“Self-made underage porn has been popular for years”

“My girlfriend’s ex still owns pictures of her at 16. You don’t think of it as child porn when you’re sending it to a classmate. The difference between legal and illegal is flashing a tit in your MySpace pic. The law will stop you about as much as it’s stopped teen sex.

“In fact, there could be more underage nude pics passed between underage viewers than what we traditionally think of as child porn. No one knows just how much child porn actually exists, because it’s technically illegal to research it (…) Only law enforcement is allowed to possess the material, so only they can estimate its impact — or even define it. There can be no public discourse over the issue, since all opinions must be distanced from the actual material in question. But soon we’ll have to decide: Should a boy really go to jail if his girlfriend sends him a naked photo?”