Figure Photo SF wrote:
SG style = sexually provocative
Sexually provocative images of minors = not a good idea.

By saying "not a good idea" you really mean "potentially illegal under 2257" right?

OP.  I am really amazed that you even asked this question as it really does show a lack of some general understanding regarding the current laws on the books.........

Here is what I predict (not referring to the OP directly however)....

In this digital age where EVERYONE is a photographer and EVERYONE wants to create published content, there are going to be a LOT of GWC's who have NO idea as to the current law (and regulations that support it) are going to get themselves in a LOT of deep doo-doo.  Why?  Because they think "hey, if Sally Mann could do it, so can I."  Or they think "well, the girl is 18 so all I have to do is shoot her and get a model release."

Yah, right.  Good luck with that....  Sally would have real trouble in the 2257 world and so will you.  Please keep in mind that failure to comply with the record keeping issues of 2257 is a FELONY in and of itself.

Vitalis Photography wrote:
Hi Folks,

As a 29 year old, female photographer...I have read this thread with both 'hmmm, there's a thought' and 'Geezus are we still in the dark ages?' responses. I won't restate what has already been said here...but as a woman and soon to be mother...Kaitlin speaks from a very insightful position. America is known as both sexually repressed and sexually controlling. We hold ideas and beliefs here that are little more that joke material in other civilized and developed cultures. I always found it amusing that here in American at the tender age of '18' you can...

1. Shed blood and die for your country
2. Get an abortion
3. Legally leave home and become anything you want (Make a million bucks or die on the street, a pauper)
4. Live off the welfare of your state
5. Pay most of what you earn, working your ass off, to the Gov.

BUT...at 17 you are only a child. Sure, maturity continues all throughout life...but just because you are more mature at 27 than you are at 17...doesn't make you a child at 17. THATS an American idea. If you think other wise...go spend a year in Europe, Germany, Italy, Prague, France...etc.

Just my thoughts.
Michele

Thanks so much for the insight, and for adding to the debate, as an unquestionable adult who's on the more liberal side of the issue. You make very good points.

Jphoto wrote:
Shoot the day after they turn 18!!

And, depending on the nature of the shoot, comply with 2257

Vitalis Photography wrote:
Hi Folks,

As a 29 year old, female photographer...I have read this thread with both 'hmmm, there's a thought' and 'Geezus are we still in the dark ages?' responses. I won't restate what has already been said here...but as a woman and soon to be mother...Kaitlin speaks from a very insightful position. America is known as both sexually repressed and sexually controlling. We hold ideas and beliefs here that are little more that joke material in other civilized and developed cultures. I always found it amusing that here in American at the tender age of '18' you can...

1. Shed blood and die for your country
2. Get an abortion
3. Legally leave home and become anything you want (Make a million bucks or die on the street, a pauper)
4. Live off the welfare of your state
5. Pay most of what you earn, working your ass off, to the Gov.

BUT...at 17 you are only a child. Sure, maturity continues all throughout life...but just because you are more mature at 27 than you are at 17...doesn't make you a child at 17. THATS an American idea. If you think other wise...go spend a year in Europe, Germany, Italy, Prague, France...etc.

Just my thoughts.
Michele

Correct me if I am wrong but, generally, ALL societies around the world have "brightline tests" as to when the individual is an "adult in the eyes of the law" and when one is not.

The ages may change.  Some may be younger than 18 and some my be older (I don't know) but, it is my general understanding that there is a "bright-line" in most cultures.

If my understanding is correct, I do not understand the gist of your post.

Vitalis Photography wrote:

I think this is pretty fucked up actually. You are amused over thoroughly fucked up things in our culture (I take exception to abortion. IMHO, I think a woman's right to abortion is a civil right). But what exactly does your list have to do with shooting sexually oriented images of a 17 year old girl???

And I swear to fucking christ, I'm so sick of people talking about how repressed we are in the U.S. regarding sexuality. We have our hang ups but anybody that thinks we are more fucked up than some other cultures in the world is an untraveled idiot. America is also known in many cultures as the world's whore house.

"Pay most of what you earn,"??? Really? What country do you live in? MOST? Lots but not most.

Sugar coated mindless garbage.

If 18 is too old to draw the line where would you like it to be? 16? 14? 12?

Vitalis Photography wrote:
America is known as both sexually repressed and sexually controlling.

Muahahahahaha!  Us?  Repressed?  LOL!  Surely not.  Muahahahahahahahahaha!

There is nothing more fun for folks in the US than getting a few fellow citizens to pull their favorite garden implement out of the shed, light up a torch, and gather together in a mob on the city square for a good ol' moral crusade to protect America's youth from the evil designs of every male who even talks to a child as if they might have a will and intellect of their own.  After all, why would anyone treat a child as someone capable of independent thought, if not to kidnap them, rape them, cut them up, and eat the pieces?

To merely say that the US is sexually repressed is now so short of the mark as to be almost meaningless.  People in the US are fully engulfed in a mass hysteria where everyone can't wait to show how morally superior they are for fear of being branded a pervert themselves.  After all, if you don't support every law claiming to  protect children, it can only be because you want to hurt them.

Noah wrote:
I just don't understand this mesmerizing allure young women have over men...

If adult men weren't sexually attracted to teenage girls none of you Puritans would be breathing today. If you don't believe it, just go back and search your family tree. You won't have to look very far to discover that you are the spawn of perverted pedophiles, or so says the American Taliban.

Atomic Box Studios wrote:
What do you do. Or how do you handle a client who is not 18, but will be in a few months and wants to do a suicidegirl style shot. My first thought is NO. What are some suggestions, advice...Just straight answers

As all know I am very outspoken about shooting with under 18 and do it often.  However, in this case, if it is for SG you better wait given what a set submtted to the site is to include.  Total nudity is to be included by the end of the set.

c_d_s wrote:

If adult men weren't sexually attracted to teenage girls none of you Puritans would be breathing today. If you don't believe it, just go back and search your family tree. You won't have to look very far to discover that you are the spawn of perverted pedophiles, or so says the American Taliban.

This was true in biblical times as well.  (my degree is in this)  Girls routinely married at 13-14 to older men, 20-30.  It is a CULTURAL thing, has NOTHING to do with morality at all.  Some always say it is a morality issue.  That is BS.  If we lived in another country it is done all the time.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:

It sounds like you're trying to make the OP out to be some perv. I'm just defending him, because there is nothing more morally wrong about finding a 17 year old attractive than there is about finding an 18 year old attractive. That why I mention my age, and the fact that men in their 50s have hit on me. It's normal for men to be attracted physically to fully physically developed women. That includes most 17 year olds. Doesn't make the guy a pedophile or anything...it just makes him normal.

And how you define "matured" or "developed is just how YOU define those words. Biologically, yes...I am a woman. I could give birth to a child. That makes me a fully developed woman as I define it. I never said I was fully developed mentally. No one is. It has nothing to do with age.

Agreed!!!!!!!!!!  Finally some sense.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:

I'm not open to the point you're making because you're arguing against something I'm not saying. I never said all 17 year olds are hot. I'm saying that a hot 17 year old is hot regardless of whether or not they are 17, and that they often possess all the PHYSICAL attributes that are attractive to the opposite sex. I'm not even talking about mentally or emotionally, so I don't know why you keep bringing that up. I never once said that 17 year olds are mentally or emotionally developed.

Pull the age card all you want. My age doesn't make my points invalid any more than your age makes your arguing against things I didn't say valid.

Kaitlin is making more sense in this debate. It is a societal thing.  Look through history, even in biblical times.  Girls married and had kids at 13, 14, 15, etc.  They were regarded as women!  Why don't WE regard them as women now in the U.S?  Because of a Puritan influence maybe that tells us only perverts are attracted to a hot 17 year old female??  That is ridiculous.  You don't turn attraction off and on because of an age.  I know several girls who are friends of mine, 16-18 who I consider to be hot and they know it.  And we shoot.  Nothing sexual involved at all but they are hot!  I dated a 19 year old girl a while because we attracted to one another.  All of this has NOTHING to do with morality, maturity, etc.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:

Well thanks I just don't like to see anyone unfairly accused of anything. I didn't think there was anything evil or perverse about your question. IMHO, the perversion came from the minds of those who twisted it into something perverse.

Yep!  Anyone who has had courses in psychology know of this.

c_d_s wrote:

If adult men weren't sexually attracted to teenage girls none of you Puritans would be breathing today. If you don't believe it, just go back and search your family tree. You won't have to look very far to discover that you are the spawn of perverted pedophiles, or so says the American Taliban.

Lol...*heart* Thank you.

KINGDOM Photography wrote:
I have seen an amateur / semi-pro female model (under 18) on a different modeling site similar to MM, and she looks better than 75% of the female models on here. hahaha.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:

He just said he's going to wait. Man...everyone hates this poor guy today...lol

I don't hate him, it's just that when people usually raise a question like this and say that they're not going to do it, they usually do it on the sneak tip because they're just gaging how much trouble they could get into and they want to learn what to avoid so they won't get caught.

Most times.

Natas Vandele wrote:

I don't hate him, it's just that when people usually raise a question like this and say that they're not going to do it, they usually do it on the sneak tip because they're just gaging how much trouble they could get into and they want to learn what to avoid so they won't get caught.

Most times.

I didn't mean you hate him...I just feel bad that so many people are jumping all over him. Others have been making crazy comments that didn't really have anything to do with what he said.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:

I didn't mean you hate him...I just feel bad that so many people are jumping all over him. Others have been making crazy comments that didn't really have anything to do with what he said.

Yea, I saw. Long as he actually doesn't do it, he should be ok. it's none of my business anyway.

Atomic Box Studios wrote:
...I've already decided not to shoot her, unless she is 18. I still want to see where this goes.

This has been the gist of what I'm getting at the entire time.

The above is SUCH a no-brainer answer that I just cannot understand ANY resistance to that answer.

To me it smacks of two things - you pick which shoe fits best:
- the sheer stupidity of facing a situation where your entire life can be changed by the consequences of a few actions you have complete control over (sexual predator never looks good on your resume... and that's all anyone would see of the matter once you got out of jail)
OR
- simple sexual titillation that is so powerful that you'd be willing to cross these socio-cultural-legal lines to satisfy it.

Whatever your reasons, the answer I'm quoting above is the obvious choice to make.

-"Shes under 18 and wants to do some SG style shots - ???what to do???"
-"wait till she's 18! DUH!"

I'd like to thank Kaitlin for such a long and civil discussion. I stand behind every statement I've said, and I too see that we've been talking past each other - and yes,   we do see things from different points of view. That's the way the world works. I have no ill feelings for those who disagree with me. I don't, however, have such light pastel feelings for those who act in ways which hurt others - particularly hurting kids.

Thinking about this conversation last night did two things for me -
1: got me back to my blog http://slowmovingphoton.blogspot.com/
2: led me to boil down my argument to something I've said many times in the last few years - "you cannot legislate good people". No amount of Law, or Social pressure will turn people with dubious intention into "good citizens".

Hey - ABS - I'm glad you liked watching the fireworks. If you got your toes stepped on, well, maybe you might have come into the conversation earlier and spoken your peace a little sooner. I still hold that your "questioning" on the matter does not bode well, simply because the proper answer is SO blatant.

Serevende Photography wrote:
If 18 is too old to draw the line where would you like it to be? 16? 14? 12?

Well, 16 is currently the age of consent in Britain but there is some serious discussion about lowering it even further to 15 or 14.

IIRC in Holland and Spain it's like 12.

OTOH... Britain also, just a couple of years ago, RAISED the age for certain photography to 18. So, in the end, you can legally screw someone that you couldn't photograph while you were doing it.

Age is not the only deciding factor, if it figures in at all, in some societies. Muslims, for example, and often in rural communities do not ordinarily celebrate birthdays. One third world place I worked, non-Muslim in that case, actually used a girl's weight as the deciding factor and which assumed, and pre-supposed but not completely irrationally, that once the/a girl reached the weight then she was also old enough.

Studio36

studio36uk wrote:

Well, 16 is currently the age of consent in Britain but there is some serious discussion about lowering it even further to 15 or 14.

IIRC in Holland and Spain it's like 12.

In Alabama the age is 17 for pictures, but it's something like 10 if you want to get married, provided it's to someone in your immediate family...

Dave Krueger wrote:
In Alabama the age is 17 for pictures, but it's something like 10 if you want to get married, provided it's to someone in your immediate family...

Well that I can understand. Without such allowances there wouldn't be any guest pool  for the Jerry Springer Show.

Cousins that lay together, stay together.

Studio36

sofija wrote:
OMG...when did SG become porn??????

*starts checking the 2001/2002 rolodexes*

Serevende Photography wrote:

I think this is pretty fucked up actually. You are amused over thoroughly fucked up things in our culture (I take exception to abortion. IMHO, I think a woman's right to abortion is a civil right). But what exactly does your list have to do with shooting sexually oriented images of a 17 year old girl???

And I swear to fucking christ, I'm so sick of people talking about how repressed we are in the U.S. regarding sexuality. We have our hang ups but anybody that thinks we are more fucked up than some other cultures in the world is an untraveled idiot. America is also known in many cultures as the world's whore house.

"Pay most of what you earn,"??? Really? What country do you live in? MOST? Lots but not most.

Sugar coated mindless garbage.

If 18 is too old to draw the line where would you like it to be? 16? 14? 12?

Since my 'mindless garbage' was apparently of enough substance to stimulate your impressive vocabulary, let me see if I can add another word to your collection:

Sarcasm

Meditate on that and then see if some of the phrasing of my post makes any more sense to you. If not...I enjoyed your response anyway. It made me appreciate my education that much more.

And yes...we are sexually repressed here - as a people. The very fact that 'Nipple-Gate' caused such an uprising in our society should be an indicator.

Noah wrote:

This has been the gist of what I'm getting at the entire time.

The above is SUCH a no-brainer answer that I just cannot understand ANY resistance to that answer.

To me it smacks of two things - you pick which shoe fits best:
- the sheer stupidity of facing a situation where your entire life can be changed by the consequences of a few actions you have complete control over (sexual predator never looks good on your resume... and that's all anyone would see of the matter once you got out of jail)
OR
- simple sexual titillation that is so powerful that you'd be willing to cross these socio-cultural-legal lines to satisfy it.

I'd just like to point out that there is at least one other option...and that is that we're all misconstruing what the model in question meant by SG style. That doesn't necessarily mean it will be nude or sexually explicit. It could just mean glamour shots of an alternative model.

studio36uk wrote:
One third world place I worked, non-Muslim in that case, actually used a girl's weight as the deciding factor and which assumed, and pre-supposed but not completely irrationally, that once the/a girl reached the weight then she was also old enough.

Studio36

Oh dear sweet Jesus. I would never be able to have sex. I'd have to kill myself.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:

I'd just like to point out that there is at least one other option...and that is that we're all misconstruing what the model in question meant by SG style. That doesn't necessarily mean it will be nude or sexually explicit. It could just mean glamour shots of an alternative model.

I brought that up pages ago and was summarily ignored. Maybe you can get a better response.

Atomic Box Studios wrote:
What do you do. Or how do you handle a client who is not 18, but will be in a few months and wants to do a suicidegirl style shot. My first thought is NO. What are some suggestions, advice...Just straight answers

this will not match my typical answer on this subject... however...

1) SG does not accept photographs that were taken before the model was 18.

2) SG is officially pornography per their own description.

3) Pornography of minors is in fact illegal

4) If no one ever shot another "SG style shot" it would be too soon.

so the answer should be no... along with an explanation that posession of pornography of anyone under  the age of even by the model him/herself can result in jail time for the person in possession of that pornography.

jimmy blanton wrote:
The D.A. do[es] not and will not give a damn about creativity and your good charactor[sic] when it concerns about[sic] taking sensuous[sic] photos of a minor.

The District Attorney may not, however the statutes, laws, and judges do consider all those factors and more.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:
So am I not hot because I'm 19? Because I can find you a shitpile of men way older than me who find me attractive. In fact...just go to my page and you'll see in my credits a list of 20-some men who found me attractive enough to shoot me. There's a reason Playboy and Maxim shoots young women. Because they're attractive.

*phew*  That's a relief, 'cause I'm old enough to be your daddy (just barely) and I think you're hot. 

Kaitlin Lara wrote:
I'm not saying people should have sex with 17 year olds, or shoot them nude. I don't want anyone thinking I'm advocating doing ANYTHING illegal. I'm not.

Just as a point of reference, it's NOT illegal in many cases to photograph a 17 yr old nude OR to have sex with one (dependent on state statutes), it's just a bad IDEA since (eww factor aside) it can still create a world of trouble for you.

MurphyMurphy Studios wrote:

By saying "not a good idea" you really mean "potentially illegal under 2257" right?

OP.  I am really amazed that you even asked this question as it really does show a lack of some general understanding regarding the current laws on the books.........

Here is what I predict (not referring to the OP directly however)....

In this digital age where EVERYONE is a photographer and EVERYONE wants to create published content, there are going to be a LOT of GWC's who have NO idea as to the current law (and regulations that support it) are going to get themselves in a LOT of deep doo-doo.  Why?  Because they think "hey, if Sally Mann could do it, so can I."  Or they think "well, the girl is 18 so all I have to do is shoot her and get a model release."

Yah, right.  Good luck with that....  Sally would have real trouble in the 2257 world and so will you.  Please keep in mind that failure to comply with the record keeping issues of 2257 is a FELONY in and of itself.

I doubt a GWC would even know who Sally Mann is.

Kaitlin Lara wrote:
I wouldn't do a 17 year old because I don't want to get arrested. If it weren't illegal, I'd certainly bone a hot 17 year old. I'm only 19 after all.

Ummm, Kaitlin . . . bone away.  In Pennsylvania the age of consent for sex is 16.  You just can't take pictures of it until they are 18.

MurphyMurphy Studios wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong but, generally, ALL societies around the world have "brightline tests" as to when the individual is an "adult in the eyes of the law" and when one is not.

The ages may change.  Some may be younger than 18 and some my be older (I don't know) but, it is my general understanding that there is a "bright-line" in most cultures.

If my understanding is correct, I do not understand the gist of your post.

Actually those laws are often VERY murky.
Here in the US, for instance, age of consent for sex varies widely from state to state.  Rules on alcohol and tobacco consumption do as well (most states just have "no purchase" laws based on federal badgering set at 18 & 21, they don't necessarily specify use or possession); in many states you can be emancipated at 16 & have adult legal status for most things conferred on you; you can join the military & go to combat at 17; you can be charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced as an adult at ages down to 13 in some cases, and more.
Basically the only things set in stone in this country on age basis are 18 to vote & buy tobacco (but even there states could allow tobacco purchase and voting in state elections if they wished), and 21 to buy alcohol but there again laws could be changed at any time.
So even in the US the "bright line" isn't as shiny as many people think.

James Jacksonthat posession of pornography of anyone under  the age of even by the model him/herself can result in jail time for the person in possession of that pornography.[/quote wrote:

In the 'Big Picture' of things...this sums it up. We can argue morals, ideals, cultural differences and acceptable social behaviors until our lens crack from old age...but at the end of the day - in order to stay in business we have to obey the 'laws of the land'. We aren't required to agree with all of them...nor are we required to keep silent in such a situation where we don't agree with them; but we do have to uphold them if we want to sleep in our own bed at night...lol

It really has been interesting and quite educational to see such spirited, at times almost hostile, responses to the question of age and appropriate photography.

M