It creates a difficult line. Presumably the intent behind child pornography prohibitions is to prevent the physical exploitation of the children involved.
If a 14 year old girl willingly takes a nude picture of herself and sends it to her 14-year-old boyfriend I think most people would agree that there was nothing to protect. When the boyfriend leaves it in his printer where his 20-year-old brother finds it. He has no idea who the girl is and can't easily tell she is only 14 and puts it on his dorm room wall.
Has this become child pornography yet? The dorm RA, who is majoring in forensic anthropology sees telltale signs in the picture, realizes she can't be older than 15 and calls the police. Is "I didn't know for sure she was young a valid defense?"
The RA call to the police doesn't happen but his brother visits and says "hey, you have a naked picture of my girlfriend on the wall!" He then realizes she must be 14 or so. Has a previously not-child-pornography now become child pornography simply through this realization. Does it matter that the child involved willingly participated in its production and was never directly exploited?
An 11-year-old pre-pubescent girl takes a picture of herself naked and sends it a friend because she hears it is the cool thing to do. The also 11-year-old friend giggles over it then forgets it. 10 years later that friend rediscovers the photo and begins a lifelong habit of masturbating to that image daily. Did it at some point become child pornography when it wasn't before?
I don't know where I would draw the line on all these situations but I can understand why the police would prefer it be kept a clear line in the sand: Nobody gets to take naked pictures of minors and nobody gets to possess those pictures rather than dealing with a defense of "hey, she took that picture herself, I just stole it off her hard drive when we were repairing it."
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