Minors Should not be Charged with Felonies Due to Sexting

Rebuttal - First Amendment Protection The Miller Standard: When broken down to its component parts we see that it has three criterion. The first is that it must be limited to works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the purient interest in sex. If it does not appeal to the purient (lustful) interest in sex, it cannot be considered obscene. Since images sent via sexting are intentionally meant to bring about lustful interest in sex, it can be considered obscene if it meets the other requirements of the Miller standard. The second it must depict/describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law. Since all states, and federal law, has a ban on images portraying children having sex or posing in sexually explicit ways, it fulfills this requirement and can be considered obscene. Furthermore, any ethically responsible adult would find sexually explicit poses for of children to be offensive. The third requirement is that it lacks serious, literary, artisitic, politcal or scientific value. My opponent must prove that the work contains any value in the afformentinoed categories to invalidate it as obscene. As I'm sure the vast majority of adults would find childen posing in sexually explitic ways to be lacking value in these categories... this criterion also allows us to deem sexting as obscene. As I have shown, sexting meets all three criterion for obscene standing, and therefore is not protected by Freedom of Speech. Rebuttal - Child Pornography Laws As I have shown above, the images in question do not meet the Miller Standard, they are not protected under free speech. Since they contain pornographic (images intended to elicit sexual arrousal) photo of minors, they are by definition child pornography. Rebuttal - Consensual Act vs Exploitation There are many precedents for not treating children as consenting adults in various legal situtions. A child cannot enter a contract without a parental/guardian signature (even with another child). A child under the age of 16 cannot drive. A child under 18 cannot purchase tobacco or pornographic images or consent to military services. An adult under the age of 21 cannot purchase alcohol. To put it plainly, children are not given consentual rights on many things, and distributing pornography is one of these things. Furthermore, children under the age of 18 are not even allowed to view pornographic images of adults. As far as the exploitation question. Children can coerse and exploit each other. The 16 year old girl who is coersed into having sex with her boyfriend or he will leave her, is being exploited. The 12 year old boy who is molested by his 15 year old cousin is exploited. Also, one can exploit themselves. Many would argue that a girl who prostitutes herself to buy drugs s exploiting her body to support her drug addiction. Rebuttal - Comparing Child Sexting to Adult Sexting We are not talkig about the action of adults. We are talking about the action of children. I suppose if we want to be consistent, we should charge adults who sext without the proper licence to create and distribute pornography with the appropriate law. However, the fact that they are not charged does not mean that children should not be charged.