Madison Ford
Staff Writer

Child pornography laws were originally inacted to protect children. However, as society has, shall we say, “progressed”, child pornography laws have expanded.

When one hears the term “child pornography” they have a pretty distinct idea of what it is referring to. However, in recent years, child pornography laws have grown to encompass concentual sexual messaging (more commonly known as “sexting”) involving a minor. The designation of this act as child pornography has brought with it much controversy. Some argue it being labeled child pornography, for a law created to protect minors, would in turn lead to their arrest.

Some may be surprised to hear that sexting involving a minor can lead to criminal punishment. Personally, I am torn on the issue. Should a teenager be labeled as a sex offender for the rest of their lives for a moment of poor judgement? Then again, a similar arguement of “a moment of poor judgement” could be applied to a number of crimes, so why should an individual not be punished for a crime they commited? As previously mentioned, I go back and forth on this issue. However, I read an article recently that proposed another medium as child pornography; a television show. Upon reading the article I could not believe that a television program could possibly be charged with producing child pornography. The new MTV show, “Skins”, apparently was so raunch that the Parents Television Council feels like it should be brought under investigation for child pornography due to its underage stars. I had heard “Skins”, which is based of a succesful British television series of the same name, was not the cleanest show in the world, but child porn? This seemed like a stretch.

I took it upon myself evaluate the show first-hand. I found the first episode online and proceeded with caution. As the final scene concluded I contemplated. Were there drugs? Yes. Sexual subject matter? Yes. Child pornography? Definitely not. Now granted, I have only seen one episode, but from what I gather, the sexual subject matter in the show is not exploitive. The actors, though perhaps underage, voluntarily signed on to act in the series, with full knowledge of its content. I am fully supportive of protective legislation against child pornography, but there comes a point where you are charging people with the wrong crime. The content in this television series seems parallel to much of the content shown in movies and pop culture. Is this excessive sexual focus right? Perhaps not, but that is a digression of the true issue here. People are becoming upset with the content we are exposing are youth to and handling it by incorrectly labeling it as child porn. If one wants to lambast “Skins”, one must also essentially tear down the main focus of entertainment today.