In our highly sexualized society, children at a continuously younger age are becoming aware of their sexuality and acting upon it. Thanks to commercials, movies, music videos and songs, young people are learning to dress and behave in a sexual way, and they are being told that this is normal.
Some people are more liberal with their children. They do not see the harm in letting them watch movies that are rated R for nudity and sex. They don’t see anything wrong when their daughters subscribe to Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, magazines that encourage young girls to buy that mascara to give their eyelashes more volume (when before they thought their eyelashes were just fine) and clothes that will make their body look slimmer (when before they thought their bodies looked just fine.)
It seems like every year we raise the stakes of beauty. The latest craze has been teeth whitening. Apparently good dental hygiene just isn’t enough anymore. The bottom line is, young girls are taught that their bodies and appearance must be a certain way to gain a guy’s attention. It was only a matter of time before they discovered a way to use new technology for this purpose.
“Sexting” means sending explicit pictures or messages to others via text messaging. Unfortunately teenagers around the country as young as 12 and 13-years-old have been sexting. According to an article on CNN.com, “CosmoGirl.com surveyed nearly 1,300 teens about sex and technology. The result: 1 in 5 teens say they’ve sexted even though the majority know it could be a crime.”
Often it seems that when a girl sends her boyfriend or friend a nude picture of herself, that picture gets circulated throughout the high school and community. These kids are far too immature to realize the consequences of their actions. After all, pop culture makes it seem as if it is acceptable for adults to send each other nude photos, so they might as well do it too. Kids are consumers of the news too, and it is always news when a celebrity decides to take her clothes off for a men’s magazine. Young people apparently do not comprehend the damage that a circulated explicit photo will do to a girl’s life and reputation.
Those who have been caught sexting, such as Phillip Alpert of Florida, have sometimes been arrested for child pornography and are now forced to register as a sex offender for much of their adult lives. I believe that the Sex Offender Registry is good. I want to know which child molesters and rapists are living around the corner from me. But I do not believe that these kids should be forced to register as sex offenders because they have been sexting.
The sex offender registry was the result of moral panic following the murder of Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed by a previous sex offender who lived in her neighborhood. According to the website megans-law.net, President Clinton signed Megan’s Law into effect in 1996. Megan’s law requires two components: sex offender registration and community notification. The purpose of the law was to protect children from convicted sex offenders. Now, each state has a sex offender registry, and the details of registration and community notification vary by state.
In the case of sexting, the law must adapt to the changing times and the changing technology. Should those participating in sexting be punished? Absolutely. But the court must realize that sexting is the result of a generation that is becoming sexualized at an even younger age, yet is too immature to deal with it. I agree with the commentary of Mike Galanos on CNN.com:
“We need to educate, not incarcerate, our teens and it has to start with parents. Don’t let the culture indoctrinate your little boy or girl about sex before their time. So strike first as a parent. If your kids are older, let them know a digital record is for life. When little Suzie tries to win the affection of little Bobby by sexting him a picture, she is putting her future at stake. There is no control over that image or video once it gets out. But that doesn’t mean little Suzie should be charged as a child pornographer.”
Sexting is a problem rooted in the treatment of women in society. Girls need to start respecting themselves and their bodies, and boys need to start respecting them too. Registering someone whose only crime is sexting will not solve this problem. They are not in the same class as rapists and child molesters, and they do not pose the same kind of danger. They need to be punished, but in a different and more meaningful way.
