Sexting

“Sexting” the phenomenon of sending naked pictures via text message.  It’s a stupid, stupid, behavior that teenagers in particular seem to be partaking in.  What is particularly troublesome about the fact that teenagers are participating in this behavior is that when they get caught, they’re getting charged with child porn.  An offense that will force them to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.
Now, in general I have a bit of problem with the sex offender registration, but in particular this seems like an absurd response to stupid behavior, unless that behavior is intended to be hurtful (i.e., girl sends guy naked picture, they break-up he mass forwards).  We live in a different world then I think we ever imagined we could live in.  Who knew that one day, cameras would not only exist on phones that you would carry every where, but that these phones would have the ability to forward those pictures? 
Once this happened, we should have been able to foresee that irresponsible behavior would follow.  That our culture with its obsession of sex would create a situation where there might be peer pressure for girls to send naked pictures to guys and there might be peer pressure for guys to show those pictures.  It’s locker room talk with visual aids. 
Granted this is speculation, I’m not sure there’s been any research into who's sending naked pictures, but I suspect it’s primarily girls to guys, guys to guys, but not guys to girls or girls to girls (at least not at the same rates).  In this world of the internet, Facebook, and other methods of connecting and sharing info/pictures etc., it is undeniable that the consequences of these actions may haunt people forever. 
Unless there are some other creative tools to stop sexting, the reality is that kids won’t realize that their actions will have long term enormous consequences.  Shoot, I’m sure they are plenty of adults who will be lured into the idea that they are engaging in private behavior with someone they love/trust.  If there isn’t some sort of change in technology, society is probably going to have to be the thing that changes.  Our sensibilities are going to have to forgive people who send naked for being stupid. 
Don’t get me wrong if sexual pictures are forwarded as a form of harassment, this behavior should be punished, but it should be punished under our civil laws of Title IX and anti-bullying statutes, not child pornography laws.  Those laws should be saved for adults that exploit children for the sexual gratification of other adults.  Child pornography is a dirty, criminal, awful industry that exploits and dehumanizes children.  Sexting is not the same thing and it is inappropriate to treat it as such.