Porn, sexting, what's a sin for minors

[___seinfeld____]

I came here after I saw a post on tumblr about underage followers. Let me start off by saying I've run a porn blog for maybe a year now. I'm 15. I know it's cliche but I am careful and am not exactly proud of it. Last summer, I also got curious and started sexting for two months or so. Believe me I fully completed that arc- went through stages of shame and guilt, told everyone I had contact with, and shut my account on kik. Now during this time, I never ONCE sent nude pictures or gave out real information because I'm well aware of the risks. I've felt like a sinner for a while now. My parents and friends joke all the time and don't really find a teenager viewing pornography to be awful but I just don't know the ethics of what I'm doing. I feel like running a blog is taking it to the extreme and I'm considering giving it up but still using it from time to time for, well, what any teenager does. Adults are really uncomfortable about underage followers and I don't want to contribute to that. Managing it DOES take up time, but I really enjoy viewing new content (not gonna lie).

TL;DR: I run a porn blog and have sexted (no pictures no information) and basically feel like satan. Should I feel this guilty?

[Heather]

We really can't talk to you about what something is or isn't based on a certain religion -- like the concept of sin -- because we're a secular site: someone to talk to about that is someone who shares that belief system whose opinions or education you trust. Our expertise is sex ed and sexuality and sexual health support: what you need for that conversation is someone whose expertise is your religious belief system. Make sense?

We CAN, however, talk to you about working out your own feelings about this, clarifying them, and figuring out what you want to do with them. Is that something you'd like to do here?

[___seinfeld____]

Oh whoops, I should have specified. I'm not religious in any way, I just use those words because they capture the feeling the most y'know?

[Heather]

No worries. Since the concept of sin is a religious one, and really vague in so many ways, can you start by trying to put what your actual feelings are into words?

For instance, often when people of any stripe talk about feeling sinful, guilt is a common way they are feeling.

[___seinfeld____]

Well, yeah, I've definitely felt guilty about it- Sneaking around keeping docs to organize it and all. I'm managing my time fine for what it is, but I can't help but feel guilty for having followers and spending that much effort into organizing porn. I think I'm just curious as to what the norm is for this kind of thing. It's sort of the unspoken rule that no one actually waits until they're 18 to do so but I'm just worried I'm making it into too big a deal.

[Sam W]

It's tricky to talk about norms with porn, because like you said there are many unspoken rules and assumptions about who is and is not doing what. So let's see if we can tease this out some more. You mention feeling guilty for having followers and for spending effort on porn specifically. Could you tell me a little more about why you feel that way?

[___seinfeld____]

Well, most of my guilt stems from all the posts I see on tumblr asking underage followers to stop because they could get shut down or in trouble for it. The "unspoken rule" applies to teenagers who casually view porn only for masturbatory reasons, but I wonder if managing a blog exceeds those expectations. I'm wondering if I have a porn addiction (I doubt it though). It's not like I feel uncomfortable when I haven't viewed porn in a while I think I just feel uncomfortable when I don't check my blog because posts pile up and it'll take forever to sort through it. I have periods of clarity where I just make a bunch of cuts in who I follow because I don't really want porn to be a bigger part in my life than it should be. I don't like seeing a bunch of suggestions that look good and ignoring them either. Which maybe I should stop. I've got a few pages of links to sort through when I have time, but I'm deleting that. It's too much of a gateway to wasting time.

[Mo]

Even though it's pretty easy, at this point, for people who are legally not of age to look at pornography to access it anyway, it's still not legal for them to access it, or for adults to be providing it to them or interacting sexually with them. So adults who are saying "please unfollow" may be doing it because they don't want to break the law, or because their personal code of ethics doesn't involve any sexual interaction with anyone who's under the age of consent. I would assume that someone who doesn't want underage followers would probably feel pretty uncomfortable if they were interacting with another blog posting explicit content, whether that was just reading/reblogging or interacting directly with the person running it, and found out they were underage. I think respecting that is a good idea.

I do think it's also important to keep the legal issues in mind, whatever decision you make; how you feel ethically about the situation is one thing, but looking at/sharing pornography is still unlawful at this point. For that reason we really can't encourage you to do anything other than not look at it or engage sexually with adults, but that's a decision that's up to you.

It's a term that gets thrown around a lot, but a true addiction to pornography is uncommon. A way to tell if it's a problem, though, is if viewing it is getting in the way of other interests or obligations. If you feel like you're spending a lot of time worried about blog maintenance and looking through a backlog of posts, then yeah, I think that might be an indication that it's time to take a break for a bit, or dial things back.

[___seinfeld____]

I'm thinking of cutting a lot more people I follow and limiting checking it to every other day. Then maybe once a month, etc. I think I'll feel better about the ethics if I do it less and affect less people. I've also been backtracking through my older posts and deleting a lot because I just don't like having that much porn accumulated on something of mine. Thank you guys so much, I feel a lot better about this. Sex and porn and ethics are... pretty confusing.

[Redskies]

When you say "affect less people", are you meaning more any possible legal implications like Mo was talking about above, or are you thinking that sharing porn is in itself bad for people?

Also, just to clarify a couple of things Mo said: at least in most legal systems where porn isn't blanket illegal, it's perfectly legal for someone underage to look at porn. What's Not legal is a) sexual pictures or images of anyone underage - that's usually illegal for anyone to possess or share, with some major and potentially life-changing possible legal consequences; or b) showing, giving or sending any kind of pornography to another person who's underage - again, usually with some serious legal consequences. So, you can probably understand why some porn tumblrs might have asked underage people to unfollow them: underage folk (I'm saying "underage" because the legal age can vary between countries) can legally look at pornography, but people running those accounts could be in legal trouble if they seem to be sharing porn with underage people. Does that make sense?

There's nothing wrong with someone under their country's legal age having an interest in sexual imagery. Some kind of sexual imagery is a part of a fair number of people's sexuality, and that doesn't automatically become wrong just because the person is younger. The laws are the way they are mostly to protect younger people from any exploitative or inappropriate older adults - because it's definitely not okay for any older adult to try to involve a young person in their own (the adult's) sexuality. The laws aren't there because of young people's sexuality: the laws are intended, overall, to protect young people from inappropriate adults. (Some people are very uncomfortable at the idea of any young people having any kind of sexuality, but those people are misinformed. Younger people have sexual selves; those selves simply change according to age and stages of development, and are different to adult sexual selves.)

Ethics around porn can certainly feel pretty knotty: on the one hand, there are people who think and say that it's bad, end of story; on the other, there are people who don't seem to have ever had a single thought about where it came from, how it was made, and what kind of messages any particular piece of porn has about sex. And of course, there's that giant space and many people in the middle Have you already seen the piece on the site about pornography: Looking, Lusting and Learning: A Straightforward Look at Pornography ? If you haven't, you might find it really interesting and helpful in looking at and untangling some of the issues involved.

[Heather]

I'm jumping in here to add a few legal tidbits, because a) while I am not a lawyer, I'm very familiar with adult content laws, and b) I feel like the way people are -- quite ignorantly, from what I can gather -- inducing panic with you is a distraction from what really matters here, which is you clarifying your own feelings and making choices that you feel good about.

In a word, it is most likely tumblr, as a company, that has most, or even all, of the legal liability when it comes to laws with porn, and the laws it will be privy to are US law, because that's where tumblr is based. There really isn't a law that holds people who produce or distribute adult content responsible for keeping minors FROM their content (there were some attempts at creating those a bit back, but they didn't stick). As already explained, legal issues there are more about people not intentionally distributing pornography to minors. So someone barking at minors not to follow them is really just being silly and probably ignorant of the law. It might also have a lot to do with creating drama, honestly. The onus isn't on minors to follow or not follow, the onus, when it exists, is on creators or distributors of adult content not to SOLICIT minors with that material. So, if someone is concerned about that, what they need to do is put over 18 messages on their content and make clear their content is intended for adults, that's all.

But there ARE laws that are a pretty big deal -- and which can carry some very hefty penalties and fines -- when it comes to porn, like 2257 laws, for instance, as well as copyright laws, both of which most people (perhaps including yourself, so this is something to think about) who create, and more commonly, since they usually aren't the creator, redistribute (share) on tumblr are most likely not in compliance with. If they -- or you -- are going to be concerned about the laws with this stuff, those are the kind of laws it makes sense to concern yourself with. (And for that reason, my own advice to you would to not share or distribute porn publicly by that token if you want your butt good and covered legally, whatever your age, since your age won't likely protect you in this regard.)

However, since all of this is being posted and shared on a domain that Yahoo -- the owner of tumblr -- not its users, own, it may actually Yahoo/Tumblr who have the big legal liabilities here in any respect. In other words, it could be legally on THEM to shut down accounts not in compliance with all the pertinent laws and to watchdog for such accounts. On the other hand, there are some protections for online "intermediaries" -- sites whose content is entirely or mostly user-generated -- that may NOT make them liable, with the exception of copyright liability, which I don't think they can get around. But again, this is more the domain of someone who is a lawyer and who works in this kind of law.

Chances are good, I'd guess, that in time, as has been the case with other places like tumblr, where users don't have full liabity or any real ownership, and where the sites themselves rely on ad revenue that's harder to come by when adult content is involved, they'll probably just change their user agreements and policies so that posting adult content becomes a no-go. In poking my nose around for you about this, I found this article from a couple years ago which seems to share my thoughts on that: http://www.fastcompany.com/3009947/wher ... egal-pinch

[___seinfeld____]

When I said "affect less people" I was talking about the legal implications. Sure, clicking the "I'm 18" buttons on sites isn't that harmful, but seeing these laws and things is pretty scary. I agree that distributing porn at my age really isn't the best idea, but unfortunately it's become habit. I haven't checked nor am planning to check my tumblr today, so that's progress. I'm going to break the cycle because I don't want to be "that teenager who overdoes it on porn". In fact the other day, I was browsing kik groups for lgbt teenagers and thought I found a decent group. There was one guy who I became friendly with and we exchanged pictures (not nudes, just faces), but after 15 minutes of harmless texting he sends me a picture of his penis. And using my knowledge from that summer I quickly shut it down and told him I wasn't interested. It just got creepy after that. In my time blind sexting back then, there were definitely a lot of adults fine with communicating with a minor, which I found really odd.

But back to the blog:
After my experience last night, I realized I'm making progress. In order to feel better about distributing porn as a minor I will have to ease out of it over time. I doubt I'll delete my blog because I have spent quite a lot of time on it, but will no longer be active once I break the cycle. I have serious doubts they'll "catch" me for being underage and as long as I know I'm over it, I think I'll be okay. (It sure doesn't help to know that tumblr tracks your location and IP address though)

[Sam W]

Hi Seinfeld,

Something that might help you sort out your feelings is to make a list of how your blog benefits you and then make a list of how it negatively impacts you. Sorting through the pluses and minuses can often help us clarify a situation. It may also help you to think specifically about your feelings about the risks of this situation. Do the risks make you feel scared and anxious only, or is there an element of thrill to what you're feeling.

I'm also curious to hear if you have other places in your life where you feel as proud as you do about your blog. In other words, are there other things (drama, sports, writing, cooking, etc) that you feel as though you can point to as achievements?

[___seinfeld____]

Oh, god, please believe me I'm not proud of my blog, nor do I consider it an important part of my life. It's just porn y'know? The only pluses of my blog are that I have all the porn I enjoy in once place. I don't really converse with my followers, because I'd feel weird misleading them like I did when I blind sexted.

I'm honestly pretty academic, social, and have many other interests. If porn was the only thing about my life that'd suck pretty bad.

The risks make do me feel anxious when I think about them, and one reason I manage the blog is that I just like porn. When I sexted, it was a HUGE thrill. I would've continued if I hadn't felt bad about it and had the judgement to stop. I wouldn't say it's thrilling, more like exciting, when I discover an artist or person on tumblr who does erotica work I really like.

[Heather]

Usually, if there's only one plus to something, and more than -- especially if it's a lot more than -- one downside, it's usually worth thinking about making a change. You didn't list any of your downsides in this reply -- like the feeling of fear you first brought here, for example -- but if one plus is all you've got, and it's just about having all your own porn in one place, you can get that same benefit by moving what you have there over to your own computer, or making that tumblr totally private.

Not saying you have to do that, but one plus isn't a whole lot, for anything. When I have only on benefit of something I can think of, but more than one way a thing isn't benefitting me, I'm usually going to want to change that up and find another way to get that benefit.

Where can we take this from here with you? Would you like to talk about it all some more, or are you feeling more clear already, or...?

[___seinfeld____]

Oh man, that's right I forgot the downsides. Managing the blog takes up a decent amount of time when I do decide to check it, and of course, there's always the guilt and fear of being caught. It's true the main upside is having it all in one place and finding something I really like. And, following my pledge, the last week I've managed to keep my time checking it to every other day. And I do feel a little cleaner.

Before then it would feel like a chore to check it because I didn't want my dashboard to fill up. But now that I'm checking on my own time and unfollowing a lot of people, it's working out better for me. I hope to drop it eventually until I'm 18 but until then I'll check it when I feel like it and drop the obsession I have with sorting through my word doc of links and things.