Renek Gaszewski [Blog]

A silly slumber party photo prompted child pornography charges against two Pennsylvania teens who posed in their undies. A mildly risque image landed six Massachusetts middle schoolers in court, facing felony child pornography charges.
And 20 percent of the nation’s teens and tweens may face those charges next.
Teens have been posting scantily clad images of themselves online since the early days of MySpace. Now they’ve been joined by their middle school and even elementary school colleagues. And the proliferation of cell phone cameras in the past several years has given even the younger crowd the opportunity to snap those pictures anytime and anywhere, and send them not just to that special someone, but to, well, everyone.
A single image, sent as a silly joke or sexy come-on, becomes a major liability the moment a young couple breaks up “… or some eager-to-impress young stud or hottie shows the images to the rest of the team “… or someone leaves his cell phone unattended.
The technology, says Anastasia Goodstein, a San Francisco-based youth culture expert, allows private photographs to go viral as quickly as the latest hot YouTube video.
“It’s public, even if you think it’s private,” says the author of “Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online.” “Once it’s out there it can spread very quickly, damage reputations and cause all kinds of problems, including legal issues — which is a whole new topic of ridiculousness.”
At least a fifth of the nation’s teens — and a third of young adults, ages 20-26 — have “sexted” or text-messaged racy images of themselves or others, via cell phone or online, according to a 2008 survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com.
Psychologist Susan Lipkins, a national authority on teens and young adults, puts the numbers even higher — and younger. About 6 percent of the kids who “sext,” she says, started at age 9. By middle school, it’s rampant. Up to two-thirds of teens do it. And the reasons they do it will surprise most parents.
Sexting has taken the place of fluttered eyelashes and coy looks. About 66 percent of the girls who sent sexts did it to be flirtatious, according to the CosmoGirl study, and 52 percent as a sexy present for a guy, but some 40 percent of the girls said they sent them as a joke.
But, says Lipkins, what’s really happening is nothing less than a cultural, sexual revolution, with parents on one side of the divide and their technological teens on the other.
“They’ve been online their whole lives,” she says. “They look at everything differently — sex, relationships, privacy and personal ownership. It’s a total break from previous generations and sexting is a symptom and a symbol of that new way of thinking.”
Sexting, says Lipkins, is “a new mating call” in a casual hookup culture, and one that needs a better response. The legal issues are a major problem — why punish the victims of viral sexts, she asks, and why aren’t prosecutors using existing sexual harassment laws instead?
But even without the legal ramifications, the humiliation factor can be devastating. Jesse Logan, an Ohio 18-year-old, committed suicide last year after her ex-boyfriend forwarded her nude pictures to the entire school, and classmates responded with relentless harassment.
The teen discussion forums on the CosmoGirl Web site are rife with warnings from high schoolers who have seen reputations destroyed and friends humiliated.
One girl recounted the story of a friend who sent a seminude image to her boyfriend.
“Within hours, the entire student body plus a teacher got it,” Chicky0903 writes in her post. “This went around so fast that I got it four times in two hours. She got suspended from school — she wasn’t 18 so its ‘child porn.’”‰” The girl was kicked off the student council, Chicky0903 continues, and utterly humiliated.
“Respect your body,” she concludes. “Think twice.”
These are not isolated cases, says Miramonte High junior Carina Chiodo, and the fallout can be considerable.
“At my school, sexting will mainly just get you a really embarrassing reputation, but there are still plenty of girls who do it,” the Orinda teen says. “I’ve seen photos of a senior guy at my school posing naked that he sent to several girls. A girl at my school sent pictures to some guy, and they got forwarded to just about everyone on campus. (It’s) kind of the thing to do if you’re attention-hungry. I think it’s disgusting and anyone that does it might as well take the naked photos that they’re sending other people and post them on a freeway billboard, because it’s only a matter of time before every person at the school will see it.”
Pinole graduate Joseph Natividad was startled by the very question — enough so that he asked friends at UC San Diego their opinions as well. Their consensus: Eww. It’s certainly not something everyone does, he says, and in many circles it’s regarded as distinctly déclasse.
Goodstein agrees.
“Yes, some teens are doing this — some very famous teens — but not all teens,” she says. “It’s something parents should be aware of, another topic to talk about. Teens have always been sexually curious. They have a lot of hormones raging and they’re using the technology they use for everything else to express that very normal part of being a teen. But the other normal part of being a teen is not thinking through the consequences of what you do.”
Once upon a time, a kid could make mistakes, says Walnut Creek psychologist Richard Freed, who specializes in kids and media issues.
“With digital information, the mistakes are forever,” he says. “I don’t think you can give your kid a cell phone and not talk about the responsibilities that come along with that.”
Bottom line?
“Think,” says Goodstein, “before you text — or sext.”