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I honestly think that child pornography charges for sending a nude picture of yourself are way out of line.
I agree, back in the 50's my dad who was 15 received a picture of his girlfriend in a skimpy bikini with most of her breast showing. My grandmother said, "Well if he hasn't seen breast by now---its time he should." She let him keep the picture." The girl grew up to be a doctor and my dad is a lawyer ( so it may have affected him some :) My point is that kids have been doing this since the invention of the camera and when video holographs come about they will be sexting with those too.
There is a huge difference between a sick adult preying on minors ( which should be punished to the fullest extent ) and two 16 year olds engaging in consensual, illicit picture sharing. Is it a good idea to send naked pictures of yourself? no! Would I want my kids doing it ? Absolutely not!!!--- but it isn't the end of the world. I would recommend counseling, grounding, some extra chores, but absolutely no jail time--thats just crazy.
BTW: If you are married and an adult I highly recommend sending naughty text to each other.
Is it a crime to have a picture of yourself naked on your phone? No, I don't have one or any. I'm just concerned kids maybe ruining their lives if their phones should fall into the wrong hands. If a picture is found on your phone of yourself do you have to prove it is you? How much privacy do we have when it comes to electronic gadgets we own?
It actually is if you're a minor. Not a joke. Retarded, but not a joke.
NEVER take a picture of your face, then, they cannot prove it's you in the picture, if it does end up in the wrong hands.
And, so? You mean to tell me that teenagers are curious about their sexuality and have adapted to the technology?
The only ones that would be freaking out about this are the social conservatives, and even they're probably doing it in secret.
And this is such a big deal, why?
Quick....call Focus on the Family or The Family Research Council. I'm sure Tony has something serious to say about this. Get a life. In my day and age we only had instant cameras. Now they are high tech!
If parents had a choice to stop only one problem with their teens of the following two choices..which would it be sexting or drug use?
Both are illegal.
Why do I not get any of those photos. Some just have no fun at all. No fair.
Too Many tech BS out their they don't talk to a person now days...
As long as they receive abstinence only sex education, all will be OK.
20% ?? LOL! Try 90.
This is a crime and shame. Kids are mess up there lives by doing this.
Here's a related stat - 3.3% of all texts that teens send or receive contain adult or sexual content. This comes from some new research released by TxtWatcher.com this week.
And for parents who are concerned about sexting, TxtWatcher.com offers an Android app that monitors their kids' texting, alerting them about sex, alcohol, drug, and crime related content (check out the free trial).
Pointless. Your kid will catch on the moment s/he finds out, and work out a way to bypass the watcher. It's probably better to have a discussion about these topics ahead of time, and ensure mutual understanding.
Agreed - pointless. Kids will need all of 10 seconds to bypass this; they will make up code words that your nanny-ware won't flag:
Root Beer - Alcohol
Moon Pie - Sex
Tennis - Smoking Pot
So the kid will just text "Meet at my place for root beer and tennis" and nothing will be flagged. They have been doing it long before there was 'apps'
20% are sexting? Thats only because the other 80% are already having sex. Is this really worse than playing spin the bottle, truth or dare. Skinny dipping was big for a while. Teenagers are going to become adults thats just the way it is.
With something like this, I would want to focus more on the moral and emotional consequences, rather than just the legal ones. By sending a nude pic of yourself to someone, you're showing that you have little to no self-respect, meaning you're less likely to get any respect.
A lot of teens also don't consider this: you send a nude pic of yourself to your "significant other" (trying to include both genders here), then something happens and you're no longer "together." Well, in this case, what's been done can't be undone. So now some guy you now think is a total jerk has seen you naked, and is likely to show his buddies. So, now all these people you may or may not even like, along with people you may not be all that comfortable with, have seen your privates. That kind of loss of respect is very hard to get back, no matter how much of an angel you try to be afterward.
In many ways, it's the same idea as teens who have sex. They don't think about the possibility of a future break-up, then when the break-up happens, you regret having given your deepest intimacies to that person. But it's too late: not only has this "jerk" seen you naked, he/she has also touched you in ways and places you ordinarily wouldn't want someone touching you. And, again, that can't be undone.
I realize that sounds crude, but that's something that teens need to learn to consider before engaging in any kind of sexual activity. That's why it's better to wait until after you get married. If you have sexual tension that "needs" to be released, don't knock masturbation. You can use your imagination, think about whomever you want, and get the sexual pleasure. Meanwhile, since it's a solo act, nobody gets hurt because, technically, nothing happened.
Back in my time, cell-phones were these huge, bulky things powered by lantern-battery packs. No one wanted to carry one around. They didn't have cameras, little color screens, or MP3 ringtones. All you could do was talk on one, and tell the other person how tired you were from carrying it.
Yet somehow we managed to see others our own age naked. We saw breasts, butts, and everything there was to be seen. The only difference? We had to see them in person, live, when clothes were removed. And sometimes, if well-planned, we'd manage to get Poloroids (no, not what you get from sitting on frozen ground, it was a type of analog camera that ejected the photo which then developed right in front of you, all by itself) of these events.
And if you were really lucky, you'd get, well, you know... lucky.
The point is, this is nothing new, is nothing more than biology asserting itself, is so, so, so much bigger than these studies, in which 90% of teens will lie anyways, lead anyone to believe.
Finally @ Wall of J...
I'm curious how you equate posing nude with having no self-respect. I'm going to have to lead with "you believe in sin" or at least accept one of those bogus middle-eastern desert religions as real. Certainly your position of "That's why it's better to wait until after you get married." suggests that.
What these teens need is a little dose of shock-and-awe reality.
Show them some real before and after:
"Jenny" - Before pregnancy, smoking hot body
"Jenny" - After pregnancy, now more than 100 pounds overweight
Before baby: Social life, friends, good times.
After baby: No social life, no one wants to come around, it's like being grown up.
Before: SAT's are taken, scholarships accepted, picking a college
After: Scholarships declined, working 8-12 hours a week at Subway, crappy apartment full of flies, ants and spiders.
Pull these horsecrap "Teen Mom" shows off the air, because no one anyone knows, or wants to know, will ever be on them. Put a little truth out there. You get knocked up pre-graduation, your life as you know it is over.
Ok, so maybe slightly exaggerated toward the down side, but that is exactly what kids need to see to understand.
Joe isn't playing football any more, unless you count passing a dirty diaper 10 yards to the Diaper Genie
Jenny isn't the prom queen any more, she looks like she ate the prom queen.
Life-on-hold for 18 years isn't much of a life - it's a struggle.
Phew... I feel like I'm talking to teens here... exhausted, volumes to say, and no one listening....
As a matter of fact, Indigo, I do "believe in sin." I don't consider the teachings of Christ to be bogus, but that's a different topic for another time.
Along with self-respect, I forgot to add "dignity." People with self-respect and dignity don't strip naked for just anyone. When a kid sends a sext, you know it's going to be shared, which means that by the time the original recipient is done sharing it with his buds (who share it with THEIR buds, who share with theirs, and so on), this kid might as well have walked through school naked, as the outcome would be pretty much the same.
Knowing that this possibility exists, why would anyone with some shred of dignity and self-respect do this?
@Wall of J : I'll keep the ecumenical discussion to a minimum. But thanks for confirming my suspicions. As to why someone would do this... dignity and self-respect aside...
First, we're talking about teens here. Their brains are still not fully developed, and won't be for another 10 years. They simply are not capable of the same sort of long-term thinking as adults. "She" would never believe "He" would "do that to her" (sharing her pix with his friends, et al), because "She" physiologically can't.
Secondly, at the age where these "kids" are engaging in this sort of behavior, they also have something else working against them: hormones. Their bodies are a volatile mix of unbalanced, "raging" hormones they scarcely understand, which clouds their already impaired judgement even more.
That much aside - bare in mind that not everyone (as I have already drawn out) shares the same beliefs. Some do not regard "nakedness" as "shameful", because it is natural. Indeed, some of us laugh at the idea that anyone should be "ashamed" to be naked, because some book says so.*
For myself, I am not a nudist, or naturalist, or whatever it is they're calling themselves these days - I find far too much practicality in clothing, however... I am not phased by anyone else's nudity either. The human body is what it is - a masterfully crafted biological machine. They're nothing to be ashamed of - in fact, be proud of it - but be practical to protect it as well. Never deep-fry a turkey in the nude. It's a recipe for disaster.
*As I recall, and it has been a while, as the story goes, Adam and Eve first clothed themselves out of shame, but this makes no sense. It's not as if there was anyone else to see them and it's not as if they'd not seen each other already. If there was any "shame" to have been felt, it should have been directed at their own failings to comply with a simple directive: "Do not eat of the fruit of tree of knowledge of good and evil." - But I can certainly understand where early man could easily have turned this into what is has become, especially when translating a dead language. But again, we boarder on the ecumenical - and that's something we can take to discussion elsewhere.
If you consider the number of young people nationally, those are fairly low percentages. Also, nudity is a becoming a progressive trend nationally among adults and teens. Also, nudity is readily available through electronic means. The question is, are we as adults setting the example for young people to follow ? Actually .... NOT!
If you want complete parental control that watches everything kids do online (such as Facebook) , as well as blocks nasty websites, and does linguistic analysis to watch out for dangerous behavior -
such as internet predators or cyber bullys -
look into McGruff SafeGuard's Parental Control system:
You probably remember McGruff “The Crime Dog” - Take A Bite Out of Crime - from your youth.
For FREE iPad/iPhone parental control, check out
My ex-husband took my son and daughter to Florida after our divorce( even though the decree said he could NOT take them out of state without my permission. I TOLD him they would get involved in drugs etc. and have really nothing to do but get into trouble after awhile. ( I was raised down there,,I know) He said I don't know WTF I'm talking about....well my daughter called me all upset that she went to the mall( at 13 years old) to meet someone she "met" on My Space...and nobody met with her. I thank God for that!! He probably watched her enter..and she didn't fit his taste. I really blasted her for that (meaning I told her she should be thankfull she wasn't what could have been a "preditor" wanted.Kids are so screwed up now!! The whole WORLD is screwed up!! I hope God will speed up the getting "the big end" up soon!! I'm tired of this crap
Yes, it is obviously only ever going to happen in the state of Florida...
I've never trusted statistics or surveys. So when it's reported that 8th graders are smoking 3.17 % fewer cigarettes, but 4.2276% more cannabis; or 20% are sexting; it's only worthy of a great big yawn.
It's no question that teens like sex... um... right?
The issue is really that sexting reduces the actual in-person contact necessary for empathic brain development. About that:
Twice as many boys than girls said they received sexts. That's because the betties are sending them to the boys. Boys might not be able to get away with sexting a girl. A naughty, naughty fifi will.
I was shocked when I found my son had been sexting with a girl from his school. I asked for advice at his school and they recommended me to install a free PC tool called Qustodio, couldn't be happier.
Well, let's face it. As a parent, it concerns everyone that our kids are talking to strangers on the web. And the worst part is that if you try and be strict, there are chances that they would turn to eluding ways. Precise;y the reason why, about a few months ago, I installed a free but complete parental control software called Qustodio from To some extent it has helped me keep a tab on my kids activities. I block sites and regularly track the data they download. This has relieved me to a large extent. Its important that we have such safeguards in place. The application is free and everyone with kids at home should try it.