The human race has lost its collective minds in a lot of ways. But, there's only ONE way I'm talking about today. Maybe I'll discuss additional ways in other posts. For now, give me your thoughts on this bit of insanity, would you?

WFT? Just....WTF?

How on God's green earth can this happen in a rational society? I read a news article today about a 14 year old girl who lives in Knoxville, Iowa. She took some semi-nude SnapChat images of herself, and texted them to a few boys she knew at school. She was not actually fully nude in any of them. 

Now, the county attorney is threatening her with charges of sexual abuse of a minor....against herself! 

If the attorney decides to go ahead with the charges, and she is convicted, she would be labeled a sex offender and made to register as one for life.

The charges are NOT because the teenage boys she sent the pictures to saw them. They are solely because she took them in the first place, therefore "sexually abusing" herself. She is both the victim and the assailant in the eyes of the law here.

Someone tell me how that makes ANY sense.

A Little Back Story

This case is part of a larger bust of sexting that law enforcement personnel were doing at the high school she attends. Other students who were caught in the bust were boys, who were making photocopies of nude photos they received of other girls, and the girls who sent them the nude photos. 

Again, the girl in this case was NOT nude in any of the photos she took of herself. 

The other students were all offered plea deals, which they took. The terms of their deals include:

• Entering a pre-trial diversion program
• Signing a statement admitting they are guilty of producing and/or trading in child pornography
• Giving away their laptops and phones (presumably with some agreement to not get new ones for some length of time)

This girl and her parents refused to take the deal. They assert that because she was not nude in any of the images, she was not producing child pornography, nor sexually exploiting herself. The parents believe the threat from the county attorney of making her register as a sex offender is in retaliation for her not taking the plea deal.

The Parents Have the Right Idea

The girl's parents believe this should not be a matter for law enforcement, and they are correct. This is not something that was going on between adults and small children, or even adults and teenagers. It was going on strictly between the teens themselves, in a modern, digital-age version of what has gone on between teenagers since the dawn of time.

According to the parents, this is a matter for disciplinary action within the family, based on the family's beliefs and values on this kind of thing. In any other era, it would be left to the family to deal with as they saw fit. Even the school would have felt it was none of their business to get involved, unless kids were actually having sex on school grounds during school.

The parents say the threats by the county attorney are taking away their right to raise their daughter the way they choose. The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa agrees with them, saying charges are not warranted, because the images the girl took were not obscene or pornographic.

The girl's parents are trying to get an injunction to keep the attorney from prosecuting their daughter. The attorney, on the other hand, is fighting their request for the injunction like it's some holy crusade.

He wants to prosecute this girl, and label her a sex offender for taking semi-nude photos of herself, because she is underage, and, her parents believe, because she wouldn't take the plea deal.

But, why should she have to take a plea deal if she didn't do anything wrong?

And, how is what she did any different from what teenagers in all eras and all cultures have done?

Yes, I believe family discipline would be the most appropriate thing in this case. Bringing the law into it, even with the other kids in the "sexting ring," is insane.

When Did Adults Forget What Normal Teenage Behavior is Like?

Remember Romeo and Juliette?

Yeah. They were 15 and 13, respectively. Even Shakespeare knew teenagers get crazy when it comes to sex and relationships. They are raging balls of hormones, after all. Sex comprises a large amount of what they think about....and yes, this includes the girls, too.

Now, we're acting as a society like they shouldn't be thinking about it at all, as if that's abnormal until the second they turn 18.

Ridiculous.

No wonder everyone is so neurotic these days. We're not letting kids act like kids, teenagers act like teenagers, or other people engage in formerly normal and harmless aspects of human behavior.

Until a century or so ago, it was normal for girls to get married as young as 14, especially in the American south. My great-grandmother's sister did it. Her next door neighbor when I was growing up was also a woman who wed at 14. Her father's sister was a 14 year old bride, too. My great-grandmother herself was 16 when she got married, and she and my great-grandfather were married for 60 years.

One of my great-aunts eloped at 14 years old with a 21 year old man, at a time when the legal age for getting married without parental consent in her state was 16. She just lied about her age on her marriage license (I've got a copy of it). When she told her parents, they cried, and were mad, but accepted the marriage, and even built a second floor on their house for she and her husband (and their eventual six children) to live in.

She and her husband were married for 34 years, until he died, and she herself lived to be 100.

I'm not saying girls should get married at 14 years old; times have changed. They don't need to get married to give their family one less mouth to feed anymore. They can take their time to grow up, enjoy a little extra time under their parents' care, and have more fun and less of the burden of responsibility of raising their own family before going into the real world. We can give them that luxury.

What I AM saying is that we need to recognize feelings and normal behavior don't change just because the times do.

The very first time I had a real crush on a guy was when I was 14, and it was intense. Like my great-aunt's husband, he was 21 at the time, and, though I was a virgin, I would have done almost ANYTHING he asked me to do in a sexual way, because I was so eager for him to touch me. 

Now, by the time I was 14, a 21 year old guy could get arrested for messing around with a girl that age, so he never did more than hug me a few times (and oh, how I treasured those times, and thought about them again and again). 

But, those feelings were certainly not abnormal for a 14 year old girl. Now, for some reason, we're acting as a society like a girl that age who has those feelings is a deviant.

It's not a healthy attitude for anyone.

Admit It. There Were All Kinds of Things Going on Between Students When You Were in High School

And, did  you think it was abnormal? Do you think it was abnormal looking back on it now?

Of course not.

Because it was entirely normal.

If we'd had cell phones, we probably would have sexted, too. Instead, we had to make do with the occasional exchanged nude photo between boyfriend and girlfriend, or looking at pornographic magazines and movies (you knew where to get them, or knew someone who would get them for you....we all did). Mostly, we just looked at the real thing, meaning we looked at whoever we were dating.

Did we want our parents to catch us engaging in any kind of sexual behavior? No. Because we would have gotten in trouble, but within the family, not by law enforcement.

My parents knew I had long makeout sessions with my high school boyfriend, because we sometimes did it in his car in my driveway. It's hard to not notice something like that when you peek outside to check on your daughter, especially when the windows on the car are fogging up. 

But, they didn't care about that....it was only kissing. Anything else, I would have done away from the house, if I was going to be "giving it up" in high school (I waited till college, but a lot of my friends didn't).

I Think it Started Getting Weird in the Early 1990's, and Got Crazier from There

I remember around my senior year of high school hearing about slightly older teens, or guys in their early 20's getting in trouble for messing around with girls who were only one or two years younger than them, but still under that magic age of 18. Like 19 year old boys got in trouble for having sex with their 17 year old girlfriends. Sometimes, the kids had been dating for a year or two, and the parents  were often approving of the relationship. 

The boys still got jail time and labeled as sex offenders. I thought it was incredibly stupid then, and I still do. Why ruin a young man's life like that, just for doing something teenagers have always done, and doing it with a girl who was almost a legal adult, and who completely consented?

Why was the guy considered a pedophile for messing around with a girl only a year or so younger than him, when they were probably doing it back before HE turned 18, too. He wasn't considered a deviant then, so why did his birthday make him one?

It got weirder after that. Then, I started hearing stories about teenagers getting in trouble and labeled as sex offenders for having sex with each other when they were BOTH younger than 18. These kids were prosecuted as statutory rapists, and as pedophiles, when they hadn't even hit legal adulthood. Both guys and girls were prosecuted this way, because they had the temerity to see each other naked before their eyes were fully mature enough in the view of the law to handle such a thing.

Again, is it just me, or is this simply crazy?

Should Teenagers Be Having Sex? No. Are Most of Them Going to Anyway? Yes

Unless someone is actually married when they are a teenager (and some are), there are a number of good reasons for them to avoid having sex while they are in high school. With the hindsight and wisdom of adulthood, we all know it.

The risk of a teenage pregnancy is number one on the list of those reasons. Whether the kid keeps the baby, aborts it, or gives it up for adoption, it just causes a lot of trouble for them and their families, and a lot of emotional trauma. I knew pregnant girls and couples in high school who made all three choices, and it was never a good situation for any of them, regardless of what they chose.

My grandmother even said she would have had sex in high school if she could have figured out how to not get pregnant. This was in the days before the pill. She wanted to do it, and that's normal.

There's also the matter of reputation, which is still a big deal, believe it or not. If teens are discreetly having sex with each other in a committed relationship, that's one thing. But, if word gets out, it is invariably the girl who will be "slut-shamed" at school. She doesn't want to be known for that for the rest of her high school career.

Guys can develop bad reputations, too, usually as "players." Not as bad as slut-shaming, but still not good.

The beliefs and values of the families from which the kids come are also in play here. They may be breaking with the family values by having sex, and can be punished severely if caught. They may be forbidden to see their significant other anymore, which leads to sneaking out to be with them. Because, as we all know, the best way to get a teenager to continue seeing someone is to tell them they can't. Do that, and suddenly their relationship is true love, even if it wasn't before.

That just leads to trouble within the family. I have a cousin who ran away when she was 15 for that very thing. She eventually came home, of course, but it was a big freaking deal within the family for a while.

So, yes, it's better if kids wait until they graduate from high school before having sex. That doesn't mean all of them are going to wait. And, it certainly doesn't mean it's deviant, abhorrent behavior if they do it.

It just means they didn't have the patience to delay gratification based on logic. 

Again, perfectly normal teenage behavior. It's the rare teen who will listen to logic when they really want something.

Should we be telling them this behavior is abnormal and deviant, and prosecuting them for it?

No way.

Conclusion--Let the Families Handle It, and Let Teens Be Teens

When a 14 year old girl is being threatened with prosecution for "exploiting herself," when all she was really doing was engaging in normal teenage behavior in an age where it is simple to make and transmit images, there is something really neurotic about society.

We have lost our collective minds.

Making the girl the victim and the assailant against herself is insane. Those who would do it to her have lost the ability to recognize and understand logic, just like teenagers haven't fully developed the ability yet.

No teen should be labeled a deviant and made to register as a sex offender for engaging in normal teenage behavior with other teens, as long as the behavior was consensual among all parties. In this case, and many others like it, it appears that it was.

When things like this happen, it is not a matter for the cops or the courts. It's not a matter for anyone, unless someone gets pregnant or raped. With rape, yes, involve law enforcement. 

If a teen gets pregnant, or just gets caught, then leave dealing with it where it belongs....within the family. Otherwise, we're just contributing to the ongoing mental breakdown of society.

Let's help our world regain some of its senses, and remember what is really normal teenage behavior and how to handle it. Leave it to the families, and let each individual one deal with it according to their beliefs and values. 

It's the only way to begin to heal modern society's collective damaged mental health.

What do you think?

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