by Marty Klein
Some parents fear that sexting means a kid is also having “real” sex. For better or worse, this isn’t necessarily true. Because kids live online, sexting can be a form of sexual expression that’s complete on its own. It can be a form of flirtation, or of what adults used to call “first base” (or “second base,” or “third base,” depending on who’s keeping score). It can also be a silly form of just fooling around. And while it can be a way of getting attention, that doesn’t mean it’s pathological. And it doesn’t mean that someone wants, or is about to, have “real” sex.
Like adults, young people have always used sexuality this way. If you conceptualize sexting as a normal sexual act within teen culture, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable. With today’s technology, however, it’s now going on virtually and asynchronously (and perhaps less apologetically), and so society is trying to figure out what to do about it.
Adult feelings about teen sexting are complicated, because it sits at the intersection of two fundamental American anxieties: technology and adolescent sexuality. Teens today are doing what teens do—taking risks, experimenting, driving parents crazy. We’ve given them new tools with which to do this, and then we complain when they do. We’re illiterate with those tools, making them scarier. And we won’t talk to kids about it, except to say “don’t do it.”
Predictably, we’re living through a society-wide panic about sexting. And so although it’s legal in three-fourths of American states for 17-year-olds to have sex with each other, it’s illegal for them to take or own photos of themselves or each other naked.6 It’s extremely difficult to explain that to an adolescent. It’s impossible, of course, for the millions of parents who don’t talk with their teens about sex at all.
In social welfare organizations, religious institutions, the media, and almost everywhere else, the topic of sexting immediately brings up questions of deviance, irresponsibility, and potential disaster. Implicit in this discourse are the ideas that sexuality is bad; that all sexual expression is morally equivalent and equally decadent; and that teen girls’ sexuality is hazardous, requiring ongoing monitoring and control.
There’s an interesting parallel between many activists denying that adult porn actresses could actually like performing in films, and many activists (often the same ones) denying that teen girls could actually like creating and sharing sexual images of themselves. Similarly, some activists think that sexual images of females—whether adults in pornography or teens who sext—are inherently dangerous, inviting violence, lowering the cultural status of women, and creating pressure on all women to behave more sexually than they wish. There seems to be little consciousness among these activists that adult women or teen women might want agency over their own sexuality, or that they shouldn’t have to be responsible for patrolling the sexual behavior and relationships of others.
Some people anxiously predict that anyone with nude photos of themselves out in the world is just a mouse-click away from a ruined life.
But as digital natives, most teens understand something that most adults don’t—that the way we live online has permanently changed our concepts (and the reality) of “privacy.” And while no one knows exactly how this will turn out, we do know one thing: with as many as half of all teens sexting, and some percentage of those pictures leaking out beyond their intended audience, in 15 years a large number of dentists, high school teachers, journalists, social workers, pharmacists, venture capitalists, and everyone else will have nude pictures of themselves somewhere online.
It’s similar to tattoos in the 1990s: Inked young people were warned they’d live disfigured and therefore marginalized forever. But 20 years later, it turns out that everyone’s junior high school principal, gynecologist, grocery checker, and psychologist has one (or more) tattoos. Tats are here to stay, no longer considered a sign of pathology.
There are three possible problems with teen sexting. In increasing order of likelihood, they are:
Possibly adding to the supply of illegal child pornography online.
Compromising one’s future with images that colleges, employers, and others might access and judge negatively.
Being charged with a crime, resulting in a jail sentence or even mandatory lifelong registration as a sex offender.
1. The first outcome is a problem in theory more than in practice. People who access illegal child porn frequently do so in a dark corner of the web that most people don’t know exists and don’t know how to find. Most child porn is traded among collectors in sophisticated networks that, again, are hard to find or join. Besides, people who want illegal child porn typically desire images of pre-pubescent children. And finally, there’s no evidence that masses of people are trolling suburban email accounts or Facebook accounts trying to get a look at sexual images of local teens.
2. The second outcome is already changing, as Western society gets used to the reality that we all walk around with a camera every day, taking and then posting pictures of our mundane lives—sober and drunk, dressed up and dressed down, working hard and skipping work, and in varying states of provocative undress or flirtation.
The social disapproval that used to attach to erotic public behavior is almost gone as well. With actresses seamlessly moving from porn to mainstream films, and pop stars making nude music videos, and media icons wearing see-through dresses on Hollywood’s red carpets, the social disapproval of nude selfies is declining as well. Whether with nude selfies, same-gender sexual play, polyamory, BDSM fashion, or queer identities requiring new personal pronouns, a whole generation is living with the slightly disdainful, nonchalant attitude of “What’s the problem? It’s only sex.”
3. Being charged with a crime is far and away the most damaging outcome sexters are likely to incur. Ironically, it is the one that we as a society have the most power to change, yet are the least likely to address.
Contrary to popular fear, surveys consistently show that very few recipients of explicit selfies share them without the sender’s consent. In fact, even pictures shared without consent generally travel between just two or three cellphones.7 As with so many sensational sex-oriented urban legends, stories of sexting “rings” involving hundreds of students are the rare exception.
Regardless, the real issue with sexting is not the nudity or sexuality, it’s consent: when images are either (1) created in malicious fashion the participant didn’t authorize, or are (2) distributed in ways the creator has not authorized.
Amy Adele Hasinoff, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado, says that our anxiety about technology and (teen girls’) sexuality distract us from looking at the changing nature of privacy and consent. That’s why our laws don’t make distinctions between consensual sharing of and malicious distribution of private images. She challenges us to move beyond a simplistic understanding of female victimhood, seeing sexting as potentially an authentic expression of desire and agency.
This would refocus us on those who create or forward sexts without the subject’s explicit consent.
While we would like for our teens to be wiser about creating (or allowing to be created) sexual images of themselves, forwarding these images is a big part of the problem—and is not solely the responsibility of the creator. If person A forwards a sext of person B without explicit permission, that’s the person who should be criticized and shamed, rather than slut-shaming the person who’s the subject of the image. This would require a change in both teen culture and adult culture. The sender might be criticized for poor judgment in trusting the wrong person, but that’s hardly a flaw limited to teens.
As Hasinoff says, “Creating sexual images is not inherently harmful, but the malicious distribution of private images is.”8 Clementine Ford puts it even more strongly. She calls forwarding unauthorized texts stealing, and says that stolen sexts are a form of assault.9
So beyond the artificially created legal vulnerability, the only real problem around sexting is the non-consensual distribution of sexted images.
This is not a good reason to ban sexting. Just as we don’t tell people they can’t own cars because their cars might be stolen, we shouldn’t tell teens that they can’t take or send nude selfies because the selfies might get stolen. Instead, we need to help kids understand how to sext more safely. While we’re at it, we could even discuss alternatives to nude selfies (headless nude selfies? A new art form of “safe” nude photography?)—if we were willing to accept the legitimate impulses behind taking and sending them.
Figure 5.1 helps explain what’s going on, and what should actually concern us.10
Starting on the left, “aggravated” sexting involves dynamics like coercion, deception, or even financial bribery. When adults are involved as either consumers or brokers, they are clearly violating the law—even if they are romantically involved with the sexter. Even when adults aren’t involved, teens may be exploiting a would-be sexter either deliberately or through ignorance or naivete.
On the side called “experimental,” teens may sext as an authentic expression of themselves, much as teens have done using other media in previous generations. Similarly, teens may sext because they feel pressured, want attention, want to prove something to themselves, want to defy authority, or want a thrill.
Clearly, the real problem is “aggravated” creation or distribution of sexts, not “experimental.” But most states’ school systems and legal system do recognize the difference.
Figure 5.1
Typologies of Youth-Produced Sexting Images
Source: Janis Wolak and David Finkelhor, Crimes Against Children Research Center, 2011.
Thus, in a world that facilitates sexting, with peer pressure to participate as creator, receiver, or forwarder, here’s what we should be discussing with our kids:
The idea that when anyone sends a sext of themselves, the recipient should assume that it is meant for them only and that they aren’t authorized to forward it to anyone;
The serious moral breakdown involved in forwarding a private text meant only for you, or consuming or forwarding a sext that wasn’t meant for you;
All the good reasons you shouldn’t participate in non-consenting activity;
Consent—how to ask for it, what it looks like, and what violations of consent look like;
Various levels of trust, and how to know if/when you can trust someone, and in what domains.
Finally, because consent is a key aspect of the sexting issue, we need to discuss today’s sexual double standard, which kids have absorbed from the adults around them.11
Too many boys describe receiving sexts from girls as “I know I can get it from” and say that sexting is common only for girls with slut reputations. At the same time, boys also say that girls who don’t sext are “stuck up” or “prudish.” Boys themselves, on the other hand, are generally not judged on whether or not they sext, and they are often considered heroes if they acquire and distribute sexts, particularly those considered hard to get. Hello, it’s 1959 calling—they want their old-fashioned double standard back.
Outside of the legal concerns, that’s where the troubling issues about sexting lie: the terrible pressure American girls feel to create and distribute erotic selfies, using their sexuality to prove their worth or enhance their popularity. The performance of eroticism, Peggy Orenstein calls it in her new book Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape (2016),12 too often disconnected from girls’ sense of who they are, what they want, and who they want to be. And Orenstein sees this as a common prelude to the modern young woman’s performance of sex itself—something done for an audience (males), not for the woman’s own pleasure or self-expression.
The best response isn’t to forbid sexting—it’s for adults to talk with girls and boys about sexuality and pleasure, mutuality and responsibility.
THE MEDIA AND THE LAW: SYMBIOTIC PANIC PROMOTERS
The media’s exploitative response to sexting has focused on titillation and agony, driving America’s anxiety about it. The media love stories about sexting, because it gives them a chance to talk about sex, to show young women on screen looking attractive, and to invite viewers/readers to speculate about all the sex teens are having.
If you doubt this, watch any TV news story on sexting with the sound off. Teasers before the story and intercuts during the story are invariably salacious. The same dynamic holds with “news” stories of prostitutes (arrested or murdered, it makes no difference), stories of students having sex with teachers, zoning conflicts regarding strip clubs, and allegations of sexual violence. It’s all a media opportunity to showcase sex, with the self-righteous, ain’t-it-awful deniability of “It’s news, and people have a right to know.”
Whether the story involves pleasure or exploitation, the media love a sex story. And the media write the sexting story to include both.
And so periodically we hear of a case in which a couple of kids are arrested—scholarships lost, futures ruined—invariably described as the kids’ fault. Occasionally we hear about sexting “rings,” which “infect” schools and throw communities into a panic—as in Cañon City, Colorado, for example, recently involving some 100 students from a single high school. Parents report being shocked; law enforcement says it is overwhelmed by the task of sorting through mountains of digital “evidence.”13 That alone should tell us how normative sexting is, and how unnecessarily hysterical common adult reactions are.
America’s legal response to sexting has been the equivalent of using nuclear weapons to punish littering. In 30 states, sexting is legally described as the creation and distribution of child pornography, among the most serious felonies there are. Bizarrely, these laws say the same young person can be both a victim and a perpetrator. It defines a moonstruck (or bragging) boyfriend as a snarling predator. So laws that were designed to protect children’s lives are now being used to destroy them. It’s the worst possible case of burning down the house to roast a pig.
Depending on the state and on circumstances, kids (boys or girls) who have taken or sent a nude selfie and kids (boys or girls) who have them on their phones can be prosecuted as felons, jailed, and possibly forced to register for life as sex offenders. Especially at the local level, this issue is tailor-made for salacious law enforcement officials who burn with fear and ignorance of sexual behavior. Egged on by a cultural obsession with child pornography and highly exaggerated stranger danger, law enforcement has generally responded with the bluntest instruments it has.
As Louisa County (VA) prosecutor Rusty McGuire said about nude selfies possibly going beyond where they were intended, “What do you do? Turn a blind eye? You’re letting teenagers incite the prurient interest of predators around the country,” fueling a demand that “can only be met by the actual abuse of real children.”14
What total nonsense. As a professional, McGuire should know better, but apparently doesn’t: “The conjecture that the Internet or sexting has increased the number of molesters or their motivation to offend has not really been supported by the evidence,” says David Finkelhor. He adds that U.S. rates of child molesting and sexual offenses in general have declined since sexting has become popular.15
When kids are busted for sexting, they often respond, “Yeah, I know I shouldn’t do it.…” But they never say, “Yeah, I knew I could go to jail for a thousand years, but I decided to do it anyway.” Studies invariably show that a majority of teens are flabbergasted at this latter possibility.16 It’s similar to their response to age-of-consent laws. When kids are busted for having underage sex, they say they know they’re not supposed to do it, but never say they knew they were risking arrest and imprisonment.
You can understand that when teens’ lived experience is that they can drive, have a job, get contraception, control their own spending money, and have intense sexual feelings, they assume they own their bodies. But our society’s consensus is that young people don’t control, and can’t delegate control, of their sexuality (that prerogative belongs primarily to America’s retail sector, which shame
lessly exploits teens’ bodies as part of advertising). If our society is going to selectively commandeer teens’ bodies until they’re 18, we need to explain that bizarre fact to them much more effectively: legally, there can be no visual record of the sexuality of minors.
As Marsha Levick, co-founder of the nonprofit Juvenile Law Center, says of sexting, “Grownups fear that their kids are doing things they don’t understand. [But] kids are finding a normal part of adolescent experimentation being criminalized.”17
Real child pornography is a record of child abuse. Sexting is generally a record of adolescent hijinks, which sometimes go awry. Lumping the two together reflects adult anxiety about young people’s sexuality, not a sophisticated understanding of it. Arresting these kids for the creation, possession, or distribution of child pornography is a perversion of the law. It turns the 15-year-old who poses into both a victim and a perpetrator. How exactly is justice served by arresting these kids?
By watering down the definition of “child pornography,” such laws undermine our attempts to reduce the actual sexual exploitation of children, and to catch and treat those who would really harm our kids.
Ironically, the campaign against sexting holds kids to a higher standard of judgment than adults. With adults, we generally don’t criminalize poor judgment unless it involves coercion or demonstrable harm. If you take nude photos of your wife and then share them with a friend the day after your divorce, she can call you a bastard (which you would be), but she can’t sue you. She certainly can’t get you on a sex offender registry that lumps you in with rapists and child molesters.