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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    3

    Default Minor Daughter is Engaging in Sexual Banter With Adults on Her Phone

    My question involves criminal law for the state of: California

    Hey guys
    I have been an expertlaw forum stalker for a while and have really enjoyed some of the great advice and discussions all of you contributors facilitate. However, I never thought that I would actually need to use it for my own needs. Well here I am!

    I am a mother living in California and don't really know how to do deal with something that has recently come up regarding my daughter. I regularly check my daughter's phone to make sure that my 15 year old daughter doesn't engage in any inappropriate apps or discussions on her phone. Well, yesterday I checked her phone and some disturbing things came up.

    I was scrolling through her pictures on her camera and she had pictures describing an explicit truth or dare game followed by screenshots of explicit messages from a conversation. I brought this up with her and she said that she was bored and using this anonymous chatting app to "have some fun". She told me she never sent info or nude/explicit pictures of herself, but she sent some half body nude pictures of things she found on the internet. I found out according to her that this so called game is played by others at her school as well. Along with that, I discovered that the screenshots of the explicit conversations were over the last 2-3 months and were with random men on the internet many of whom were much older. She told me that these conversations never lasted more than 20-45 minutes and she deleted them when they were over.

    To begin with, I am shocked at this discovery. I have had conversations with my daughter about online activity. However, I never knew this is actually what happens these days. Is this normal behavior for a 15 year old girl or is this some deviant behavior I should be worried about?

    Additionally, I am not sure how to proceed because I feel like bringing this to the attention of the law enforcement. However, all I have is 2 screenshot images of conversations with the other person's username who was chatting with my daughter. The problem is that my there are only a couple explicit exchanges in the conversation and my daughter instigated everything. Also, the app says it is only for 18+ individuals and while my daughter said she always told the people she was chatting with her real age she doesn't have any tangible evidence she told them this because her profile says she is 18. Do you think law enforcement would go through the trouble of tracing anonymous conversations from 2-3 months ago using these screenshot pictures? Or do you think this is not something they would pursue? I have done some research on the internet and I have seen that usually there needs to more information than just this for police to start an investigation.

    Thanks for the help!!!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Posts
    16,474

    Default Re: Advice Needed

    I sincerely doubt that your daughter told the men (ahead of time) that she was only 15. She most likely did not tell them she was only 15 until after the sexual stuff was done, because scaring them like that would be part of the fun.

    If my daughter did something like that at 15 I would impose serious consequences but I would not consider her to be "deviant".

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Posts
    3

    Default Re: Advice Needed

    Thanks for the input.

    I will definitely impose serious consequences and am removing her off of the internet plan on her phone and also using a monitoring app now in addition to some other things.

    I am guessing it will be hard to go after these people she talked to though considering no nudes were exchanged from both parties and that I have no personal info from the other person she chatted to, right? I have a picture of how the person supposedly told my daughter they looked like, but I know it is really not them. (it is a youtube celebrity)

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    8,238

    Default Re: Minor Daughter is Engaging in Sexual Banter With Adults on Her Phone

    First, understand that just talking about sex to a teen is not a crime. Getting sexual/nude photos of teens is the crime of receiving child porn (which also makes the sender, the teen, a criminal). Of course having sex with a teen who has not yet reached the age of consent is a crime, usually a rape offense. But just engaging in “sexual banter” is not, by itself, a crime. This sort of thing isn’t something that every teen does, but it would not amount to “deviant” behavior.

    Thinking about sex and talking about it is pretty common among teens. Especially today when they are bombarded by lots of sexual images and content in the various media they consume. A lot of that media is online through their phones. It’s easy today to find porn on the internet for free, after all. A couple of decades ago if you wanted to see that you had to go to a sleazy adult movie theater that checked to ensure only adults could go in. Giving a teen a smart phone today is giving them the keys to access all kinds of material and opening the doors to meeting all kinds of people that you may not want them to have. It’s hard to police their use of it; kids are pretty smart on how to hide what they do on their phones from their parents. This is one reason why some parents elect not to let their kids have a smart phone until they are adults or near enough that they show the maturity to handle. It may not make the kids popular at school to be the only ones with a cell phone that only makes phone calls or no phone at all, but there is evidence to suggest that smart phones (and too much computer access generally) is not good for kids, including teens.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Posts
    3

    Default Re: Minor Daughter is Engaging in Sexual Banter With Adults on Her Phone

    Yes, you are right. It is my mistake as well.

    I have also done a bit of research and it seems police only investigate things that are much more severe/ have a lot more evidence.

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