Sexting is Stupid

abc news

One in five U.S. teens engages in sexting, according to a recent survey. Sexting is sending or receiving sexually suggestive, nude or nearly nude photos by e-mail or cell phone.

The findings are the result of interviews conducted last April by Harris Interactive, which surveyed 655 teens ages 13 to 18 about their use of computers and cell phones.

One in four teens said they knew someone who had a bad experience because of information posted on the Internet and 20 percent reported being harassed or threatened online or by text message.

"Teenagers underestimate the risk they take online," says David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family. "The part of their brain that puts the brakes on things is under major construction."

The danger with sexting is that material can be very easily and widely distributed, over which the originator has no control.

The Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication (I.R.O.C.) is a New Jersey-based organization dedicated to educating communities about protecting themselves online with digital responsibility through their "Sexting is Stupid" program. This is just one of the many programs that are emerging all over the world, including Australia's "Safe Sexting: No Such Thing" campaign.

Against the law
Several legal cases have come about as a result of sexting. In 2007, 32 Australian teenagers from the state of Victoria were prosecuted as a result of sexting activity. Child pornography charges were brought against six teenagers in Greensburg, Pennsylvania in January 2009 after three girls sent sexually explicit photographs to three male classmates.

In 2008, a Virginia assistant-principal was charged with possession of child pornography and related crimes after he had been asked to investigate a rumored sexting incident at the high school where he worked. He found a student in possession of a photo on his phone tof the torso of a girl wearing only underpants, her arms mostly covering her breasts. The assistant principal showed the image to the principal who instructed him to preserve the photo on his computer as evidence. While the court later ruled that the photo did not constitute child pornography because under Virginia law, nudity alone is not enough to qualify an image as child pornography; the image must be "sexually explicit" and "lewd." Loudoun County prosecutor James Plowman stands by his initial assessment of the photo and says he would not have pursued the case if the assistant principal would have agreed to resign. The assistant principal had to get a second mortgage on his house and spend $150,000 in attorneys' fees to clear his name.

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, a teenage boy was indicted on felony obscenity charges for sending a photo of his privates to several female classmates. Another boy was charged with child pornography in a similar case.

Police investigated an incident at Margaretta High School in Castalia, Ohio in which a 17-year-old area girl allegedly sent nude pictures of herself to her former boyfriend, and the pictures started circulating around the high school after the two got into a fight. The 17-year-old girl was charged with being an "unruly child" based on her juvenile status.

Two southwest Ohio teenagers were charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor, for sending or possessing nude photos on their cell phones of two 15-year-old classmates.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against Wyoming County district attorney George Skumanick Jr. on March 25, 2009 for threatening to prosecute teenage girls for distributing nude photos of themselves. On CBS News's The Early Show, Skumanick stated in an interview with Julie Chen that his office decided to make an offer of limiting penalties to probation if they attend a sexual harassment program.

Laws
Vermont lawmakers introduced a bill in April 2009 to legalize the consensual exchange of graphic images between two people 13 to 18 years old. Passing along such images to others would remain a crime.

In Ohio, a county prosecutor and two lawmakers proposed a law that would reduce sexting from a felony to a first degree misdemeanor, and eliminate the possibility of a teenage offender being labeled a sex offender for years. The proposal was supported by the parents of Jessie Logan, a Cincinnati 18-year-old who committed suicide after the naked picture of herself which she sexted was forwarded to people in her high school.

Utah lawmakers lessened the penalty for sexting for someone younger than 18 to a misdemeanor from a felony.

Suicide
18-year-old Jessica Logan had sent nude pictures of herself to a boyfriend. When they broke up, he sent them to other high school girls. The girls were harassing her, calling her a slut and a whore. She was miserable and depressed, afraid even to go to school. Two months later, Jessica Logan hanged herself in her bedroom.

Sexting is certainly stupid. Once you send that nude picture, you cannot get it back or cancel the "send." It's out there for all to see. And the consequences go beyond the innocent joke or harmless flirting. Of course, such material can be very damaging if it falls into the wrong hands.

Once these images are online or on a phone, anyone anywhere in the world can access them. It is then impossible to retrieve and delete them. They are there forever and can damage future career prospects or relationships. Especially damaging are the reports of girls as young as 13 sending sexually explicit images to their boyfriends on their mobiles phones, which were then passed on to other friends and even further once the relationships ended.

Teenage actress Vanessa Hudgens, star of the successful "High School Musical" franchise, last year had to live down the scandal of her semi-nude pictures, meant for boyfriend Zac Ephron, ending up online.

Privacy is a luxury in today's world. Sexting is one more example of the show-all tell-all culture that refuses to leave anything to the imagination. When malice and death enter into the picture, sexting is not only stupid, it's deadly.