Sexting at Waukesha West

This trend of high school and middle school kids sharing nude photos of themselves via their cell phones doesn't spring from the technology that's available to them.

There's something seriously lacking in their judgment and their morals. That has absolutely nothing to do with having access to cell phones.

The phones are inanimate objects. They don't do anything. They aren't good or bad. The sicko kids are solely to blame for using them to engage in behavior that is illegal.

What we have here is the beginning of a kiddie porn epidemic.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Police and school officials are urging parents to check for naked photos on their children's cell phones after a 14-year-old girl learned that her nude photo ended up in the hands of hundreds of area high school students.

The Waukesha West High School student sent the photo to her boyfriend, but when the couple broke up, he forwarded it to other students using his cell phone, Waukesha police Capt. Mark Stigler said Tuesday. Police have talked to the core group responsible and may recommend felony possession of child pornography charges, he said. Police have recovered computers belonging to the teens to investigate whether they also sent the photos over the Internet.

"We know it's a hard stance, but how else do we deal with this?" Stigler said. "Kids are being immature and doing foolish things."

An automated phone message from the Waukesha School District went to parents Monday and Tuesday asking them to talk to their children and check the phones for illicit photos.

Police want parents to delete any inappropriate photos because the magnitude of the potential proliferation of photos is too large to investigate, Stigler said.

Parents need to impress upon their children the seriousness of the issue, reminding them that possession of such photos could ruin their lives, Stigler said. People convicted of possession of child pornography are labeled sex offenders and required to register their address with police departments.

These kids are remarkably stupid to put out nude photos of themselves.

Parents apparently are remarkably stupid, too. Many are clueless as to their children's behavior.

What is this really about? Is this practice an outgrowth of a culture that gives star status to a skank like Paris Hilton?

Why are these kids willing to exploit themselves?

Are they really so naïve that they don't understand the risks and the potential consequences, now and later in their lives?

Is it unrealistic to expect kids to abstain from sending each other nude photos?

Too bad this problem can't be addressed by that feel-good practice of passing out condoms in middle schools and high schools.

Tackling this issue may actually require some real discussion of right and wrong, choices and consequences.

I think abstinence is a reasonable expectation when it comes to the sending of nude photos via cell phone, as well as the Internet.

Liberals will probably consider that unreasonable. The old "kids are going to do it anyway, so we need to protect them" approach doesn't fly in this case. A classroom demonstration of putting a condom on a banana won't help here.

Being in possession of child pornography is extremely serious. It's a felony. It should be.

So should the offenders in the Waukesha West case be charged with felony possession of child pornography?

I think that can be answered with another question: Why shouldn't they be charged?

As a society, are we willing to tolerate some child pornography? I'm not in favor of decriminalizing child porn. I guess I'm old-fashioned that way.

I think it would be going down a very dangerous road. Parents get freaked about registered sex offenders moving into their neighborhoods, and rightly so. They should exhibit the same outrage over their own sex offender kids. Parents need to step up.

I wonder: How many sex offenders are currently flying under the radar at area schools? According to Waukesha police, "the magnitude of the potential proliferation of photos is too large to investigate."

That's disturbing.

I don't buy the "kids will be kids" excuse or cutting them slack on this.

It's become painfully clear recently that kids will be perverts and many are troublingly challenged in terms of the development and exercise of their consciences.