Vermont considers making “sexting” legal.
There’s a disturbing new trend among teenagers. They call it “sexting.” For example, a girl decides to take pornographic pictures of herself and send them to her boyfriend in a text message. Of course–none of your kids have ever done that. But nearly 1 in 5 other girls have. And they’re not just naked pictures. New York City high school senior Juli Sacontreras says kids send pictures of things like “People using drugs, of people being drunk, maybe doing some other illegal activities,” all the time.
Most of these incredibly stupid messages reach the intended recipient–a boyfriend or girlfriend–but others have gone “viral.” When Jesse Logan and her boyfriend broke up, he forwarded some of her nude photos to some girls in the school. They gave her a hard time about them–such a hard time, in fact, that she killed herself. She was just 18. Other teens have lost college scholarships over such immature decisions. Potential employers scan the net now to review–and weed out–young candidates.
Stefanie Garcia is another high school student in New York. “Girls in underwear, guys completely naked, muscle pictures, stuff like that,” she claims take place commonly. Many people heard about the unfortunate case of Actress Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) who sent pictures of herself to her boyfriend. And you can guess what happened. The internet scandal nearly lost her a contract with Disney. In my opinion, Disney should have closed the deal. It would have sent a powerful message to all kids.
Because teenagers often have no concept of future consequences, some authorities took a bold step to crack down on the practice. Six 14- and 15-year old Pennsylvania teens were arrested on charges related to child pornography. The move has been controversial, of course. But how else to convince teenagers that this is such a foolish thing to do?
But lawmakers in Vermont decided that child porn charges are over-the-top. And the problem is so wide-spread…why not just make sexting legal? The state legislature is considering that move this week.
I’m not a legal scholar. And I know that some battles are not worth fighting. But I think this is one of the important ones. Exchanging explicit photos is irreversible. Nothing can be erased from the internet. This kind of thing can ruin a child’s life–even if she made the decision herself. Teenagers are too young, and their brains are literally not fully developed enough, to grasp the immense consequences of such an action. They need to be protected from themselves. But I don’t know if either extreme–child porn vs. legal status–is the answer.
As a teacher, I never had a discussion with my students specifically about sexting. But I have had many conversations about the kinds of things they say and post on MySpace. I don’t see many teens who have a real notion of the web being global and permanent. They just think that their friends will see and laugh about what they put out there. One girl even became pretty upset about how her parents had violated her privacy by reading her FaceBook page. When I told her there was no such thing as internet privacy–that the idea was an oxymoron–she disagreed.
Now, clearly, most kids aren’t whoring themselves on their cell phones or online. But posing nude for the camera–and then the world wide web–is pretty close. They’re just not getting paid for the pictures. And if you have a teenager, think about five of his or her friends. Which one is doing this?
I tend to think the best medicine for this is a reality check. That a real–and dangerous–child porn viewer can easily get those photos. That their colleges and bosses and even their grandparents can see these pictures forever. That their boyfriend today isn’t likely to even be a friend next year. That sexting is a really, really, REALLY bad idea.
What do you think should be done to stop this?
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