An 18-year-old Cincinnatti teen named Jessica Logan committed suicide after her ex-boyfriend emailed around naked cell phone photos of her. The AOL teen site Lemondrop reports:
Logan was harassed daily by other girls calling her “slut” and “whore” and throwing objects at her.
She finished high school last year and went on national television with her face and voice distorted to warn other girls about the potential consequences of taking naked photos of themselves…. But two months later, after attending a funeral for another teen who had committed suicide, Jessica went home and took her own life…
“Sexting” and online bullying may be relatively new, but girls tormenting other girls over their alleged promiscuity has been around forever.
Teen girls face tremendous pressure to be sexy and sexual, and yet they’re ridiculed if they go too far (and, of course, there’s no clear set of teen rules about what constitutes too far).
Yes, the girls who mocked her make me want to vomit but how about some outrage about the ex-boyfriend? According to a survey by National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 15 percent of boys said they sent around such pictures after a break up.
It’s bad and stupid for the girls to let themselves be photographed naked but isn’t what the boys are doing about ten times worse?