Friday, September 11, 2009

16 Year Old Arrested for "Enticing" Sexting

In Johnstown, Colorado, it's apparently illegal for teens to flirt with each other.

A 16 year-old boy was arrested for asking a 14 year-old girl to send him a nude photo of herself. The girl's mother freaked out and called the police when she was told about the request.
“14-year-olds should not be viewed as sexual objects,” said (mom Kim) Torske. “This is serious. This is not a joke. This isn’t something fun you do. This is obscene and it is criminal. He should be punished and their should be consequences.”
The boy's phone was confiscated, and he was charged with enticement, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, harassment, and tampering with evidence because he cleared out his phone.

Thankfully, clearer heads prevailed and the D.A. has thrown out the case.

Amazingly, the girl, Jade Graber, is named in the article and has made a statement to the press.
Jade said she feels like crying every time she sees the boy at school. She recently took a vow of purity at her church.

“My parents raised me well,” said Jade. “I just feel with how bold he was with me, I’m not the first one he’s done this to.”
No, and it won't be the last, because humans are sexual beings and the urge to merge is very powerful. Teens reach puberty now at about 9 years of age, give or take, and our society is expecting these hormonally raging young people to bottle up their desires and remain chaste. It's like putting a nuclear bomb in a paper bag and expecting all to remain well.

I am reminded of this famous George Carlin routine about the Catholic confessional:
Mortal sin had to be a grievous offense, sufficient reflection and full consent of the will. Ya had'ta WANNA! In fact, WANNA was a sin all by itself. "Thou Shalt Not WANNA". ...It was a sin for you to wanna feel up Ellen. It was a sin for you to plan to feel up Ellen. It was a sin for you to figure out a place to feel up Ellen. It was a sin to take Ellen to the place to feel her up. It was a sin to try to feel her up and it was a sin to feel her up. There were six sins in one feel, man!
Jade has been taught by her parents that sex is a sin, but now she's being taught that it's also a crime. George Carlin would have to modify his routine today to include dusting Ellen's breasts for fingerprints, the confiscation of his cell phone, public humiliation in the newspapers and on the Internet, not to mention the potential registration as a sex criminal and the ruination of a once-promising life.

This is insanity, folks, to be arresting teens for sexual activity. Might as well sew up all the girls and castrate all the boys, that'll teach 'em for having impure thoughts.

Parents, please, talk to your kids about sex. Teach them how to be responsible, tell them that it's OK to say no, and if they will not agree to remain virginal, teach them about safe sex and contraception.

Calling in the police and the courts to solve matters of human sexuality is not the way to teach your kids about life.


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6 comments:

Rick said...

I'm obviously living in a fantasy world locking in the past. When we were growing up, the parents would deal with issues between their kids in a face-to-face meeting. But nowadays, the first impulse is to bring in some authority figure, ie, the police and the courts. These things should be dealt with at the lowest level possible. When problems are elevated, we lose control over the outcome and the outcome is invariably not the one we wanted. When are people going to learn to take control of and responsibility for, their own lives and their children?

Elton said...

I completely agree. This was not the right way going about it. Flirting isn't supposed to be handled by the police, it's a normal part of social development.

Flirting is a way of saying, "I like you." Or it's choosing what you desire the most.

Anonymous said...

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

Asking a 14 year old girl to send nude pics of herself is NOT flirting - not by any definition. You can't be dense enough to believe that. This is not someone at a family friendly nudist environment, but obviously someone looking for a cheap sexual thrill at the expense of the girl in question. In no way is it appropriate to do that.

And as Rick suggested, if someone tried that with my daughter, I'd be more than happy to have an "old school" conversation with the 16 year old boy myself.

Nudiarist said...

Cheap sexual thrill? About half of all high school students have had sexual intercourse by the time they reach the 12th grade. (Do the research yourself, the info is easy to find). Please explain to me how asking for a nude photo of a girl is worse than putting a penis into her vagina. You want to talk about reality? Teens are sexually active and always have been. Turning normal, healthy, sexual curiosity into a crime is insane.

Anonymous said...

It's not worse - but it's just as bad - and both practices are wrong and inappropriate for teens. Just because kids are having sex at such a young age doesn't make it right. If anything, it is one of the sources of many problems today's youth are having.

But on the topic at hand, what he did is not curiosity as you said, I am sure that kid knows full well what a naked girl looks like. He made an inappropriate, unwanted, sexual advance on another minor. Period. Such a photo would be child porn in many, many states. I am not saying he should be charged with a crime right off the bat - but what he did is wrong.

It's this kind of blase attitude from so called adults that is helping spiral kids out of control.

I am sure you would then have no problem if your 13 or 14 year old daughter or grand daughter were sending her nude pics to every boy who asked. Sheesh.

Nudiarist said...

Kids reach puberty at about age 9 and we are asking them to bottle up their sexuality for 9 YEARS. Teaching abstinence-only sex-ed, or parents not talking to their kids about contraceptives and safe sex - those are the problems which cause confusion, angst, frustration, and pain for teens.

My wife and I were open with our daughter about sex, and we respected her privacy when she began dating. We were confident that she was well educated, knew how to say no, and when she was ready, she came to us and we took her to the ob-gyn to get birth control.

If she was sexting, I have no idea because that was her personal business.