Thursday, December 10, 2009
One Last Sexting Post
Over the past couple of months, sexting has been an issue that has been brought up several times. I want to take another stab at it. Sexting is an act that happens between two people and should remain between those two people. The law criminalizes anyone who is prosecuted for distributing or viewing these pictures when the person in the photographs is under the age of 18. Let's be real, society is changing drastically when it comes to sex and image. About 50 years ago, no one could even imagine sending nude pictures to a boyfriend or girlfriend, and the thought of being caught with such material would be detrimental to one's life. The times have changed. Playboy is an integral part of the media. The adult film industry grosses billions every year. The United States has allowed Nevada to make prostitution legal. And, Abercrombie sells thongs to girls as little as 6 years old. Times are changing. Whether it is for the better or worst (and in my opinion things have sometimes gone too far), the things that little girls and boys know is far more advanced than is was just a couple years ago. Little kids are losing their virginity as early as 10 or 11 years old and images of sex and sexiness are anywhere and everywhere. It's not hard to understand why teenagers have become engrossed in this portion of society and the "sexting" phenomenon (or crisis, or whatever you want to call it) has occured. But, we cannot penalize people for being immature and getting caught up in technology and sex. Just because this is a form of media that is now made readily available to teens is not their fault. We cannot penalize them for doing something that most would have done in a society such as ours with technology such as this if we were at their age. It's hard to draw the line and put a number on where this becomes more than flirtation and becomes an actual crime but I believe that all these factors need to be taken into account and each case needs to be handled individually to ensure that a precedent won't be set.
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I agree with you on that these young teens should not be arrested and stigmatized at sex offenders. It is ridiculous to ruin a kid's life because they either sent or received a sexy picture from their significant other. However, where do you draw the line. It's fine for a 17 year old to have a sexy picture of his 15 year old girlfriend. But what if he was 18 or 19 or 24? or what what she was 14 or 13 or 12? It impossible to know where to draw the line because everyone has a different set of morals. Natural law would pretty much say all forms of pornography are immoral and hence should be illegal. But a realist would want to know the facts of the case and that is very important when it comes to the topic of sexting.
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