Let's Talk About Sex(ting) Baby...

Sexting, the sending of nude or sexually explicit photos via cell phone picture mail, is becoming a growing phenomenon in American culture. Awareness is just starting to build about this issue, unfortunately in the wrong way.

In recent months, dozens of children ⎯ children, people under the age of 18 ⎯ have been prosecuted for the possession and/or distribution of child pornography. In specific, for sending explicit photos of themselves to, or possessing photos of, their boyfriends or girlfriends who, in most cases, are also underage. These are serious charges, felony charges, applicable to as simple a thing as an underage person having an unshared, private nude photo of themselves with no distribution whatsoever.

This is rank absurdity. I understand, and acknowledge the need to protect children from the predations of pedophiles and pederasts, but what I am talking about generally involves no adults. This is a blatant example of our laws and opinions not keeping up with the level of technology in our society. I, and I expect most reasonable persons, cannot accept that it is right or ethical to charge a 16-year-old with a felony for sending a snapshot of her breasts to her 16-year-old boyfriend. Distasteful, perhaps. Exhibiting incredibly poor judgment, absolutely. Distributing child pornography? Get real.

This is for the most part the information age equivalent of playing doctor or, “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.” It is a natural, logical leap in a teen’s expression of developing newfound sexuality. To think that this wouldn’t eventually happen is just silly and shortsighted on the part of legislators. The laws need to be fixed, as none of these people even remotely fall under the spirit of the laws created against child porn.

However, that is not to say that I explicitly condone this practice. It is stupid and reckless. Parents are doing a very poor job in educating their children about the workings of the internet, and data itself. Possibly because those parents have done a poor job of educating themselves on that same subject, but that is no valid excuse.

Kids take a very real risk when transmitting these images to other people, and one that too many simply aren’t aware of. Bits are, for all intensive purposes, eternal. Once something is shoved through cyberspace, someone has a copy of it. And someone will almost certainly always have a copy of it, and that someone may not just be the person it was sent to. But that’s big-picture hazard, and a little less immediate than what is more likely to happen.

These kids are sending sensitive information, easily as potentially life altering or career impeding as an identity theft, to someone they are 99.9 percent likely to break up with. And when that inevitably happens, those sensitive pictures often end up on MySpace, other social networking or personal websites. Sure, there are plenty of stand-up people that will respect their former SO’s wishes to delete said picture, but most are arrogant or aggrieved jackasses that will take any opportunity to exact what petty revenge they may. And once a photo is presented in that manner, it truly is out there forever. Someone downloaded it. Some sicko, or even a normal teenager, is probably rubbing one out to just this sort of pic as I am posting this right now. This is the real risk, and ought to be the only concern of teens, and their parents.

I would like to go on a tirade about how our society’s irresponsible teaching of such silliness as abstinence-only sex education, and our pro-violence anti-sex culture only serves to push kids to explore things like this with no guidance whatsoever. But, I will leave that for another day.

First, kids need to be made explicitly aware of the risks and dangers of this practice. (which, right now includes a potential felony charge) But, more importantly, parents need to work on cultivating the kind of relationships with their kids that allows them to talk about subjects like this in absence of judgment or bias, to provide kids with truthful information about this and sex in general. I would recommend to any parent of a child that is potentially sexually active, or is of the age where they likely will be sexually active in the foreseeable future, to purchase a copy of the Guide to Getting it On. It can be found on Amazon for under $20. This is a sex-positive book, meaning that it covers virtually all manner and orientations regarding sexuality, that has info on about any question a kid could possibly ask about sex. It is all based on scientific data and study, and is presented in a very matter-of-fact way. It is a great resource, and I would also suggest that if your child is going off to college, please give them a copy of this book, if only to help raise their awareness of all of the risks, and amelioration of such, that are involved with sex.

I am loath to advocate this next point, and it should be a last resort. But, if you suspect your child is involved in sexting, and you are unable to talk to your child about it, maybe you should check their phone. If you are paying for their phone, you certainly have the right to access it, but you should exercise whatever best judgment you can when considering this “nuclear option.” DO NOT do this if your kid pays for his/her own phone. If they pay for it, they own it and you have absolutely no right to invade it. To do so would simply undermine further what little authority you may have left with them, and essentially tell them that it okay to do the same to others.

Parents need to know about this, because kids need to be taught the truth about what consequences surround this sexting activity.