This is just classic. Teenage girls who take naked photos of themselves now face child porn charges. In this Greensburg, PA case, charges against three 14- and 15-year-old girls include “manufacturing” and “disseminating” child porn, and two 16- and 17-year-old boys (lucky enough to receive the photos) have been charged with possession. By now, I’m sure the boys have learned their lesson: delete after wanking.

Just because Mark Twain didn’t write about “sexting” doesn’t mean Huck Finn wouldn’t have done it. I am reasonably sure we would’ve seen Betsy Thatcher’s snatch on Huck Finn’s iPhone. In the old days, though, all they had was spin the bottle behind the barn and steamboat bathroom blowjobs.

But the childhood innocence and/or teenage stupidity involved in the act of taking cell phone photos of yourself in your birthday suit is not the issue. Not as far as the law is concerned, anyway. Whom are the child porn laws supposed to protect? I’m guessing the “child” in “child porn” has something to do with it.

I’m assuming the charges will be dropped in the Greensburg case. But it’s a good example of how people (Greensburg police Capt. George Seranko in this case) misconceive the law as a tool for their own personal, moral crusades. You don’t have to be Paul McCartney to know the words “teach them a lesson” are going to come up in a story like this. You can always do whatever the fuck you want to people as long as you’re “helping” somebody. If you’re “helping” the person you’re actually screwing, even better. Just once, though, I’d like to see the words “teach them a lesson” come up in the context of “what the parents were going to do”. (Assuming the kids hadn’t submitted their college applications yet and there are still lives to salvage.)

Sure, the police should investigate accusations of child porn. But charging a girl with a crime for taking photos of herself two years before she can charge you money for them is a bit over the top. It’s the adult manipulators, molesters, and rapists we should focus on. It’s for this reason I suggest that the police officers stop passing the nude teenage photos around the department to teach people lessons and let the parents deal with their own embarrassment and their kids’ soon-to-be-absent driving and Internet privileges.

If the police really want to do something useful, they can start by executing suicidal people. I hate those murderous, law-breaking pricks.