Since both concern the exploitation of minors, whatever the difference is is negligible. If caught engaging in these activities, you go to jail either way.

To start with let's look at child porn: A good working definition of child porn would be: "recorded images taken from life that explicitly depict prepubescent children engaging in sexual acts." The reason for limiting the term to this category is that the word child is not commonly used anymore to describe teenage minors. Pornography that involves minors who are sexually mature (not prepubescent) should be referred as "underage porn", as it already is in many cases (the 80's porn star Traci Lords' films, which she made while successfully pretending to be an adult, are an example). Underage porn is every bit as illegal as Child Porn in most countries, but it is very arguably categorically different than child porn. It is true, The legal definition of child pornography in most (not all) countries does include explicit photos or videos of teenagers and is sometimes interpreted as including nude photography or even photos of suggestively posed scantily clad minors. Nude images of minors are only illegal if they are deemed obscene, I.E. Lacking in artistic merit and educational value and arousing prurient interest. Photos/videos of scantily clad and/or suggestively posed minors are not illegal anymore than it is illegal for teenagers to wear revealing clothing or pose suggestively. This last type of images, which I just described as being definitley legal, are what are commonly referred to as "jailbait" photos/videos. They are not child porn because they do not depict sexual acts or nudity and they never include young children. The word jailbait refers to the fact that under most U.S. state law, an adult person who has sex with a minor can be charged with statutory rape and can therefore be jailed. Describing underage teenage girls as jail "bait" is based on the assumption that adult males are sexually attracted to girls who are sexually developed but legally underage, and indeed it would seem that many are. Many teenagers also look at jailbait photos/videos- they are the ones from whom the great majority of the photo and video material comes from in the first place: Teenage Girls or boys or their friends or partners using their digital cameras wanting to capture themselves looking their cutest/hotest/sexiest. Showing off their outfits, their make up, their bodies and their moves. The material isn't jailbait as far as the teenagers are concerned-although it may be every bit as pleasing or arousing to look at. It only becomes jailbait when it is collected by adults who fantasize about having sex with real "jailbait". Child Porn, on the other hand, is always child porn from the moment it is created to when it is destroyed. Jailbait is different from child porn. It is not sexually explicit and it does not presuppose the exploitation of the minor by an adult as it surely does in the case of child porn or in certain cases underage porn. It does not depict or show evidence of any crime and is therefore not in the realm of the criminal.

The word Jailbait is used to describe someone who may be attractive but is still under the legal age for consentual adult relations...For example...Dave was about to honk the horn at a woman who was walking down the street when she turned around and he saw that she was jailbait...Where Child porn is the act of photographing/video taping minors nude or while engauged in sexual acts...The first(jailbait)can be an honest mistake however the second should be punishable by death...But that is just my opinion...