Minors Should not be Charged with Felonies Due to Sexting

Since this is my last round and I am pressed for time, I will make it extremely short. My opponent seeks to shelter sexting under freedom of expression. He claims that images of young girls or boys posting in sexually elicit ways in a nude or semi-nude fashion is not obscene. To do this he would either require us to believe that it does not appeal to lustful sexual desire, includes value (most commonly argued to be artistic), or does not fit the category of patently offensive. Sexting by definition is an attempt to elicit sexual arousal in the one receiving the photo/message. If it did not appeal to prurient sexual interest, it would have no purpose. .. this point in my opponent's argument is counter intuitive and logically inconsistent. In response to my opponent's argument regarding infants or very young children. Some people DO indeed find this appeals to their prurient sexual interests, however. .. I think anyone reading this can acknowledge that there is a physical difference between a toddler and a 15 year old. The features that are found to be sexually attractive to the opposite sex do not begin to develop until puberty. This argument is a reduction to absurdity and should be discarded. In order for these images to contain artistic value, we would have to assume that a young girl (usually a girl is sexting images to a boy) has the intention of creating an artistic pose and be capable of doing so. This is not the case in the vast majority of sexting incidents. I'll let the voters determine if they believe that a young girl attempting to sexually arouse someone on the other end of a cell phone is artistic. Finally, we come to the issue of patently offensive. My opponent claims that images of children that are drawn or digital is not patently offensive. I would hope that the readers would disagree. However, for the sake of those who do not, I will explain the difference. Children posing nude is found patently offensive not because of anything about their physical appearance. The difference between a 17 year old girl and an 18 year old girl in terms of body structure and appeal is negligible. What is patently offensive is that the person being photographed is a child, that they are not an adult. This very fact is why digital, illustrated, or pseudo-child (Adults who are made to look like children) pornography is not patently offensive. Again, I will leave my readers to make this decision on their own. However, if my readers concede that photographs or video of children "are intended to appeal to prurient (lustful) sexual interest," "lack artistic value," and "are patently offensive" they must concede that the photographs that these children are producing are not protected by first amendment laws. They are transmitting them to other minors who A) are not allowed to view pornography in the first place, and B) Often times show their friends. So they are not only creating child pornography, but they are distributing it as well. Since my opponent has not made a case as to why we should treat this form of child pornography different than other forms of child pornography, and rather simply tried to assert that it is not child pornography, you must vote solely on if we have proven that it is indeed child pornography or not. I have presented a case that undermines his explanation as to why it is not, and have done so successfully. Thank you for your time.