoot photos,” he said. “Yeah, they think it’s funny. But a picture like that could make you a registered sex offender.”

“People take pictures for yearbooks, then digitize them where it becomes a porn case and hate crime,” he said. “Another case was described (by the predator) as a ‘potential’ — one where the girl was in a cheerleading outfit and eating a lolly. The picture was later digitally enhanced.”

“If you have pictures of people partying, you love it as a cop. Why not give it over as evidence to arrest you?” he said. “And I can go to a chat room as an invisible visitor. I have a lot of tricks to follow the information.”

“This thing is all around. It’s in your back yard,” Hanlin said. “The predators go where you are at. They are at the malls and swimming pools. They can sit in a city park or in the yard by the daycare and start taking pictures, and you can’t stop them."

“These online predators say, ‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing.’ They are good, and they are fast,” he said. “By the end of the conversation, they know a girl’s chest size. More boys don’t tell if they are victims. Boys think they are macho and quiet.”

“A stranger is someone you don’t know,” he said. “They may give you their name and photo, but they’re still a stranger. It could be a bad guy.”

“You become a statistic, and you become a victim,” he said of Internet offenses.

OK, admittedly there are some very nasty people in this world, and kids should be taught to have common sense, but with all this fear-mongering we are turning our children into paranoid recluses.

Kids who are constantly warned of stranger danger come to see the world as a very threatening, dangerous place. Every interaction puts them at risk. For some young kids, they don't even understand the distinction between "stranger" and "strange" – so they think that anything out of their ordinary experience can be a threat.

And just how dangerous is the online environment for children? Anastasia Goodstein reports for PBS:

The biggest myth that has been perpetuated by well meaning law enforcement, Internet safety advocates, and the media is that the Internet is teeming with predators who are waiting for your child to post just enough information so they can find them and abduct them. In "Totally Wired," I relied on this stat: "Out of the 800,000 kids that are reported missing each year by the Justice Department, only 150 cases involve 'stereotypical kidnappings,' in which a child is taken by a stranger, held for ransom, or killed." Now there is new data from some of the lead researchers in the field that is putting online stranger-danger in even more perspective and clarifying who is really at risk.

Take the time to read Just the Facts About Online Youth Victimization where researchers present the facts and debunk myths. A little common sense and proper parenting, folks, and stop allowing television talking heads and hysterical law enforcement investigators to ruin the lives of your children.

The Gathering Storm

Reason Magazine has a chilling article on the steamrolling paranoia about sexting and child pornography prosecutions, and how society seems to be perfectly comfortable with ruining the lives of children in order to save them.

The harm here seems to be the possibility that somewhere, someone other than the intended recipient of these photos may be masturbating to them. That's an uncomfortable thought, sure. But it's difficult to see how that presents tangible harm to the minors in the photos, certainly not to the point where the minors themselves ought to be prosecuted. Anyone turned on by the photos in Skumanick's case could just as easily placate themselves with an old Sears catalogue—and with no resulting damage to the models who posed in it.

But the idea that an otherwise innocuous image can mutate into illegal child porn based on how it might be used by pedophiles is gaining currency. In 2006, Alabama photographer Jeff Pierson was indicted on federal child porn charges for a website he ran featuring aspiring teen models. None of the models were nude, nor were any depicted engaged in any sexual activity. All of the models' parents signed off on the photos. But federal prosecutors argued the models struck "illegally provocative," "lascivious," and "coy" poses that could entice pedophiles.

Writer Radley Balko echos much of what I have been writing about sexting for well over a year - that teens have always been sexually active, and the only difference now is the technology with which to document it all, and this hysteria from supposedly responsible adults is unwarranted, overreaching, and harmful. In spite of the obvious irrationality of prosecuting kids as child pornographers, the trend seems to be gathering momentum as society grapples with finding a solution to what it perceives to be an out-of-control situation.

The answer is understanding and education. Teen sexuality cannot be stopped, it's as inevitable as the dawn, and it's our Puritanical roots fostering our fear of all things sexual which create the widespread misconception that sexting should be treated as a crime.

The current case before the 3rd U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals involving three Pennsylvania girls being prosecuted by Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick, Jr., will likely have a great effect on whether this irrational criminalization of teen sexuality is a gathering storm, or a weakening front.

Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick, Jr. gave the girls a choice. The first option was to face felony child pornography charges, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The second was to attend a series of Skumanick-chosen classes, which according to the Pennsylvania ACLU included topics such as "what it means to be a girl in today's society" and "non-traditional societal and job roles." The girls would also be put on probation, subject to random drug tests, and would have to write essays explaining why appearing in photos while wearing their bras is wrong.

Skumanick would later tell a gathering of students and parents that he had the authority to prosecute girls photographed on the beach in bikinis, because the minors would be dressed "provocatively." He told the Wall Street Journal that by offering the girls the classes and probation instead of immediately hitting them with felony charges, "We thought we were being progressive."

This guy is a obviously a complete screwball, but he's a nutjob with the power to put your kids in jail for wearing a bikini on the beach. That should scare the Hell out of everybody.

Dirty Dancing

Administrators at Union Grove High School in Wisconsin have imposed new "dancing rules" which have some students threatening to boycott an upcoming formal.

The new rules, announced mid-January, will first apply to the school's all-grade winter formal Jan. 30. For the formal, students and their guests will be videotaped during the dance and they must avoid specific provocative dance moves and wear dressy attire that covers enough..."When dancing back to front, all dancers must remain upright - no sexual bending is allowed," the policy reads. "Examples are, no hands on knees, and no hands on the dance floor with your buttocks touching your dance partner. There will be no touching of the breasts, buttocks or genitals. There will be no straddling of each others' legs."...The Union Grove policy says girls cannot have dresses that "expose cleavage, extend above the mid-thigh, (or) have slits extending above mid-thigh" and boys must wear collared shirts and dress pants.

Students feel that the new rules go "too far", especially with the video taping, which Principal Tom Hermann claims is a "precautionary measure". No specific incidents prompted the new written policy, showing that adult paranoia about teen sexuality knows no bounds.

Sexting and the Age of Consent

Legislators in Pennsylvania are trying to put your kids in jail.

...the district attorney's office supports a bill proposed by state Rep. Seth Grove (R-Dover Township) that would make it a misdemeanor when teens age 13-to-17 send nude pictures of themselves online or over cell phone.

This is clearly at odds with the state's age of consent law which states:

Anyone between the ages of 13 and 16 can consent to have sex with anyone else who is no more than 4 years older.

So a 13 year old can have sex with a 17 year old as much as they want, but should one or the other take a nude photo, they'll end up before a district judge.

Dallastown School Superintendent Stewart Weinberg wants to keep the pressure on teens.

"Unless there's going to be some really strong discussions the kids have to be involved in, I'm not sure I'm for lessening the punishment," Weinberg said.

"I'm really concerned that if you lower that threshold without having those conversations, we'll have given away the hammer to make sure they realize how serious this is and there'll be more sexting."

I think that this is more of a generational issue. It's not that teens are having more sex than they were 30, 40 or 50 years ago, it's that there is now digital evidence that sex is happening. In the sixties, teens would go "parking" in isolated areas, fumbling around in the back seat, but when they kissed goodnight and went home, the only proof of sex was in the whispers at the lockers in school halls. Parents and authorities have always been able to deal with the knowledge of sex, but this new electronic imaging is a culture shock, and they don't know how to deal with it. Most teens think it's no big deal, and they are right.

Let it go.

Girls Showering Together

Yes, the title of this post is a bit titillating, but this is about body acceptance, not a Playboy photo shoot.

Dr. Jean Kilbourne, author of "So Sexy So Soon", believes that today's culture is shifting towards more body acceptance in teenage girls.

“It’s not sexual,” she says in a phone conversation. “It’s part of a culture in which there is more widespread acceptance of nudity than most of us, as parents, remember from that age. Girls today sleep in the same bed when they sleep over, they take showers with each other – they are just extremely comfortable with each other’s bodies.”

In fact, Kilbourne says it could actually be healthy for girls to see each other naked. “Girls today are surrounded by idealized images of women and girls. To see real bodies, to realize the range of real bodies, that’s not dangerous, it’s good.”

Psychologist Sharon Lamb also chimes in.

...there is a long, ancient and rich history of women bathing together in public bathhouses. “It’s an intimacy but not really sexual,” she wrote in an email. “For seventh grade girls to feel OK enough about their bodies to accept being nude and to accept each other – that sounds like a good thing to me.”

Perhaps the younger generation is more ready and willing to shed the shame imposed upon them by their parents and grandparents. Whether of not this translates into a new boom for nudism and naturism remains to be seen.

WARNING! Viewing This Blog Could Land You in Prison

That's what happened to a Buffalo man, who was sentenced to one to three years in state prison for "viewing the Web sites of nudist colonies."

Yes, the man is a convicted sex offender, and I am certainly not defending his admitted criminal behavior, but one of the downsides to living in a so-called free society is that people are generally going to say and do things that are offensive to other people.

There is nothing illegal about being a nudist, engaging in social nudism, possessing nudist and naturist materials, and viewing nudist web sites.

I don't know the terms of this man's probation. Was he also barred from bookstores, museums, watching television, going to the movies, reading magazines, or going to the Sports Illustrated web site to view the swimsuit models? It's rather difficult to avoid sexually-charged material in today's culture.

This is a major red flag for nudists and naturists everywhere, that at least one judge considers the lifestyle to be sexual, a magnet for pedophiles, and a possible catalyst for illegal and criminal behavior.

When faced with sexual crimes, society seems to be more than willing to sacrifice freedoms in return for some sort of false reassurance that the government is providing protection. The fact is that the government cannot protect the population against everything - already 1 out of every 100 citizens is incarcerated in America, the highest in the world. 25% of the world's incarcerated people are in the United States, which contains only 5% of the total population on the planet.

It seems that we are more than willing to criminalize just about everything that scares us just a wee bit. 500,000 people are in American jails for drug-related crimes alone. A male living in the United States has an 11.3% chance of going to prison during his lifetime.

It's clear that this process of throwing people in jail for all of society's ills is not working. The recent case of Anthony Sowell who is accused of the serial murders of several women in Cleveland, Ohio, clearly illustrates the failure of the system on all levels.

With education, job training, mentoring and substance abuse programs in short supply behind bars, it is a challenge for inmates to clean up their acts and improve their situations. When they are released, ex-felons face an uphill battle to land even the most menial, low-paying jobs. This nation continues to punish the formerly incarcerated after they have paid their debt to society. Many professions and employers bar applicants with a criminal record, and many public housing and college loan opportunities are beyond reach.

Not surprisingly, many ex-cons cannot care for their families or become productive members of society. But they do manage to hone their skills and become better criminals.

And now we're locking up people for their sexual urges, which only further serves to frustrate and bottle up a sex drive which will eventually find a means of expression, often in a violent manner.

Taking someone who is getting sexual gratification from web sites and throwing him into the realm of prison sex, with rape, slavery, violence, and homosexuality, is not going to solve the problem. Once he's back out, he's likely to be in much worse sexual health than when he went in.

I certainly don't have the answers, but it seems to me that the punitive actions society is inflicting on people for real and perceived sex crimes is actually making the problem worse. In the case of sexting teens, who exchange nude photos of themselves with cell phones, charging them with felonies and putting them on sex offender registries is absolutely going to ruin their lives and encourage real criminal behavior in order to survive in a hostile society.

So this poor schmuck in Buffalo who exposed himself to some boys in 2002 at a YMCA camp, and fondled another, doesn't have a chance at rehabilitation. Many will argue that he should be locked up for good. But since his original violation, if the worst thing he did was look at some nudist web sites, then this illustrates our society's deep-seated fear of sexuality and the human body, and its cavalier willingness to discard human beings onto this virtual trash heap we call the justice system.

It's no longer about what is fair, or best for society, it's about money and politics. The recent case of the cash-for-kids scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, shows how incredibly cold and cruel we can be to our own children when there's a buck to be made.

Prison is big business, and big business needs customers. Don't think for a second that YOU are not on their radar.

"The kids were consequenced"

Several Minnesota students are in trouble for streaking and mooning at three separate St. Francis High School football games.

"The kids were consequenced," District Superintendent Edward Saxton said, adding that the students, all boys, were suspended for anywhere from one to 10 days...Immediately after one of the games, a road contest Sept. 18 in Fridley against Totino-Grace, three boys ran from one end of the field to the other "while the stands were still full ... and through the neighborhood," said police Detective Jennie Markham...The two 17-year-olds were accused of trespassing and disorderly conduct, she said. However, because of one of them "had no clothes, as in not a stitch [and] showing his genitals to people under the age of 16," a charge of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct could be leveled, Markham said.

I'm not sure if "consequenced" is even a viable word, and this bastardization of the English language comes from a school superintendent?

Even more disturbing are some of the comments to the article, including one person who compares the streakers to child rapist Roman Polanski, and another who believes that throwing the teens in jail and imposing sex-offender status on them will straighten them out. Someone even offers that "there is no constitutional right allowing a person to show their genitals". Last time I checked the constitution, there was nothing in there banning genitals, either. Some comments are supportive, calling the sex-offender charge "horrific", and not to ruin the kid's life over a harmless prank. One commenter blames the overreaction on our "PC liberal society", and another blames the "crazy conservatives."

Back in the seventies, when I was in college, streaking was at its peak. One evening about 50 students ran around the campus in the nude, another day a group of young men streaked the dining hall, and the fad was so widespread that Ray Stevens had a hit song called "The Streak." What has happened over the past 30 years to turn something so harmless and funny into a criminal act? Roll back the clock a bit and decriminalize streaking and sexting. These excessively harsh punitive actions against our own children expose our society's deep-seated fear of our own bodies.

UPDATE: Here is another report which claims that when one streaker was captured, between 500 and 1000 people surrounded the police, yelling and throwing things to try and prevent the arrest. One protesting student was shocked with a stun gun. They also busted him with marijuana possession.

The school principal is quoted as saying that streaking is "a lot bigger issue than it was in the 1970s and it won't be tolerated." He is also quoted as praising the police officers, saying they did a "fabulous" job, and warned any further protests could be dealt the same penalties as the streakers. Whose side is this principal on? Does he really want half his student population in jail?

Good for the kids in protesting this idiotic persecution of streakers. They should all go on strike until the charges are dropped.

The Shape of Girls

Cover via Amazon

A mother in Brattleboro recounts her family's ongoing struggle with body issues brought about by popular culture.

By eighth grade, I was obsessed with my shape -- my body, not geometry. I went on extreme diets, once eating nothing but rice-cakes for a week. Dull with depression, I leafed through the J. Crew catalog pretending I looked like the whippet-thin models in their tissue tees...How will I handle my girls lusting for Barbies or the notoriously slutty Bratz dolls? Ava recently discovered an old Barbie (not mine, clearly) when visiting my mother. She stroked the doll’s nude torso and remarked, "Look, she has bubbies! She’s a Mommy!"

"Well, actually, she’s not a Mommy," I corrected her. "Do you see that her bubbies don’t have nipples? And she doesn’t have a real booty, either. Her body isn’t real. Do you see?"

It's sad that we have to explain to our children that doll bodies are not real. The reason is that children are never exposed to real bodies - parents feel the need to cover up in front of their kids, there's no more nude swimming at the Y or at ponds, no more gang showers in schools.

Diana Whitney, the author of the piece, mentions that her 4 year-old daughter is "perched naked" before her meal, but that's the only mention of nudity throughout. She mentions that her mom was a "counter-culture feminist who went to Woodstock", and was anti-materialistic, but she had friends who wore "gobs of make-up" and had plastic surgery, ultimately passing on the message to the young girls that you'll "never be good enough."

Perhaps insecurity is an inevitable part of growing up, male or female. But does the process have to be excruciating? Mary Pipher’s 1994 bestseller, "Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls," examines the "girl-poisoning culture" that leads to increased media pressures, depression, self-mutilation, eating disorders and sexual abuse in the lives of teenage girls.

OK, so talk to your children about their bodies. Let them see you nude in normal home situations. And consider some sort of nude recreation, either at a sanctioned TNS or AANR associated club, or at a public bath, locker room, or sauna. Let them see real bodies of all ages. This sickness in the minds of children is man-made and can be undone with more exposure to the sight of real human beings.

It's virtually impossible to shield young girls from magazines, television, Barbie dolls and other visions of unrealistic body images, but it is possible to create some balance in their minds.

Pennsylvania Sexting Case Reaches New Heights of Absurdity

Chambersburg Police Chief David Arnold is investigating about 30 high school students for sending nude photos with their cell phones, the the number could grow as the investigation proceeds.

"Currently, my understanding is what they could be charged with is felony child pornography. They would be on the Megan's list as a sex offender for the rest of their lives," said Eric Michael, Assistant Superintendent, Chambersburg Area School District.

Michael says he's now revamping the school district's Internet safety education program and extending it everyone.

"It's something that can't be solved by schools. It has to be solved by all of us," said Michael.

You can solve this problem right now by dropping the investigation and staying out of the private sex lives of teenagers. Nobody seems to care that these kids are actually having sex with each other, it's all about the images, which seem to have taken on some sort of power to sap the sensibility out of authorities.

This is about as absurd as the Supreme Court debating the legality of depictions of animal cruelty, when every night on television human beings are depicted as being raped and murdered under the most horrible of circumstances.

Do we really believe that the banning of images somehow makes the root of the problem magically disappear? In the case of sexting, does anyone truly believe that putting 30 high school students on a sex offender list will solve anything? It's truly stunning to hear a police chief and a school superintendent be so ready and willing to destroy the lives of perfectly normal teenagers in order to pursue some warped version of "justice".

These individuals have been given the task to protect and educate our children, not to ruin their lives.

"Unless you intend to raise them as nudists"

"Curious in Maryland" writes to "Dear Annie":

I am the father of two sons, 7 and 11. At what point do you stop dressing or being naked in front of your children? I come from a minister's family, and my wife comes from a somewhat dysfunctional family. Let's just say they are at the other end of the spectrum and leave it at that. My wife still gets dressed and undressed in front of the boys, and thinks nothing of coming out of the shower naked while the boys are in our bedroom watching TV. I sometimes get dressed in front of them at home or at the changing room at the pool. What do you think?

Annie's answer:

Parents of the opposite sex should not be undressing in front of their children after the age of 4. Unless you intend to raise them as nudists, both of your boys are too old for this. The 11-year-old will be going through puberty soon and will become plenty confused if he is inadvertently aroused by his mother. Insist that every member of the family have some privacy.

There's a lot wrong with this little exchange, but let's focus on the phrase "unless you intend to raise them as nudists". I tend to think that Annie meant to use the words in the sense that nudism was completely out of the question, such as when you would advise someone who was loading a gun with the safety off with "unless you want to blow your head off".

But the true result of Annie's advice is that she basically told the man that family nudity was perfectly OK only in the context of nudism.

This is very strange. If the boys are too old for nudity at home, what is it about nudism that would suddenly make it appropriate? If the 11 year-old is susceptible to arousal by the sight of his nude mother, what would make him less inclined to get excited by the sight of a crowd of nudists? Annie's answer is far too ambiguous.

The correct answer to "Curious" is this: There is nothing wrong with the human body. Many studies show that children who are exposed to normal, natural nudity at home grow up with healthier attitudes about sex, and their own bodies. Chances are your boys are not even paying attention to your casual nudity, and that of your wife, and are much more interested in watching television. Since you are all comfortable with nudity, you might consider family nude recreation, which will further normalize your bodies to each other, remove the societal stigma or taboo, and wash away any shame you are feeling. More information on family nudism can be found at the websites of the American Association for Nude Recreation and The Naturist Society.

14 Year-Olds Are the Most Sexually Dangerous Group in America

America is turning its children into sex offenders. The chart above, from the US Department of Justice, illustrates how we are criminalizing what was once a normal part of adolescence - experimenting with sex. Via Andrew Sullivan's blog comes this essay.

In our new bizarre world of sexual offender legislation each child is a victim and a perpetrator. As the victim, they get no help, of course. The victim status is the excuse needed so that the sledgehammer may be used on the other child. So each becomes a perpetrator. They will be arrested; they will be forced into court. They are likely to be convicted and sentenced. They may be placed into the various prisons for children that have been established—places where they will learn what unwilling, sexual attacks are really like. They will be tortured by therapists and eventually released—maybe. Even that is no longer guaranteed under our sex panic. Today, someone who has served their sentence can then be held in preventative detention for the rest of their natural life because the mob demands it. And the politicians give the mob what it wants.

As any reader of this blog knows, I've been railing against the criminalization of "sexting" and other youthful sexual indiscretions for some time now. Teens have been having sex since long before recorded history, but it is only now in the age of technology and information that there is hard evidence that such activity exists. Where once a heavy petting session in the back seat of an automobile yielded merely some boastful claims and the hushed passing of secrets, now there are cell-phone photos, text messages, and Internet postings, all flowing in the trough for overzealous prosecutors, Christianist lawmakers and panicked parents to feed off.

It takes so little for this happen to a child. A girl in school has oral sex with a boy in school. She becomes a sex offender for the rest of her life. Streaking a school event, as a practical joke, becomes a sex crime in the new America. Two kids “moon” a passerby and are incarcerated in jail as sex offenders, where they may well learn a lesson or two about rape. A teenager, who takes a sexy of photo of him, or herself, is paraded around the community as a “child pornographer” for the rest of his or her life. Two kids in the back seat of a car have fumbling sex. The law says one is an offender because the other is a “victim.” One week later, a birthday passes, and it is no longer a crime. One week’s difference and a life is ruined. In other cases an act that is legal on Monday is illegal on Tuesday because the older of the two turned one year older. That becomes enough to qualify him, or her, as an offender.

The magnitude of this perversion of natural and man-made laws cannot be underestimated. Recently The Economist ran an editorial on the harsh punishment of sex offenders.

Because so many offences require registration, the number of registered sex offenders in America has exploded. As of December last year, there were 674,000 of them, according to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. If they were all crammed into a single state, it would be more populous than Wyoming, Vermont or North Dakota. As a share of its population, America registers more than four times as many people as Britain, which is unusually harsh on sex offenders. America’s registers keep swelling, not least because in 17 states, registration is for life.

So the rounding up and persecution of sex offenders is the new red scare, the new witch hunt, the new crucible in which to burn our fears. I recently received a postcard telling me that a sex offender moved into the neighborhood, giving his name and address. I'm sure everyone in the area got one, too, and everyone is now living in a certain amount of fear. I do not know what this man did, but I do know that I have never in my life received a notice when a bank robber, murderer, embezzler or violent criminal ever moved into my neighborhood.

I cannot state enough that true child pornographers, rapists, kidnappers and other violent criminals who would take the innocence, health or property of any other human being deserves to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Human vermin like Phillip Garrido, if found to be guilty of the heinous crimes with which he is accused, deserve no mercy from the courts.

But to take a teenager who is only fumbling around and experimenting with sexuality, and turn that kid into a sex criminal, is doing precisely the opposite of what the law intends. Thankfully people are beginning to wake up to this bastardization of justice, but it's too late to help so many of the kids who ended up behind bars, kicked out of school, found themselves unable to secure meaningful work, or ended up living in the streets.

These kids are criminals, not necessarily because they violated the life, liberty or property of another person. They are criminals because the politicians defined them as criminals. These damned “family values” conservatives, and compassionate feminist Leftists, who banded together to “save the children,” turned America’s kids into sex offenders by fiat. And they feel good about it. They are satisfied by it and only wish more had been rounded up earlier. The Left wants everyone in therapy and under the perpetual care of the state, and the Right wants everyone in prison, or in fear of the law, and under the thumb of the police. And that is what is happening. [Classically Liberal]

Criminalizing Teen Sexting

David Walsh, founder and president of the National Institute on Media, calls for making criminals out of teens who engage in sexting.

I believe that there should be a consequence to get kids' attention, but teen stupidity merits a misdemeanor, not a life-ruining felony.

As a nation, we have to rise to the occasion if we want our children to fully understand what sex really means in a young person's life. Sexy videos on TV and racy sites on the Internet tell kids sex is no big deal. Some state officials are teaching them it's criminal in the extreme. If we want them to grow up to be happy, healthy adults we need to give them guidance and clear standards.

Again, the stupid argument is made that in order to reign in teen sexuality, it has to be made a crime with legal consequences. Mr. Walsh has the audacity to actually suggest that punishing teens for doing what they learn from society at large is the right thing to do.

No, the real answer here is to decriminalize teen sexting altogether. It shouldn't be a felony, a misdemeanor, or even a "parking ticket" offense. Nobody seems to want to admit that teens are having all sorts of sex. from oral to anal to group, often unprotected, but there is this social hysteria over a few nude photographs. Mr. Walsh wants teens to grow up into "happy, healthy adults", but fails to understand that puberty begins earlier than ever today, and that trying to button up the urge to merge for up to nearly 8 years in hormonal teens is not only idiotic, it's damaging.

Teen stupidity is not the problem here, it's adult stupidity.

14 Year-Old Girl Sued for Exposing Her Breasts

Naturally, this happened in Texas, which is rapidly becoming the most sexually repressed state in the Union. The Cheetah Club in Corpus Christi is suing a 14 year-old girl who is accused of duping the club owner into believing she was actually 22. Declaring "we're the victims here", club attorney Alan Yaffe is seeking damages from the girl, her parents, and from a man named Leslie Campbell who is currently locked up on charges of kidnapping the girl and sexually assaulting her.

Everybody is apparently a victim here. What is the crime? The girl allegedly exposed her breasts in the club, a violation of state law. Now all parties involved in frantic finger pointing to cover their own asses.

The exposure of a woman's breast, no matter the age of the individual, should never be a crime. Any man with breasts the size of watermelons can walk down the street topfree without fear of criminal charges, yet any woman doing the same on virtually any street in the United States can be arrested, and face the possibility of being forced to register as a sex offender.

This 14 year-old girl has been conditioned by society that her breasts are marketable as sexual objects. The exploitation by her alleged kidnapper is damaging enough without the entire legal system piling on and reinforcing the notion that female breasts are dirty, illegal, and somehow dangerous to society.

The shame should be on Texas and this twisted club owner, and not on the child.

RELATED STORY: Police Raid Ohio Bar, Find 14 Year-Old Topless Performer

The Weekend Newds 5/29/09

• According to Canadian journalist Sharlene Asam, the Internet has "sped up teens' sexual willingness and behavior."
• 7 out of 10 Spanish men say they have no problems getting naked.
• Facebook has reinstated graphic photos of a woman's mastectomy scars after initially calling the images "sexual and abusive."

  'I put these pictures out on Facebook to put a message out to women - check your breasts regularly and do not ever be ashamed of a mastectomy,' said Miss (Sharon) Adams, 45, yesterday. 'For Facebook to claim they were sexual and abusive was absurd. Facebook has online groups about sexual positions and some groups which are bordering on racist - but they ban this.'

• Schools across the country are imposing bans or restrictions on hugs due to fear of lawsuits over sexual harassment or improper touching.
• The rampant retouching of photographs in magazines which turns ordinary humans into something unknown in the natural world is causing a backlash.

  It now seems fresh, even exclamation-worthy, when a magazine presents an unvarnished image. Last month, for example, an issue of Life & Style took the unusual step of declaring that a cover photograph of Kim Kardashian was “100 percent unretouched,” as if it had done a great service to the cause of pseudo-celebrity journalism. And People, in its “100 Most Beautiful” issue this month, included images of 11 celebrities “wearing nothing but moisturizer.”

• A UK cable station is producing a "documentary" which "follows a Newcastle-based business building up to 'Naked Friday', a day when all of its workers will come to work nude."
• Noting that "there's never a bad reason for celebrating the human body", Las Vegas City Life explores all the opportunities for non-sexual clothes-free activities in the Nevada/Arizona area.
• Unbelievably, prison officials, prosecutors, judges and attorneys in Texas are gearing up for a big investigation over a photograph of a woman exposing her breast which was sent to convicted killer Robert Fratta.

  “It’s a class C misdemeanor to distribute obscene material to someone in a correctional facility,” District Attorney spokeswoman Donna Hawkins said. “Any violation of the law will be investigated, although no charges are likely to be filed before the conclusion of the trial.”

• A Malaysian editorial calls for a heavy penalty for "unhealthy activities" after a Danish production company taped a reality series on one of the islands off Johor where some participants were nude. Apparently an apology and the firing of the director were insufficient.
• Some Australian men streaked through Sydney wearing special "nude suits" to promote a cell phone company.
• Public interest law professor John Banzhaf has weighed in on the teen sexting issue.

  Anti-child-pornography laws were designed to protect children, including teens, from coercion and other forms of exploitations by adults, and adults involved in or encouraging sexting by teens may reasonable be punished, just as they would be if they participated or encouraged teens to play strip poker, says Banzhaf. But when a teen voluntarily sends racy pictures of herself to an equally-willing teen of about the same age, the basis for prosecution - coercion, exploitation, or other wrongful conduct by an adult - is no longer present, so punishing participating teens for exhibiting themselves to others in emails may be no more justified that punishing them for exhibiting themselves to each other when skinny dipping or playing strip poker in private among only other consenting teens.

• More news here on the "naturist walk" in Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada. Details are still sketchy, apparently FCN had nothing to do with it.
• Topless coffee shop owner Donald Crabtree says that the female employee accused of being outside the establishment with no top on actually had her breasts covered with her hands and arms. Charges are unlikely to be filed, but the Vassalboro town meeting on June 8 should be interesting, since a nudity ordinance will be considered.
• The Vassalboro coffee shop is cited as a reason for another town in Maine to enact preventative ordinances against adult businesses. Waterville planning board member Erik Thomas said "To me, it's better to be proactive about these things."
• The UK Advertising Standards Authority has approved the image of a bare-breasted woman in a brochure, saying, "we concluded the images were not so provocative as to present a risk to teenagers or be unsuitable for the target audience."
• Officials in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, are planning to auction off the site of the former Sunshine Park nudist resort because revenues are down. Residents would rather see the land cleaned up and left au naturel.
• You've heard of "Banned in Boston", but how about "Censored in Chicago"?

The Big Bad Wolf

Dr. Peter Cumming, associate professor at York University and coordinator of the Children's Studies Program there, says that the Internet and cell phone cameras are "the big bad wolf" in society. that the uproar over sexting is today's version of the public outrage expressed over Elvis Presley shaking his pelvis on stage in the 1950s, and that making criminals out of teens for expressing natural curiosity over their own sexuality defies common sense.

"It would be very unlikely to see dozens of news stories announcing that some children we caught playing spin-the-bottle, or doctor, or strip poker," he says. "Yet many of the cases brought forward have been on the same level of innocence and experience as those activities. "In other words, kids are playing spin-the-bottle online."

Cumming goes on to argue that a distinction has to be made between nudity and child porn, a challenge which also faces nudism and naturism today if the lifestyle is to continue to exist as being family-friendly.

Nanny State Alert

Indiana lawmakers find it "disturbing" that a 15 year-old girl would strip naked in order to receive a spray-on tan. Republican State Rep. Bruce Borders has jumped on this like flies on manure.

"I definitely would be interested in taking a look at that. I think it is one of those things that you can remedy a problem without doing away with the (spray) process. Obviously those spray-on tans from what we know are not an unsafe thing," he said. "That's one of those laws that would be ready-made for some good testimony. It's one of those that is almost fitting to have a good law written. Some things are kind of messy and I don't think that one would be that hard to tweak and make it work and make a good law to protect minors."

Stop, stop, stop writing laws for every single incident where parenting is the best choice. Nothing happened to this girl, and the vast majority of males out there are not child predators. We have to stop punishing innocent people for the transgressions of the few.

Democratic State Rep. Sandy Blanton has also flown onto the pile.

"I am just shocked that the girl would get nude and that the fellow (the salon owner) would ask her to. I'm just shocked about the whole situation. This is something that definitely needs looked into. My teenage daughter is 39 years old now, but I don't think I'd like it very much for her to have to go through something like that even at 39."

Even at age 39? Is this person nuts? Is this pol seriously considering requiring people of all ages to be clothed in tanning salons?

These are dangerous people, looking to control every aspect of your life. Just wait until they find out that people are actually naked at nudist resorts. Please make politicians like this go away. Are you registered to vote?

Note: The Mayo Clinic confirms that spray-tanning is safe.

The Daily Newds 4/9/09

• An article claims that many Gujarati people from India are losing their inhibitions on nudist beaches in South Africa, and Australia.

  "If you are not sure if you are sufficiently uninhibited, you should stick to 'clothing optional' beaches," (Deval) Surti said. "It is difficult for an Indian to accept and feel relaxed in the primitive atmosphere of nudist beaches. I am an open-minded person, but when I went to Point Impossible in Australia, I had to use all my willpower to let my guard down. Once you are comfortable with the 'no clothes' idea, it is great fun!"

• Lachlan Mackintosh ponders getting naked for winter sports.
• A Nova Scotia politician has apologized to candidate Lenore Zann for circulating a photo of her bare-breasted in a scene from the TV series "The L Word". There was a time when the woman would be the one forced to apologize, so society is making a little progress on this issue.
• A Swedish student and his friend were charged with public nudity for going without clothing in a Singapore restaurant district a few months ago.
• A study published in the Journal of School Health reports that teens are engaging in sexual intercourse as early as age 12.
  

  In the study, (Dr. Christine) Markham and colleagues defined sexual intercourse as vaginal, oral or anal sex. According to their research, by age 12, 12 percent of students had already engaged in vaginal sex, 7.9 percent in oral sex, 6.5 percent in anal sex and 4 percent in all three types of intercourse.
  
  The study found one-third of sexually active students reported engaging in vaginal or anal sex without a condom within the past three months, and one-fourth had four or more partners. The more experienced students in all three types of intercourse were more likely to be male and African-American.
  
  "We need to develop prevention programs that address the needs of students who are not yet sexually active in order to promote skills and attitudes to help them wait until they are older to have sex," Markham said. "And we need to provide skills and knowledge related to condoms and contraception for youth who are already sexually active."

• Sex educator Jay Friedman says that he resorted to looking at photos of naked natives in National Geographic when he was a teen because school sex-ed classes were so inadequate.
  

  European society and American society differently inform young people about sex. Freidman said Northern Europeans especially have lower teen pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and lower sexual assault rates because Europeans are more frank about sexuality.
  
  He said that while the east and west coast seemed to be open-minded, he found more close-minded and conservative views of sex in the Midwest, where his words were the most controversial.
  
  The resistance to the truth may partly have stemmed from his belief that “politics has everything to do with sex.” Friedman slammed political issues, such as abstinence-only programs that he thinks are “damaging for young people and society” and “cripples them with sexual ignorance.”

• The Arizona State University online news source has a positive article on naturism, interviewing a student named "Roy".

  “It's the enjoyment of not having to have clothes on — it's sort of an opinion about the necessity of clothes more than anything else,” he says. “I don’t think of it as a lifestyle, I think of it as a clothing style.” Roy says in fact going without clothes can be better in many situations. “If it’s 20 degrees outside, then go put on a jacket,” he says, “but if the day’s really nice, then why [wear clothes] if you're indoors, or especially with swimming.”

• NJ.com is on the record for leaving the legal system out of teen sexting incidents.

  Technology has moved at the speed of light, outpacing what lawmakers most likely envisioned would occur under our laws. We need to reconsider how to approach these issues productively before infringing on the liberties of children and jeopardizing them beyond their own bad judgment.

Sexting Hysteria Breeds Stupid Lawmaking

As predicted by Dr. Marty Klein, Ohio state and local legislators and law enforcement officials, accompanied by Cynthia Logan whose daughter committed suicide for reasons attributed to a nude photo she took of herself, are set to announce a new sexting law which specifically targets children. Make no mistake - if you are a parent in Ohio, your children will now be able to be arrested merely for being stupid sexually, and charged with a misdemeanor. As if our prisons are not already overcrowded with people incarcerated for drug possession and other pointless crimes, we are now plotting to put sexually curious children behind bars.

The answer is to change current child pornography laws so that children are not made victims of the very statutes which are supposed to protect them. Adding this new law that "would make teenagers sending sexually provocative or nude pictures of themselves or others a first degree misdemeanor" is a crime in itself. I find it astounding that so many public officials could actually think that they are protecting children by turning them into criminals, putting blemishes on their records which could keep them out of college or a job, prevent them from getting a loan, etc.

And who is going to decide the definition of "sexually provocative?" Any teenage girl who poses for a photo showing a little cleavage and making pouty lips could be arrested.

In one respect, it's correct that these lawmakers feel that making sex offenders out of children is wrong, But this is not the way to correct a system gone awry.

So what's next? Teens caught half-naked in their cars on lover's lane will be locked up and charged with a crime? What about a teen who gets pregnant after having real in-the-flesh sex - will we lock her up, too? If the law is written to consider the mere image of sexuality to be criminal, it's only logical that eventually the real thing will be outlawed, too.

As a society we cannot keep allowing lawmakers to interfere with our personal lives, to not only take away civil liberties, but parental rights as well. The "nanny state" mentality has really run amok.

Ohio Prosecutor Wants to Send a Message by Destroying Lives of Children

Ohio prosecutor Jessica Little wants to send a "message" to four teens charges with felonies over a nude photograph transmitted by cell phone.

"They haven't got the message yet that sexting, nude pictures of a minor, they don't know how dangerous that water is," Little said.

She said she hoped to make an example of the 16-year-old girl, two 14-year-old boys and the adult, who, if convicted, could possibly be classified as sex offenders.

According to victim's advocate Denise Neal, these children would have to report for 25 years. Somebody please step in and help these children fight this crackpot prosecutor.

Naturally, Little is a Republican, and has a MySpace page here, and can be emailed at jessgun@aol.com. Apparently in order to save the children you need to destroy them first.

The Daily Newds 4/8/09

• There were 44 videos uploaded to the World Nude Day 09 site. Click here to see them all.
• It's confirmed: Bay to Breakers will feature the usual assortment of body freedom participants.
• A tongue-in-cheek article exposes the ridiculousness behind the banning of nude sunbathing on Bird Island.

  It is a known fact that nude sunbathing is a gateway activity that leads to more serious civil breaches. For purposes of modesty, I will not dwell on the issue of visible cleavage in the workplace, but we all know it costs the nation more in lost productivity than the NCAA tournament.

• A letter to the editor in Florida claims that law enforcement is "clueless" about the law, and "completely unaware" of naturist values.
• William Saletan of Slate Magazine regrets once supporting body scanners in airports.

  Now I'm having second thoughts. I still like the technology. It's the people behind it who worry me. Yes, the scan is less invasive than the pat-down. But TSA has just demonstrated its ability and willingness to move the goalposts. When TSA offered pat-downs as the alternative to body scans in secondary screening, the scan sounded pretty good. Now TSA is offering pat-downs as the alternative to body scans in primary screening, and again, the scan sounds better. And if TSA announces tomorrow that pat-downs are the new alternative for all train or bus passengers, body scans will seem preferable there, too. Anywhere we're threatened with pat-downs, we'll settle for body scans. Where does it end?

• Sexting Roundup: Dr. Paul Rapoport writes, "If Pennsylvania wants to reduce sexting, especially in cases where there is no victim, it should not turn to the police or the courts. The keys are education about technology's relation to sexuality, and about society's body phobias and sex obsessions." A nude photo of a teen is causing a "big stir" in Glen Rock, New Jersey. Mike Galanos of CNN writes, "There is no control over that image or video once it gets out. But that doesn't mean little Suzie should be charged as a child pornographer." And the Wall Street Journal asks if the worry about teen sexting is the real epidemic.

  "Most of the mainstream media uses semi-nude models to sell us things -- so why is it surprising if teens have modeled this?" says Terry Humphreys, an assistant professor of psychology at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. "I would want to see the results separated for semi-nude and nude before I get too anxious about what our teens and young adults are doing with their cellphones."

• A sculpture of a naked woman on a cross is offending the Christian establishment.
  

  Living Way Church Pastor Lanil Gunasekara was outraged by the sculpture.
  
  “It is a blasphemous insult to the image of Jesus Christ who was crucified on the cross,” he said.
  
  “There is something wrong with an artist who produces something so insulting to Christians.”

• Carol Muske-Dukes recalls her stint in a French production of "Hair" in the 70s.

  Then we all rallied for the final scene before the break - the famous nude scene. I'd never taken my clothes off for this climactic moment before - now I felt the time was right. I had "laid bare" the essence of HAIR, I thought - this was a breakthrough. I stood with my fellow cast members, shivering a little in the garish lights, naked. Then the great velvet curtains closed and I turned to pick up my bell bottoms and "pull-over-aire". They had vanished. The French cast had hidden my clothes.

• The Keys chapter of South Florida Free Beaches is lobbying for a clothing optional beach.
  

  The two prime candidates for a clothing-optional beach would appear to be a portion of Higgs Beach, which is owned by the county, separated by the main beach by the West Martello Tower; and Rest Beach near the White Street Pier.
  
  Haulover Beach in North Miami drew 1.3 million visitors in 2006 and, including direct and indirect revenue and things like sales tax, generated $179 million, according to Miami-Dade Parks and Recreation Department data.

• A Calgary women has received an "avalanche" of hate mail over her stand on public breastfeeding.

  "I've been called a pedophile, I've had people threaten to perform obscene acts on me," said Gemma Kelsall, describing the messages that have been sent to her Facebook account and on the websites of various news sites that featured her story.

• And congratulations are in order to the editors of the Eureka High School in California for winning the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for taking a stand against school censorship. A nude drawing had been published in the school newspaper, prompting the principal to order the custodian to round up all the remaining copies.
  

  The law is on the side of student journalists when it comes to censorship, said (editor Drew) Ross. Right away, his publication received calls from the media, including the Student Press Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU sent the Redwood Bark legal information about their rights.
  
  Ross said the ACLU told him his paper had a very strong case against school censorship. Steffen violated a state anti-censorship law that prohibits a person from taking more than 25 papers off any newsstand, said Ross. “This is a huge crime,” said Ross. “A person could be fined or go to jail.”