There was an incident at Perry Meridian 6th Grade Academy (which is just down the street from my house) involving a 12 year old boy sending photos of himself nude via cell phone to a 12 year old girl in Center Grove.

This is a felony and this child could be put on the Registered Sex Offender list.

I feel a couple of ways about this. First of all I am trying to remember if at 12 I ever would have thought about taking naked photos of myself. I think no. If on the chance I had I would not have needed to worry about being a Registered Sex Offender b/c my mom would have srsly beat my ass. Not that I wasn't boy-crazy. But mostly just like passing notes and other silly girl nonsense.

My other concern is that, being completely technical, this is child porn. However, the sender of the photo is the "victim". So how do you punish that legally and accurately? Should it be punished at all?

One of the teachers I work with said that sexting is the equivalent of when boys used to steal their dad's Playboys. Yes, but not really. These are photos of real people that people know and see every day at school. And to me they are just little kids.

I guess in a way it makes me sad that they even need to think about doing stuff like this.