Dating 2.0
By Stacie D. Rumenap
March 17, 2009
On weekend get-aways with my college girlfriends, we often look back and laugh at our fashion missteps and dating dramas. Our wardrobe back then was hardly stylish, unless you consider the combination of Docksiders, pegged jeans and baggy sweaters a good choice. We had big hair, wore little make-up--except, of course, on those nights we adorned bright blue and green eye shadow for sorority mixers--and giggled like, well, the schoolgirls we were.
These days, however, even my most embarrassing moments and questionable style choices seem practically quaint. Visit any college campus today and you will find eighteen-year-olds who could pass for late twenty-somethings any day. Enter a high school and it is not much better. Stiletto heels, low-rise jeans and designer bags are today's uniform for young women, starting at increasingly younger ages. And with these grown-up outfits also come grown-up behaviors.
Move over, Hugh Hefner--today's teens are distributing electronically nude self-portraits, in a practice called "sexting" if it is done by cell phone. And this latest trend has parents and school administrators rightfully worried.
Some prosecutors are aggressively targeting the behavior, charging teens who send and receive such images with child pornography and other serious felonies. But is that the best way to handle this phenomenon? As with so many adolescent and teen practices enabled by ubiquitous access to cell phones and computers, the underpinnings of sexting are complex. In some cases, the photos are sent with the intent to harass other teens or to get attention. Other times, they are viewed as high-tech flirting. Either way, these photos are frequently making their way into the hands of hundreds of others, and in some cases are being posted to the Internet--where a permanent record can exist. Law enforcement officials want it to stop, even if it means threatening to add "sex offender" or "felon" to a juvenile's record.
With an estimated 90 to 95 percent of school kids carrying cell phones, sexting has grown rapidly in popularity among teenagers. Police have investigated more then two dozen teens in at least six states this year alone for sending nude images of themselves, resulting in students facing consequences ranging from suspension to felony charges when their explicit text messages--even those that are intended to remain private--are quickly passed on to wider audiences, with or without their consent.
Consider the story from last summer that introduced the term 'sexting' into our everyday vocabulary. The case involved two Washington state high school cheerleaders who snapped nude pictures of themselves that ended up being passed on via text message to most of the school's student body, although it is not clear who distributed the original photos. In addition to the personal embarrassment they suffered, the girls were suspended from the cheerleading squad after copies of the photos reached school officials. Their parents sued the school district, alleging among other charges that administrators had needlessly shared the photos with other school staff members and failed to promptly report the matter to police as possible child pornography. The school district has denied the allegations, and has filed counterclaims against the families for initiating "a frivolous lawsuit over a matter which would have...disappeared" if the girls had accepted the consequences administered by the school.
More recently, in a fiercely debated development, child pornography charges have been filed in some other cases nationwide. The most prominent case involves Philip Albert, an 18-year-old Floridian who, after a particularly nasty break-up with his ex-girlfriend, distributed nude photos she texted him to more than 70 people. One of the recipients was his ex-girlfriend's grandparents. When police busted Albert, he was sentenced to five years of probation and is obligated to register as a sex offender--a label he will carry for the next 25 years. At Greensburg-Salem High School in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, three high school girls who sent seminude photos and four male students who received them were all hit with child pornography charges. In Mason, Ohio, two teens were charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor after nude pictures of their classmates were found on a cell phone. Mason's prosecutor has publicly said that the teens could be charged with felonies and labeled as sex offenders for these acts. These are just a few of the charges pending in states across the country where teenagers have engaged in sexting and related practices.
Technology makes it easier to do and say things we might not do in person, which is why punishment for sexting ought to be a matter resolved by schools, parents and kids, without intervention from the criminal justice system. While technically viewed as illegal behavior, these incidents could also be construed as a naive exchange between young people oblivious to the far-reaching consequences. Many of the guilty are not even aware they are committing a crime. In Ohio, for example, after several teens were caught sexting, they were required to survey their peers to determine whether sexting was acknowledged as a crime. Of the 225 teens surveyed, only 31 knew.
The main problem with sexting charges is determining who is guilty and who is not. In some cases, those who snapped the photographs have been charged; in other cases, it is those who received the images and stored them. Nonetheless, these acts are perpetrated by teenagers who do not have a basic understanding of child pornography laws. Rather than threatening legal action, parents and educators should take this opportunity to point out the potentially long-term repercussions of sexting. Photographic reminders of my own big-hair days, thankfully, are kept safely in photo albums and shoeboxes--not memorialized on the Internet or cached indefinitely by online search engines.
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Stacie D. Rumenap is the executive director of Stop Child Predators, a non-profit organization in Washington, DC that prevents the sexual exploitation of children and protects the rights of crime victims. For more information, visit www.stopchildpredators.org.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.