“Not clear cut: Judge concerned about sexting consequences. Picture: Bill Hatto/The West Australian.”
An ugly issue that cannot go away as society refuses to logically think it through is the matter of sexting and the act of sexting by young teenagers who fall under the age of consent. In Australia, the age of consent in all State(excluding South Australia/Tasmania) is sixteen years of age. South Australia and Tasmania is the age of seventeen. While Queensland is sixteen, anal sex is set at the age of 18 regardless of gender and sexuality. Link: Ages of Consent in Oceania Region. However, while the age of consent is held at 16/17, the age of eighteen is the age of adulthood, minimum age to vote, purchase alcohol, gamble, etc.
‘Sexting’ is the sending sexual messages and images using the device of a mobile/cell phone.
Polaroid Camera
When I was a child in the 70/80’s, I remember people using Polaroid cameras everywhere I went. They were said to be the camera of choice for pedophiles as they didn’t need a company to process and develop the film. They were also the choice of camera for sexually charged teenagers who took photos of each other in poses that were sexual in nature and even in the act of sex. I went camping a lot as a child and I saw it with my own eyes, teenagers camping together, hiding in the bushland having sex while another took photos of them. I was good at being quiet when I saw the need and I have always enjoyed observing society. I guess you say that I saw things at times that was supposed to scar me for life. I already knew what sex was so no surprises there.
Move forward a few decades and the technology is far different. Very different.
Gone are the days of holding your photos secret and hope nobody finds them or, you would show them to your mates to demonstrate your masculinity to your male mates that you scored. The women were quieter in their sharing of activities…if they shared them.
Today, we have digital cameras in our digital phones that upload photos to the internet and post them to other phones almost in an instant. We send and think later which is too late for those who regret for once it is sent, it cannot be removed. Every SMS/MSM is stored on record viewable to Police on subpoena. Everything you upload and post on the internet is saved and there to stay. Delete all you like. The record is there to stay.
Then next big change is that now is that one does not need to have to hold in their possession the copy of the photo. When you send/upload them now, it is a copy and the copies can multiply in no time at all. A group of teenagers at high school without an ounce of commonsense nor maturity can destroy a person’s life within minutes. Often used these days to bully and embarrass others in these days of needing constant attention and the need to feel great with thanks to the stupid parenting method of constantly praising a child for every little thing they did, often leading to suicide of our youth.
In a World where many societies teach the body to be dirty, naughty, sinful, shameful, something to fuck and fuck and fuck and fuck some more, something to constantly to improve to hide ugliness. A mentally retarded world where the creation of the mentally ill as the normal person driven by the need for power of people generated by the very institutions we are supposed to trust and respect; Government and the Religion.
When society breaks free from this abusive grasp, like a bird escaping a cage, people can do the most silliest of things without knowing the shit storm they are about to bring down upon themselves. The Institutions controlling us seek revenge by using ‘criminal processes’ to shame people such as taking our youths and punishing them with a criminal record as a sex offender, under the laws created to punish child sex offenders.
But these aren’t pedophiles being punished here. They are young people who have not being given the right guidance but raised on fear and shame. They have been raised by a society that has taken the most innocent of things and perverted it with sex where sex should not be attached. While children are permissible to consent to sex once they reach the age of 16/17, the law still views them as a child so while a 90 year old may legally have them in the sack, they cannot legally take a photo of themselves which may be construed as sexual in nature.
And to put it as politely as I feel I can, opportunistic scumbags like Bravehearts and the drones within it, many with issues of their own and an agenda to fulfill, happily aim this gun to punish anybody and everybody. These children do not need to be treated like criminals and, unlike Bravehearts, their family units should not be viewed as untrustworthy. Especially where fathers and uncles are involved. *Different story there*
My belief system is that children should be taught body awareness from a young age. From the time they ask, is the time they should be educated the truth. All of my children knew what sex and oral sex was before they started school. My youngest two children as infants got to learn all about sex from the hardcore xxx rated sexual acts of geckos on the walls of the home where we once lived in the tropics.
Children need to be taught to ignore the media and to be taught how the media lies. They need to learn as they grow up that bodies come in different shapes and sizes. Girls need to learn why their body has widened and rounded and put on a little fat cells which is all natural and in the process of making a body ready to push a bun out of the oven. Sadly, many aren’t for sex education is poor in schools. I do support teaching about safe sex but safe sex alone is utter bullshit sex education. Young girls need to learn that taking the pill may be harmful to their health as it increases their chances of cancer at a later age as well as the possibility of destroying their chances of falling pregnant later in life. Use a condom or just don’t have sex.
With sending photos by photos and online, teach them as they grow up but not brow beat them of the dangers in these days of being embarrassed by such actions. It only takes one angry ex-lover or some stooge to ruin your life.
Treating youth as criminals for such things as well as for using drugs and drinking alcohol can only act see them our youth trapped in a circle of criminal life. Employers are often highly discriminating and ride a mighty high horse. If you want to help youth, leaving the inprint of criminal convictions to those who are truly criminals. Actions such as murder, sexual assaults and those acts where they refuse to abide by the law including theft.
Children’s Court president Denis Reynolds wants to be able to decide if teenagers who share or post online sexually explicit images of people aged under 16 should go on to the child-sex offenders’ register.
Speaking at a WA Law Society panel discussion on the legal consequences of cyber bullying, Judge Reynolds said that breaking the law was often not in a young offender’s headspace when sexting – posting sexual images online or via text messages.
Sometimes this involved underage teenagers taking part willingly.
He said that children and teenagers needed to be better educated to understand that certain online activities were crimes.
“While there are no specific laws in relation to cyber bullying, there are lots of laws that would apply to the behaviour that is conducted in the course of these sorts of activities,” Judge Reynolds said.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/17244412/sexting-not-clear-cut-judge/
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