What is “Sexting”?
May 12, 2009
by Amy Siskind
|I recently wrote an email to a group of friends and neighbors about The New Agenda and the work we are doing to bring about awareness of the sexualization of our teenage daughters. Several parents emailed me questions about “sexting”. Parents had never even heard the term, let alone known that 22% of teenage girls and 18% of teenage boys have been doing it!
Frankly, up until 2 months ago, I had never heard of sexting either. I appeared on a PBS show called To the Contrary and one of the topics was three teenage girls who had been arrested in Pennsylvania for sexting. Here’s the clip (my part starts at 3:30):
So what is sexting? Sexting is sending nude or semi-nude photos as text messages. In the Pennsylvania case, here’s what the official said:
County district attorney George Skumanick Jr. said that his office could have filed charges against the girls, ranging from “sexual abuse of children in Pennsylvania, criminal [use] of a communications facility, or open lewdness, and there were other possible charges also,” but that his office decided to make an offer of limiting penalties to probation if they attend a sexual harassment program.
And parents beware: this is not an isolated case. As reported in USA Today:
Police have investigated more than two dozen teens in at least six states this year for sending nude images of themselves in cellphone text messages, which can bring a charge of distributing child pornography.
So what to do? Raise awareness. First, we should all sit down with our daughters and sons and explain to them what this is and why it is wrong. Not only is it encouraging the sexualization of our teenage girls, it is also illegal! Let’s also tell our friends in the neighborhood and share this blog piece. I’ll bet if you ask around, almost none of your friends and neighbors know about this modern day problem either.
I agree that children disseminating nude or sexually explicit images of themselves is a bad idea, because images can be forever.
HOWEVER:
It is not wrong for a child to take pictures of themselves, no matter what they are or are not wearing. Your body is your own. We may wish to slow or stop the sexualization of teenage girls, but one of the best ways to do that is to show girls that their bodies are precious, and enforcing the idea that your body is shameful and to be hidden will not achieve this goal.
The legality is also quite ambiguous. Some children have been prosecuted for production and dissemination of child pornography. This is a gray area. Some states have laws in place, others are formulating their own, and some have nothing on the subject, leaving it to the will of the prosecutor. Many people feel that a child who takes nude pictures and sends them to other people is not breaking any law. I personally believe that anyone who passes on or receives such a picture without permission of the owner/creator is certainly in a moral trespass, and possibly engaging in illegal behavior as well.
Finally, this has a “Girls Gone Wild” feel to it. AHHHH, FEMALE SEXUALITY! RUN FOR THE HILLS! Girls are not the only ones interested in documenting their bodies, although they are the ones talked about by the media and prosecuted by the DAs. Double standard. Again.
“I agree that children disseminating nude or sexually explicit images of themselves is a bad idea……. ” Like maybe if pedophiles and rapists got hold of them? What if a 15 yr old textd a nude picture of herself to her 18 yr old boyfriend and he shared /textd with friends? Hmmm, I wonder if that really happens?? (duh) The law would be rather clear on that in prosecuting him for child porn. What about 10 yr olds doing this? 12 yr olds? Prohibiting this is not telling non-adult girls their bodies are shameful, what an odd notion, it is telling them their bodies are not common fodder. So how many here are OK with their daughters texting nude/semi nude pictures of themselves and how many think it is their right to do so?
I think as long as it is between two consenting people, and not, for instance, an adult taking advantage of a child (rape) it’s legal. This is obviously again a double standard of punishing women for what men want from them.
- pity the teen coerced by unseen forces of patriarchy who has her textd picture disseminated then later gets vulgar texts from eveyone other than Mr. Right whom she trusted or her friends who thought it was cool to share the pictures – pity the hapless parents who can only stand by in a state of confused cultural relativism, forever victims themselves. I’m still waiting to hear how many readers who are mothers find this texting somehow acceptable and the right of a minor to do so.
Teenagers today only see the positive values of our information society. I’m a former high school teacher, and it was hard to convince my students that a thing they posted online, texted, or emailed was out in the world for life and once posted or sent, they no longer had any control over where it went, who saw it, or how it was used. I’m sure that in the past foolish young people took sexually explicit photos of themselves and handed them to a lover or friend, but the forward transmission of the photos was linear. The photos could only be seen by as many people as could physically get handed the photo. Today the photo can get a million hits in no time. We have given our children a valuable tool, but like any tool, it needs to come with a good instruction manual and a set of warnings that are clearly spelled out.
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