Scarleteen

why are the laws surrounding sexual intimacy over the phone in the united states so draconian and so bent on indiscriminately punishing both those who sext with no harmful intentions and those whose images are leaked to the world without their permission?

I can't speak for everyone who put those laws in place, but a big part of it is preventing people from producing and circulating child pornography (at least as far as sexting laws focusing on young people). That's a good thing to prevent, but those laws do pose the risk of catching young people trying to flirt or be intimate with no malice to it.

As for the images being leaked and how we respond to the victims of that, I think it's tied to a lot of cultural beliefs about sexuality and how it's something to be ashamed of. And, since many victims of leaked photos are women, it tends to be compounded by the extra amount of shame we attach to women being sexual.

Sam W wrote:I can't speak for everyone who put those laws in place, but a big part of it is preventing people from producing and circulating child pornography (at least as far as sexting laws focusing on young people). That's a good thing to prevent, but those laws do pose the risk of catching young people trying to flirt or be intimate with no malice to it.

As for the images being leaked and how we respond to the victims of that, I think it's tied to a lot of cultural beliefs about sexuality and how it's something to be ashamed of. And, since many victims of leaked photos are women, it tends to be compounded by the extra amount of shame we attach to women being sexual.

I just wish they wouldn't penalize the kids, at least as bad as they do. I mean, some of them just too naïve to really think about it, they see no harm in it. And with the whole shaming thing, I really wish we could just stop shaming people for something completely natural.