A prosecutor in northeastern Pennsylvania has threatened students with jail time if they didn’t attend classes on the dangers of sexting (sending nude pictures of yourself or friends on your cell phones), The New York Times reports. A few students have sued the prosecutor for his overreach.
This strikes me as a classic case of using the legal system to solve a problem that is primarily cultural. And in our fight over the interesting legal issues — did the prosecutor go too far? Should schools look at the contents of children’s cell phones as they apparently increasingly do? — we will miss the bigger point.
According to a survey released in December by the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage and Unplanned Pregnancy, 22% percent of teen girls and 18% of teen boys had sent or posted “nude or seminude” photos of themselves.
I don’t mean to sound like a prude but isn’t this sort of a big deal?
For millions of teens, the combination of sex-laden teen shows, Girls Gone Wild, and the ready availability of porn online, have made being photographed nude, and sharing it, seem normal. It’s the democratization of soft-core porn. Today, in America, every young girl can achieve the dream of having strangers look at them naked.
The study also showed that 25% of teen girls and 33% of teen boys had been sent or showed nude images of teens originally meant for someone else. It should be pretty obvious to most teens at this point that if they send a nude picture of themselves (or allow one to be taken) then they are taking a big chance that these images become public.
At least one girl committed suicide over the discovery. But apparently for many teens, the idea of play-acting as a softcore porn star has become appealing.
Why do you think that is?