BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. – Students at a California high school were asked to turn in their yearbooks after a photo was discovered inside the memory book of two students possibly engaged in a sex act, authorities said Thursday.

San Bernardino County investigators were notified Tuesday and Big Bear High School employees and detectives began collecting the yearbooks in the mountain community at Big Bear Lake, 70 miles east of Los Angeles.

The background of a school dance photo shows a 17-year-old boy's hand inside the clothing of a 15-year-old girl in a way that suggests sexual penetration.

"The photo was taken at a dance and the suspect and victim are not the focus of the photo. They are in the background and likely didn't know they were in the photo," said sheriff's spokeswoman Cynthia Bachman.

It went unnoticed by the yearbook adviser.

"When the adviser scanned the photo, it was very easy to overlook," Bachman said.

But the scandalous picture didn't escape student notice after the yearbooks were distributed.

"You know, how you look at a photo and don't notice what's in the background? Then, it's, `Oh my gosh, look what's going on back there,'" Bachman said.

Authorities said no one has been arrested but they released no other information on the boy and girl.

Most students have returned the yearbooks for editing, which involves covering the suspect photo with another page or another photograph.

Detectives were contacting students who haven't turned in yearbooks with a warning they could face a charge of possessing child porn.

Telephone calls to the principal's office were referred to the school district. Tim Larson, spokesman for the Bear Valley Unified School District, didn't immediately return a telephone message.

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wtf...children can get charged with sex offences and then end up on sex offender registries for sexting but the school officials can just get away with this shit?!

It was okay in Harry Potter but not for a school photo? They never asked for my DVD copy back.

School officials are not in charge of yearbooks. The students are. The officials should not be punished for what the students did. 

I think they are handling this in the best and most fair way possible.

Time to check my yearbook...

school officials are responsible for what happens on school property.

I was expecting something very different from the title of this thread ...

This is just a generic mistake that could happen in any year book in any school in the western world. Either someone slacked off and didn't look closely at the picture, an honest mistake happened and someone missed what was in the picture, or a teenage editor thought it would be funny/cool to include it

If you mean the actual sex act, then yes, the school should've noticed and taken action against that at the dance. 

But the yearbook is a student-run organization and they are the ones personally responsible for this. It was a simple mistake that NO ONE was aware of. Why should any school official get in trouble for what the students unintentionally did? 

First of all, I'm pretty sure that that would not be child pornography.

Wait, *checks legal dictionaries*

Lol, that is ludicrous.

Pornography is the depiction of sexual behavior that is intended to arouse sexual excitement in its audience.

Child pornography is the visual representation of minors under the age of 18 engaged in sexual activity or the visual representation of minors engaging in lewd or erotic behavior designed to arouse the viewer's sexual interest.

So if the people were 18, it would not legally be porn, because it was not intended to arouse sexual excitement.

If the people were naked, aged 15 and 17 and were just standing there sipping their soda, it would not legally be porn - it does not show minors engaged in sexual activity, and it is not designed to arouse the viewer's sexual interest.