The Law as it Pertains to 16-Year-Olds

Nothing productive ever transpires between two 27-year-old males suffering from pangs of arrested development. For the sake of this blog, I'm somewhat forced to throw myself to the wolves and admit that I was part of the following conversation. However, I am still equipped with the option to protect my friend Jason's anonymity. In the interest of not feeding him to the wolves, I will refer to Jason as "Justin" throughout the remainder of this blog.

The following conversation is drastically paraphrased, but the gist is totally intact.

Trust me.

Justin: I was talking to a few people from work the other day. I kinda painted myself in a corner. I was trying to say that the average girl is at the peak of her physical beauty at the age of 16 or so.

Adam: You think? Not like, 21 or 25?

Justin: Some of them, sure. The older you get the more you know what makeup works for you, what clothes are most complimentary, some girls mature better than others...

Adam: (giggling) ...They're not so damn giggly.

Justin: Right. But physically speaking, the average girl is at her physical peak in high school.

Adam: Which made being a high school boy pretty damn difficult.

Justin: And for a lot of girls, we think of them as teenagers for the rest of our lives. I haven't seen Jenna Keith since 1998. I'm sure she's changed a bit in the last nine years--

Adam: --A few haircuts. Her clothes are probably different.

Justin: (pauses long enough to consider the stupidy of Adam's interruption) Right. A lot about her has probbaly changed. she looks more like a 27-year-old than an 18-year-old. But when I think of Jenna Keith, I think of Jenna Keith as an 18-year-old. So if somebody came up to me and showed me her high school picture, I would probably look at it and think, "yeah, she was pretty hot." But then, I'd be a 27-year-old guy looking at a photograph of a 17-year-old and everyone would think that I'm some sort of pervert.

Adam: Yeah, but it's an old picture. That girl's not 17 anymore.

Justin: Does that matter? If some guy gets caught tomorrow downloading child pornography that was created in the 70's, is that legal? No one would think it wierd for me to have a crush on some girl when we were both in high school, but I haven't seen her in almost 10 years, so when I think about her, I'm thinking about an 17-year-old girl.

Adam: Yeah that's weird. I wonder what would happen if you took a nudie picture of your high school crush?

Justin: Did she pose for it? Or is this a photo taken while hanging from the treetops with a telephoto lense?

Adam: (laughing, but also creeped out) No. You guys are dating or whatever. It's a consentual picture. Like "Titanic."

Justin: That was a drawing in "Titanic."

Adam: I know. I'm not speaking directly about the medium, so much as the emotional resonance throughout its creation. She's 17. She's nude and you keep the picture. Twenty years later the cops suspect you have kiddie porn, they bust down your door and find only that one picture. Can you have that picture in your possession? Is that allowed?

Justin: I dunno. Does it matter what your relationship to the person is? If you know them, can you take whatever picture you want?

Adam: I doubt it. If you could, there would be no more "dirty uncle" stereotype. But also, there's got to be some line, right? I'm pretty sure my mother has pictures of me peeing into a fountain when I was five.

Justin: Are you tastefully peeing into the fountain?

Adam: Is it possible to tastefully pee into anything? Is that what defines underage porn? How tasteful it is?

(Both pause uncomfortably while thinking about the direction the conversation is going.)

Justin: Besides two sets of parents not being happy about the nude stuff, there's nothing legally wrong with two 16-year-olds taking nude pictures of one another, right?

Adam: Until you turn 18.

Justin: Then it becomes porn? What if that girl turned out to be your wife? What if you took a nudie picture of her when she was 16, you stayed together, married, saved all your photographs and that was one of them. Is that child pornography?

Adam: Does it matter if you knew the person or still know the person.

Justin: Yeah. Like if you and I both got married--

Adam: To each other?

Justin: No. You and I get married to two seperate girls. What if on our wedding day we were both given a nude picture of our wife as a 16-year-old. But let's say I had known my wife since we were 10, but you hadn't met your wife until you were 25. Is there any difference in the photographs then?

Adam: I'm pretty sure that two 17-year-olds who are having sex have to stop once one of them turns 18, which would be the worst birthday present ever.

Justin: They have to stop until they both turn 18?

Adam: Yeah. It's like the adult swim break at public pools. Everyone's having a fun time, then the lifeguard blows the whistle and the kids have to pause the fun for fifteen minutes. Except with the law, it's much more than 15 minutes.

Justin: That's retarded.

Adam: Well okay, it's not the best analogy, but it's close.

Justin: The law is retarded, not your analogy.

Adam: You don't have nude pictures of any 16-year-olds do you? I'm asking in case the cops question me.

Justin: Not that I know of.