Sexting: A crime or kids being kids?

There has been a lot of discussion about sexting, the act of sending nude pictures over cell phones, in the news lately. A prosecutor in Pennsylvannia threatened to charge 3 teenage girls with sexual abuse of a minor for taking pictures of themselves wearing bras and sending the pictures to friends from their camera phones. That's right: the prosecutor was basically stating that the girls had sexually abused themselves. He justified his actions by stating that their pictures were child pornography. If convicted, the girls could serve time in prison and be forced to register as sex offenders.

Huh?

Look, I don't think anyone would argue that sexting is a really, really stupid thing to do. Really stupid. Monumentally stupid. But is it really a crime to simply be guilty of being a stupid teenager? Last time I checked, it was not illegal for a person to take pictures of him or herself, naked or not.

Now, what you might ask, would I consider a crime? Receiving said pictures and then sending them on to other people without permission, like what Phillip Alpert did. In a temper, Alpert, who was 18 at the time, forwarded nude pics of his 16-year-old girlfriend, which she had sent to him, on to family and friends. However, I don't think that such an action should be a felony, which was what Alpert was convicted of, and I certainly don't believe that it is an act that requires registering as a sex offender. I think that it should be a misdemeanor, perhaps along the lines of harassment. This might discourage teens and adults from not only forwarding such pictures on, but just might discourage some of them from taking such pictures. Because heaven knows, you can tell a teenager not to do something until you are blue in the face, but in the end, it's their decision and they have to deal with the consequences. Let's just make sure the consequences fit the crime...or lack thereof.