Sexting: Let’s Be Careful Out There!

When I was  at “that age” when I first became interested in girls (late elementary, early junior high), the way to let a member of the opposite sex know that you liked her was you told your best friend who passed it to her best friend and then the process looped back until it reached the lovelorn individual. I had my first crush in sixth grade.  Her name was Sheila.  Apparently she kinda liked me also. I heard that she later went on to become Yolo Country Miss Sugar Queen.  During my college years I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I acted upon my crush.  No more of course. I was very lucky to marry my wife JoAnna. Anyone who knows us both knows how fortunate I am (and usually offer condolences to my wife from time to time).

Today the process of telling someone you like them can be much simpler.  You just send a sexually suggestive photo of yourself by cell phone. I never considered myself that old-fashioned, but all I can say is “Yikes!”  Actually there is more I can say but I try to keep this blog PG-13.

Pew Internet just released a study on teens and sexting. It is a scary world out there.  In their survey of teens aged 12-17, 4 percent admitted sending a sexually suggestive nude or nearly-nude photo or video of themselves.  Another 15 percent have said they received such a photo or video.  The disparity between numbers either suggests that the percentage who send them is actually higher or that such photos are pretty widely distributed.  Pew adopted a pretty narrow definition of sexting; sexting is usually defined as sending sexually suggestive or explicit messages (the kind that got Tiger Woods in trouble), photos or videos.  When Cox Communications, in conjunction with the National Center for Missing & Exploitive Children , conducted a study with this broader definition they found that 9% of teens ages 13-18 had sent a sexually suggestive text message or emails with nude or nearly-nude photos, 3% had forwarded one, and 17% had received a sexually suggestive text message or email with nude or nearly nude photos. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and their research partners released a study called “Sex and Tech” which also included 19 year olds,  and found dramatically higher results: 19% of teens ages 13-19 said they had sent a sexually suggestive picture or video of themselves to someone via email, cell phone or by other means and 31% had received a nude or semi-nude picture from someone else. Pew also found significant age differences by age: 4 percent of 12 year olds had received nude images compared to 30 percent of 17 year olds.

Pew also conducted focus groups with teens who claimed that there are three main reasons for sexting: 1) exchanging  images solely between two romantic partners; 2) exchanging images between partners that are shared with others outside the relationship and 3) exchanges between people who are not yet in a relationship, but at least one member hopes to be.

When Pew asked the teens in the focus group what they thought of sexting, opinions ran the gamut. Some said it was not a big deal as sending a picture of someone nude isn’t immoral while actually having sex is. Others condemned sexting because of concerns about their image and the legality of it.  Many passed judgments on those who do send such images as slutty.  Interestingly (or alarmingly), many teens made distinctions between what is acceptable and what is not such as topless is OK, nude is unacceptable, or it is acceptable to send slutty images as long as the vital parts are covered.

This issue has obvious moral and ethical questions, as well as privacy ones.  Images sent between a couple sometimes get sent to others, particularly if the couple breaks up. Some teens expressed outrage at this practice, others thought it was no big deal because it happens all the time.  There are also clearly legal questions involved because in many cases teens are sending and receiving photos of minors.  In at least four states, sexting kids are facing charges of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor.  Eleven states have introduced laws concerning sexting designed to “1) deter and apply appropriate penalties to teens who engage in sexting, or 2) close loopholes in existing criminal laws so that sexual predators are prohibited from using text messaging to contact children.” Pew found of the three states discussing penalties for sexting, two, Vermont and Utah, downgraded the penalties for minors and first-time perpetrators of “sexting”  from felonies to misdemeanors. Ohio has pending legislation “to criminalize, at a milder level, sexting between minors.”

This whole issue raises several questions for me.  Books such as Grown up Digital suggest that the Millennials  are more likely be more voyeuristic and more likely to reveal information about themselves than previous generations.  Do you believe Millennials are indeed different from previous generations or is it simply that technology has made it easier for people to reveal themselves emotionally and physically and your generation may have also been as voyeuristic  if it had the tools that exist today?  I don’t consider myself a prude.  But I just think it is wrong to be sending sexual images to others, particularly because there is always the risk they will be disseminated to others.  What do you think?  What should the penalties be for teens receiving or sending images to others?  I tagged friends who were Baby Boomers or Generation X.  I will leave it up to you whether you want to involve Millennials in the discussion. As I have mentioned before, I am a celebrity junkie and often talk celebrity news with my classes, including cases where celebrities have their sexted images sent over the Internet.  I usually end the discussion with the same warning that Hill Street Blue’s  Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (Michael Contrad) gave to his police squad before sending them out on their day’s duties: “Let’s be careful out there.”