Two kids find porn online, may be convicted as felons.

I remember the first time I heard the word "pornography." The concept of porn was something I had previously understood. I just didn't know the word for it. I certainly remember finding some sexually explicit newspapers in a field when I was a kid. I probably found them as interesting as any other kid my age. I just didn't label the material.

But I do remember a special session that was called at my school. This was an all-male school of around 240 students in total. So everyone was called into the auditorium at the same time. Our principal gave stern lecture on the evils of pornography and how this evil thing had been discovered on campus. Not connecting this warning with the images I had seen some years earlier, my mind was trying to figure out what it was we were being warned about. Based on the Principal's utter hysteria and hyperbole I concluded that "pornography" was a dangerous drug and something akin to shooting heroin.

I never would have imagined his concern was over the sort of harmless erotica that I had discovered one day in the field near my home. I suspect that if I had put the term together with the reality I would have had a difficult time avoiding laughing at his relative panic. I never did find out what material was making its way around campus but I was relieved to later discover that it wasn't some mind-altering, addictive drug. I should note that within a year or two I stopped taking the principle seriously altogether. Having a mother who worked in the local emergency room meant I heard certain medical facts. And apparently our very staid and proper Principal had been rushed into emergency with a sexual self-pleasuring device (and you thought I'd say dildo) inserted well into his bottom. Apparently he didn't leave enough out to remove said item and needed medical assistance.

Certainly the kids in my neighborhood were rather interested in sexual matters. Certainly erotic material made the rounds. Now and then some kid was caught, got his bottom smacked, spent some time "grounded" and the matter ended. The school's policy was to discipline the miscreant with a few swats, confiscate the material and threaten to tell the boy's parents. Worse yet, when word got out the boy's friends who had not seen the material, gave him a hard time for being stingy and not sharing. That was pretty much the end of it. Material would still make the rounds, boys would try to be more careful in their hiding of the material and the adults would try to figure out the new hiding places. The boys frequently assumed the adults confiscated said material merely to avoid having to pay for any themselves. All in all, with the exception of that one lecture, it was not a major issue.

Today, it is a major crisis mandating the presence of government agents and officials. Consider the case of two 11-year-old boys who managed to bypass their school's filtering system and pull up some porn on a computer. Of course, they instantly became very popular as other kids flocked to take a look at the material in question. In a rational world this transgression would bring about a suspension and the the school reconsidering their filtering program. But politics is involved and politics is rarely rational. Instead, the two boys "likely face" felony charges on top of their suspension.

Police say the kids will more than likely face the felony charge. "It's serious for the kids, but you also have to look at the other side of this. Some of the kids who were brought over there, at least one of them, I believe, is having some trouble shaking that image from his mind," said American Fork police Lt. Darren Falslev.

Felony charges! The report says these kids have "never been in trouble before." Like a huge percentage of kids that age they are very, very curious about sex. Living in Utah, they are also unlikely to get much information to satisfy that curiosity so they go looking for it. And the best way to understand sex is to see exactly what it is. So they looked and other kids looked. Now these boys have been turned into serious criminals for their curiosity.

It is also possible, given the nature of their "sex offense," that they could be required to join the so-called "sex offenders registry." Once again, the normal sexual curiosity of kids has turned those kids into serious "offenders" who may face a lifetime of grief and harassment. I also have to question the reasoning powers of this police officer. Any boy, just entering puberty, has trouble shaking sexual images from his head. The only difference between the boy in question, and most, is that the image may be more accurate.

In all the reading I've done on censorship issues I can't say I've seen one well-done study explaining the alleged harm of exposure to porn. There are lots of theories, usually driven by feminist views or religious values, but very little in the way of hard data indicating that we have anything to worry about. Certainly the older material said that sex offenders (and this was back when sex offender actually meant something of substance) were more conservative in their values, saw porn later in life than the average, and saw less of it. Based on those findings I wondered why they weren't handing the stuff out.

The main effect of porn, on the young, seems to be that it encourages masturbation—not that encouragement is needed, so perhaps the better term is "helps facilitate" masturbation. Religious types, who generally oppose sexual pleasure, will find that troubling. Certain feminists argue that it "objectifies" women and inhibits the ability of young men to place such activities in a "proper context." What upsets them it that it portrays women as willing partners. Of course, if women are portrayed as unwilling partners they get even more upset.

Porn portrays lots of things and willing participation in sex is one of them. So what? Whether young people are unable to put it all in proper context doesn't strike me as a problem. It might be true if all they knew was pornography but certainly we are surrounded by far more pervasive images about human relationships. Even a regular consumer of porn would find it impossible to not face all the other views of sexuality that permeate our culture. It strikes me as hard to believe that even an adolescent boy doesn't notice his the relationship of his parents, the male-female relationships portrayed on television and in films, etc. It would be damn difficult to not place porn into a more proper perspective with all those competing images getting the vast majority of air play inside the heads of kids.

Certainly if there is some dire consequence to being exposed to sexually explicit material the would-be censors have, so far, failed to produce it. One doesn't have to go back very far in history to find periods where the average child, much younger than those arrested in this case, was well aware of the intricacies of sexuality. Not only were they most likely raised in a rural environment with barnyard couplings routines but many shared the same sleeping room as their parents, and often the same bed. Apparently this early exposure to sexuality didn't hamper the evolution of civilization.

Without such bedroom exposure, and since few of us live around barnyards, the young of today have few outlets for satisfying their curiosity. I might add that of the outlets they do have many of them are actually considered serious crimes today.

The Vermont legislature, however, is at least looking at the absurdity of turning teens in sex criminals over adolescent sexuality. In recent years many teens have been arrested, and forced onto sex registry lists, for the crime of "sextin." This is where a teen usually takes an erotic photo of them self and sends it to another teen. The Vermont Senate passed a bill decriminalizing such actions for teens provided they are between the ages of 13 and 18. The House is considering the matter. Proponents say, that while teens ought not engage in such activity, turning the teens into criminals only makes matters worse.

I think the law a step in the right direction. However, instead of hard fast ages, as done here, I would prefer to see a spread. Instead of setting the limits as 13 to 18 why not set the minimum age at 13 with a five year spread. My concern is that, under the current law, a teenage couple could engage in this practice for years without consequences and then, one day, wake up and find it illegal. Assume a 13 year old "sexts" a 14-year-old. The couple does so regularly for several years. The older of the two reaches the magic older age while the younger one is still under 18. At this point, the activity they could have engage in legally for five years, suddenly becomes a crime. What is even more bizarre is it becomes a crime precisely at the time that the younger of the two is about to gain all legal rights as an adult but legal when the younger teen is just 13.