Teen 'sexting': Stupid and illegal
"Sexting" is the practice of taking a sexually revealing picture of yourself, typically from a cell phone, and sending it to someone. Legal consequences aside, it's a dumb thing to do, especially for younger age groups in which it has become something of a fad.
(Credit:
CBS Early Show)
For minors, there's another risk: serious legal consequences. Creating, transmitting, and even possessing a nude, seminude, or sexually explicit image of a minor can be considered child pornography. It can be prosecuted as a state or federal felony and can even lead to having to register as a sex offender.
Crazy as it seems, some prosecutors have gone after kids for taking and sending pictures of themselves. There was a case in Florida a couple of years ago in which a teenage boy and girl photographed themselves nude and engaged in "unspecified sexual behavior."
One kid sent the picture to the other, and somehow, the police got involved. They were tried and convicted for production and distribution of child porn, and the teen who received the image had the additional charge of possession. An appeals court upheld the convictions.
In January this year, three teenage girls from Pennsylvania were charged for creating child porn, and the three boys who received the images were charged for possessing it. And, according to CBS News, a Texas eighth-grader in October spent a night in jail after a coach found a nude picture on his cell phone, sent by another student.
It's sadly ironic that the very child porn laws that were written to protect children from being exploited by adults could wind up having a devastating impact on the lives of children who, while acting stupid, have no criminal intent. For some perspective on whether this issue is overblown, see Anne Collier's post in NetFamily News.
It's hard to know how prevalent the practice is. But if you believe the results of an online survey commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, about 22 percent of teenage girls and 18 percent of boys admit to having "electronically sent, or posted online, nude or seminude pictures or video of themselves."
I'm not completely confident about the results of this study, which was carried out by a market research firm and not subject to academic peer review. But I think that it's fair to assume that a significant number of kids are doing this.
Perhaps more interesting than the survey's overall number is the breakdown of why teens take and send these pictures. Of those who reportedly sent such pictures, 71 percent of girls and 67 percent of boys said they sent or posted content to a boyfriend or girlfriend, while 21 percent of the girls and 39 percent of the boys say they sent it to someone they wanted to date.
As you might expect, peer pressure plays a role. Of those who sent such content, 51 percent of teen girls cited "pressure from a guy," while 18 percent of teen boys blamed pressure from girls.
While sexting is troubling, I think it's important for us all to take a deep breath and refrain from passing new laws or using child pornography laws that were designed to protect children from exploitation by adults.
I suspect that sexting will diminish over time. Kids aren't stupid and, faced with the facts, most will wise up. We also know that kids who get in trouble online are the same kids who get in trouble offline, so when teens repeatedly do sexting, or other stupid or risky things online, it's important to intervene early and often.
The best thing for a parent to do is to have a nonconfrontational conversation--perhaps over dinner--to ask your kids if they've heard about sexting and what they think about it.
You might not get a straight answer, but you'll open up a dialogue that can go a long way toward helping your kids understand how to minimize legal, social, and reputation risks. There are more tips on ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety site I help operate.
Boy, am I glad the Internet and camera phones weren't around when I was a kid.
Larry Magid is a technology journalist and an Internet safety advocate. He's been writing and speaking about Internet safety since he wrote Internet safety guide "Child Safety on the Information Highway" in 1994. He is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, founder of SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com, and a board member of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Larry's technology analysis and commentary can be heard on CBS News and CBS affiliates, and read on CBSNews.com. He also writes a personal-tech column for the San Jose Mercury News. You can e-mail Larry or follow him on Twitter @larrymagid. 
Isn't that what teens spend most of their time thinking about, if not doing.... things that are stupid and illegal?
Kids are supposed to do stupid stuff. They're kids and are still learning. Part of learning is making mistakes.
What is less excusable is adults (who should know better) dragging kids through court and ruining their lives. Now thats what I call stupid.
Then again, nobody ever claimed the official response to anything sex-related in the USA was sane. It is perfectly fine to show people being slaughtered in job lots on TV for instance, but if someone exposes a breast on prime-time TV there is a national outcry.
Yes, sexting is a very stupid thing to do. Kids do stupid things and need to have their behaviour corrected by grown ups. The proper response on how to correct them is NOT to brand them as pedophile sex offenders for life. Sheesh.
Next thing you know, we will have the moral gestapo arresting pregnant teens, searching cellphones at checkpoints and so on. Anything we can do to protect our children ya know, including arresting them!
In some ways the "children" of our country are getting wiser at an earlier age. We teach them about "stranger danger". Sadly, we don't teach them about "friend danger" or "uncle/aunt danger" or "daddy danger".
Maybe we should teach them the facts of life and actually discuss topics that most parents just seem to gloss over. Try, "Honey, it's a bad idea to flash your T*ts at anyone, they could have a camera and then your T*ts will be all over the internet forever." Then take them to the newsgroups and show them what is on there. Reality is a great teacher, beats the heck out of "trust" and "belief" and all that other junk parents rely on.
The prosecution of someone possessing child porn is not and never has been tied to whether the person being filmed or photographed was voluntarily participating or felt exploited. Intent is absolutely irrelevent. It is by nature exploitive, and a child distributing porn starring himself or herself is every bit as much as felon as an adult.
Any time this occurs, charges should be brought, convictions made, appeals rejected. If we do anything other than that, we are inviting a world where child porn and underage prostitution rings will be run by pimps 17 years old, all safely beyond grasp of the law.
Second, we as a society must be careful that the laws we make don't wind up victimizing people more than the original "crime" would have. In this case, creating life-long "sex offender" records on kids who sent a couple of reveling photos to their boyfriend/girl friends thus severely crippling their ability to become productive, employable members of society would certainly fill that bill.
Personally, I think that creeping nannyism, and completely irrational puritan sexual attitudes are a much bigger threat to society.
Now they are locking up teens that send photos & adults that unknowing have them sent to their phone.
If only I knew this when I was a teen I could have securely sent nude pics of me to the teachers I hated to get them jailed (just leave off head, arms so they don?t know who did it).
This is so sad laws meant to protect teens are being used to torture them.
Get rid of "3 strikes" - a silly law designed to get votes for brainless politicians. Get rid of ridiculous and pompous prosecutors that use sexting to advance their careers at the expense of our children.
Wake up!
- by LonePuma November 6, 2009 9:38 AM PST
- Personally, my opinion doesn?t hold much water concerning the topic, but I?m still pretty fed up with a holier-then-thou government. They should be looking at their own shortcomings, as they are responsible for removing the standard of God?s laws from our schools and government?whereby fostering their own wickedness and greed, and while rushing to create more outrageous felony laws! We are now a heavily policed country and with much fewer liberties! A single republican judge in our government was removed because he wanted to keep the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, go figure. Things won?t change until we address the root problem, which is reinstating God back in America!
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