Sexting Is Just the Beginning

Sexting Is Just the Beginning

The teen fad of texting–if it is just a fad–has been proven to be deadly.

As I’ve written before, “Let’s face it, as any parent or teacher knows, teenagers can be a delight, and they can be horror. It all comes with the territory, the maturation process, as teens test the limits, push the envelopes, and drive parents to drink and distraction.” In their natural lack of discretion, young people have all too often exceeded those limits and brought embarrassing and sometimes much worse unintended consequences on themselves.

One of the earliest testimonials to the deadliness of teenagers posting nude or partially nude photos of themselves on the internet was the 2008 case of pretty, vivacious Jessica Logan of Cincinnati, Ohio. At the tender age of 18, Jessica hanged herself in her bedroom after a boyfriend circulated a single compromising and revealing picture she had sent for his eyes only. She was branded “a slut, porn queen, whore” by other girls and humiliated to her death.

Regardless of the blatant hypocrisy of Jessica’s former friends who may very well also have sexted and of her ethically-challenged former beau, estimates of a few years ago were that anywhere from 22% to 50% of teens have inappropriate pictures on their cell phones, that 39% of teens have sexted, and that 48% admit to receiving sexts.

“Inappropriate,” of course, is in the eyes of the beholder and many teen beholders are unable to distinguish the difference between what is licentious and what’s appropriate often to their dismay, and instances of prosecution as puveyors of child porn.

See previous articles on sexting on this website, including “Teen Texting, Sexting, and Suicide,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=924

ParentDish.com in an article titled, “Sexting and Your Kids,” updated the sexting picture with new information on the consequences of sexting based on surveys from CosmoGirl, which teens read, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, which they don’t.

According to that update, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3721)