In today’s WTF news, an American teenager might have to have a medically-induced erection in order to prove his innocence in a ‘sexting’ case against him.
The 17-year-old from Manassas City, Virginia, is being charged for manufacturing child sex abuse and possession of child sex abuse. He not only faces jail time, but a lifetime on the sex offenders’ database.
Why? Well, he allegedly took a dick-pic and sent it to his 15-year-old girlfriend. In some states, there are laws allowing for teenage couples to sleep with each other even if one of them is underage, so long as the age difference is less than two years. However, this law doesn’t apply to sexting in Virginia.
His lawyer, Jessica Harbeson Foster, has said that the boy has been told by the prosecution that if he doesn’t plead guilty, they will have to issue a search warrant ‘for pictures of his erect penis’ in order to prove that the video sent was of his penis.
Foster asked how this would be done, and says she was told, ‘We just take him down to the hospital, give him a shot and then take the pictures that we need.’ My goal is to stop the search warrant. I don’t want him to go through that. Taking him down to the hospital so he can get an erection in front of all those cops, that’s traumatising.’
Foster told The Washington Post that his genitals have already been photographed without his consent when he was arrested and held in a juvenile facility after police received complaints about the photos from his girlfriend’s mother.
The thing is, if a boy taking a photo of his own penis is manufacturing child sex abuse, then how do the police get a free pass to take photos of his dick? It doesn’t quite make sense to us. Plus, if it’s his own dick, is it really manufacturing child abuse? Are Virginian kids at risk of being done for this every time they send a nudie, or adults every time they post a #tbt of themselves half-clothed as a child? Hopefully some people in charge will see some sense before this medical erection is issued…
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
Picture: Ada Hamza
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.