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Comment by pugets | Hacker News Reader

My questions: What about the children? Are we ready as a society for it to be legal for someone to possess an image of a topless 14-year-old girl on their computer?

Should the law view child toplessness differently than adult toplessness? And if so, then how would we be making be a step towards the desexualization of the nipple?

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Sort of a social standards issue though, isn't it? Here a topless teenager is scandalous but in other places that standard includes teens without hijabs or teens in tight-fitting clothes or even teens not in long dresses. I suspect this is only a thorny issue because it requires a transition period. Once people get used to it it will stop being so over-sexualized.

Would a sexual pose of a 14 year old girl with her nipples covered by some glitter be more acceptable in some way or less sexual? Would an identical pose of a 14 year old boy be less exploitative?

In fact, in the UK and some other places what is illegal is "indecent" images of someone under 18, not nudity or sexual content in and of itself. So the sexual pose would likely be a problem whether or not the nipples are exposed. In the UK for the lowest severity images the context the pictures are found in also matters - even a picture that is ok in a family album (e.g. an innocent picture of a child in the bath) would not be ok if found in a collection of pictures clearly intended for sexual gratification.

> Are we ready as a society for it to be legal for someone to possess an image of a topless 14-year-old girl on their computer?

Was the girl harmed? Was her privacy violated? Otherwise, it is the same as for anyone else.

Or perhaps view 'image possession' differently? If they're not a relation, not a photo from some sort of gathering where the possessor was present and the photo consensually taken, then.. the intent in possessing the photo is 'obviously' not good?

Really I'm just thinking about your comment in isolation though - as a whole I don't think this is a good idea, it perhaps doesn't have to be illegal but I don't personally see a need for social standards to 'slip'. (But they're not made by one person, nor one parliament, and that's fine, maybe I am in the minority.)

This is pretty much how it works in the UK. What is illegal is "indecent images" of someone under 18, and the intent of the person collecting them can come into play. A picture of a child in the bath placed in a family album is unlikely to be seen as indecent, but the same picture in a collection of naked children you have no reasonable excuse for having likely would be considered indecent.

Yes, that's probably (subconsciously) influencing my comment (I'm British).

Genuinely difficult and important questions. I would say the bigger issue is that we can never, ever properly address these issues until we are ready to have discuss them in a logical and factual way. Based on how society currently deals with sex and nudity, I think we are still a long way from being able to have those discussions. But removing the most obvious and absurd restrictions (like banning only one tiny portion of adult female chests) can get us closer to being able to grapple with the more nuanced issues.

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