It may seem harmless, taking a picture of yourself topless to send to your boyfriend. Every one of your guy friends has a sexy naked picture or two of his girlfriend on his cell. Every couple you know of at school does a little “sexting” every now and then, and they’re having a blast doing it. Even a few young famous celebrities have “sexted.” But what might seem harmless at first can actually reap dire consequences, which is what is happening to a lot of teens and young adults in America today who’ve fallen into the new “sexting” trend. It just takes one click of that “Send” button to potentially change your life forever. The repercussions of sending a nude or explicit image or video of yourself to someone’s phone or even to their email inbox can hit on a deep, personal level for both parties involved, even a legal one, and the negative, life-changing effects can stay with you for years, even a lifetime.
What started out probably as just a seemingly innocent act for one 13-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy from Valparaiso quickly turned into a nightmare when the two were charged with child exploitation and possessing child pornography after law enforcement discovered the two were using their cell phones to send naked pictures of themselves to each other. In Texas, a 13-year-old boy was arrested on child pornography charges, after receiving a naked photo of another student on his cell. Six high-school students in Pennsylvania were also arrested on child pornography charges, all because the boys had explicit photos on their cell phones and because the girls had explicit photos of themselves. Not only is the law getting more involved with this new “sexting” trend, but more and more teens are discovering some of the harsh penalties that can come along with simply choosing to expose themselves and press “Send.”
But legal matters are one thing. Sadly, teens are failing to realize how “sexting” can deeply uproot their personal lives and negatively affect them emotionally and socially. It starts out simple. “If you love me, you’ll do it,” her boyfriend might say. “It’s just a picture,” a girl friend encourages at a slumber party. “It’s no big deal and I’ll erase it after.” A girlfriend or boyfriend promises that the photo is just for the two of you, so there’s absolutely no showing of it to anyone else. But having an explicit photo in your possession and participated in having it taken of you can cause a whole host of problems. Too many girls in schools all across America are finding the images they intended to be private instead sent to the phones of other classmates at school, plastered on the internet, and viewed by any and everybody. “…You can’t take [the photos] back, they’re out there and they’re out there for good,” says Michael Zarchin, Pyle Middle School principal of Maryland who has been working to help students recover after a “sexting” scandal at his school. Once a photo is sent by technology, it can be obtained by anybody, and that crucial point is what teens fail to realize until it is too late.
It doesn’t take much for someone’s phone to be stolen when they’re in the gym, left behind in a classroom, or when they’re even out at a party. Once it happens, their private pictures are now in the hands of others who can do whatever they want with them. It can be a jealous school friend, your boss at your job, a pedophile, you just never know. It doesn’t take much for a seemingly doting boyfriend to become the “ex” who wants revenge for being dumped so he uses those old compromising pictures of his girlfriend he forgot to erase and sends them to his friends or even her family. “Sexting” can and has damaged many lives, and no longer is “sexting” just limited to sending and receiving compromising material solely via phone. None of the boys at New Berlin Eisenhower High School thought that sending naked pictures to a hot girl on facebook would make much of a difference, but when it was discovered that the “hot girl” was in fact male school mate Anthony R. Stancl willing to bribe and blackmail his victims into giving him sexual favors to keep the photos from getting out, the truth was revealed and the humiliation began. At least seven boys were forced into performing sex acts for Stancl, the youngest victim, 15, according to the Journal Sentinel. Once a compromising photo or a video is sent, it can be copied, sold, and a silly mistake you made in your teens can haunt you when you’re trying to establish your professional career in your twenties or even later. E! Network’s rising star Tess Taylor, star of reality show “Pretty Wild” is facing her own digital nightmare as nude pictures of her taken years ago have now surfaced on the internet, causing her family to demand the pictures be removed by the website posting them, but to no avail.
Too many teens underestimate the humiliation and pain that “sexting” can cause on them and their families. Sadly, for many, ignorance is bliss. Few young adults can really imagine themselves in a job interview years from now, trying to be serious and professional, only to have your soon-to-be boss smirking and licking his lips because he remembers seeing your image or your video posted on a pornography site that you don’t even know about. Few young people can really imagine merely going to a coffee shop one day for a little drink, only to be snickered about by a group of girls at another table because they’ve seen the nude pics online or had them sent to their phone.
Everyone needs to be more responsible with what they post or send using technology. Perhaps a take on the saying “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all” can come in handy here. “If you’re concerned about something you’re sending via technology getting into the wrong hands, you might want to reconsider sending it.” There is no going back, and unfortunately, a simple act can quickly reap complicated results.
Sources
Seibel, Jacqui and Mike Johnson. “New Berlin student charged with blackmailing students into sex acts in Facebook deception.” JSonline: Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, 2009.
Wtop.com . “Principal working to help students hurt by ‘sexting’ scandal.” Apr. 16, 2010.
Do you really want to get turned down for nursing school, teachers college or the military because you are a registered sex offender? Yeah, sexting can do that, and it’s happening more and more.
A friend came up with a great ‘test’ for matters of teen sexuality – if you have to justify it, then don’t do it.
A relative of mine left his phone sitting out one day. His mother went to answer what she thought was his employer calling him in early. It turned out to be a photo of her son and his girlfriend. Let’s just say she had an oral fixation. Things have never been the same between him and his mother.