Teen Arrested On Child Porn Charges After Posting Photos Of His Ex
Note to the kids: I know you are not gonna stop sending each other naked photos of yourselves, but when your hot girlfriend becomes your ex, do not post those photos on MySpace with the caption "Yo tell me this bitch desurves this!!!!!!! This is HLK yall! Yo, U see how big her hole is! Its from me! TF gets my leftover's to bad she fucked." That's what Alex Phillips did to his 16-year-old ex, and now the 17-year-old boy is facing charges of sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. Obviously he's a twat and deserving of the defamation charge that he's also getting. But is this really a child porn case?
Phillips isn't even two years older than his ex; they're both in high school. She took the photos herself, apparently under no duress, and e-mailed them to him. As awful as his behavior is (a report says that when cops warned him about possible jail time, he replied "fuck that, I am keeping them up"), it's an interaction between two minors.
After all, this case provides plenty of evidence that Phillips and his girlfriend had sex, which in their state of Wisconsin is illegal under the age of 18. So should he be strung up on statutory rape charges too? Do we just use laws in any case they technically apply regardless of the point, which is to protect children from sexual exploitation by adults?
Or are the laws even reasonable in an age when teenagers are sexually active and have access to cheap communication? Do we need new anti-defamation laws for spreading humiliating photos of anyone, regardless of age? Or is it only minors who will get protection when an ex spreads their dirty naked pics?
Sorry if I'm the only one worked up about this; some of us have a history of raunchy photo-taking and a few crazy exes.