Michelle McGee has released sext messages allegedly sent to her by Jesse James, the soon to be former Mr. Sandra Bullock.

More keeps coming in the Sandra Bullock Jesse James split. Now, Michelle ‘Bombshell’ McGee is shopping around her Jesse James sexting photo galleries to the highest bidder according to Popeater.com.

Seriously? More sexting in the news! When will it ever end? Also, word to the wise — be careful what you text message.

Last week Michell ‘Bombshell’ McGee was paid $30,000 for her dirty kiss & tell by InTouch. Man, this affair with Jesse James is turning out to be lucrative.

Will you read the Jesse James Michelle McGee sexts?

“Teens surprisingly OK with texting during sex,” notes Slate’s news aggregate. This seemed like a good lead for a piece I’ve wanted to write for a while: just how much we should trust claims that 10% of people agree to claim X. In many cases, we probably should put little faith in those numbers.

As usual, Stephen Colbert explains why. In his infamous roast of George W Bush, he notes

Now I know there’s some polls out there that say this man has a 32 percent approval rating … Pay no attention to people who say the glass is half empty .. because 32 percent means it’s 2/3 empty. There’s still some liquid in that glass, is my point. But I wouldn’t drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

This was meant as a dig at those who still supported Bush, but there’s a deeper point to be made: there’s a certain percentage of people who, in a survey, will say “yes” to anything.

Numbers

For instance, many of my studies involve asking people’s opinions about various sentences. In a recent one I ran on Amazon Mechanical Turk, I presented people with sentence fragments and asked them which pronoun they thought would likely be the next word in the sentence:

John went to the store with Sally. She/he…

In that case, it could be either pronoun, so I’m trying to get a sense of what people’s biases are. However, I put in some filler trials just to make sure people were paying attention:

Billy went to the store with Alfred. She/he…

In this case, it’s really, really unlikely the pronoun will be “she,” since there aren’t any female characters in the story. Even so, over 4% of the time participants still clicked on “she.” This wasn’t an issue of some of the participants simply being bad. I included 10 such sentences, and nobody only one person got more than 1 of these wrong. However, a lot of people did manage to miss 1 … probably because they simply were sloppy, made a mistake, were momentarily not thinking … or because they really thought the next word would be “she.”

Those numbers are actually pretty good. In another, slightly harder experiment that I ran on my website, people didn’t do so well. This one was shorter, so I included only 4 “catch trials” — questions for which there was only one reasonable answer. Below is a pie chart of the participants, according to how many of these they got right:

You can see that over half got them all right, but around a quarter missed 1, and a significant sliver got no more than 50% correct. This could suggest many things: my questions weren’t as well-framed as I thought, I had a lot of participants who weren’t paying attention, some people were deliberately goofing off, etc.

Poll numbers

This isn’t a problem specific to experiments. As we all learned in 2000, a certain number of people accidentally vote for the wrong candidate through some combination of not paying attention and poor ballot design.

So there is a difference between a survey finding that 10% of teens say that they think texting during sex is fine and 10% of teens actually thinking that texting during sex is fine. A good survey will incorporate methods of sussing out who is pulling the surveyor’s leg (or not paying attention, or having a slip of the tongue, etc.).

Real Surveys

I didn’t want to unnecessarily pick on this particular study, so I tried to hunt down the original source to see if they had done anything to protect against the “backwash” factor. Slate linked to a story on mashable.com. Mashable claimed that the research was done by the consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo, but only linked to Retrevo’s main page, not any particular article. I did find a blog on Retrevo that frequently presents data from surveys, but nothing this year matched the survey in question (though this comes close). I found several other references to this study using Google, but all referenced Retrevo.

If anyone knows how to find the original study, I’d love to see it — but if it doesn’t exist, it wouldn’t be the first apocryphal study. So it turns out that the backwash effect isn’t the only thing to be careful of when reading survey results.

However, research has shown the teenage brain and the young adult brain is not fully developed. A part of the brain called the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex is still developing through these years. The dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex is believed to be responsible for judgment and consideration of risk, so its lack of development in adolescents and young adults might lead them to make risky or poor decisions.

No wonder teenagers seem more willing to try dangerous or thoughtless behavior, such as racing down the street in their parents’ new car or sexting the cute boy in science class. Thus, all of those times that you threw your hands in the air and asked your teenager, “What were you thinking?!” the answer really might be that they weren’t, because their brain isn’t fully developed yet.

Don’t get me wrong; this doesn’t mean that teenagers aren’t highly intelligent or capable of complex thought. It just means that the “live and learn” theory might really be true in the case of adolescents. Until they suffer the consequences firsthand, or until their brains finish developing in their 20s, their judgment calls won’t always be the best.

Unfortunately, by the time these “sexting” teenagers live and learn, they might have irreparably damaged their reputation and their future.

When Roger gets to an intimate stage with a woman these days, it usually doesn’t take long until the sexy photos start. His dating partners either request that he send them a suggestive—or downright explicit—photo from his cell phone to theirs, or they just send one themselves, completely unsolicited.

“I’ll say, ‘You have an amazing body. You have amazing breasts,’” he reports. “The next thing you know, you’ll get a picture of a breast,” he says with a hearty laugh.

The Massachusetts resident has been enjoying the high-tech flirtation for years now, taking part in a trend the mainstream media has dubbed “sexting,” a play on the term “texting” (“sex” plus “text” equals “sext”). The term has made headlines recently, as teens continually get themselves in sticky situations with a form of high-speed communication that thrives on informality, spontaneity, and—for many young folks—bad judgment.

The catch is, Roger isn’t a teenager—or even a 20-something. He’s a 59-year-old divorcé, and, thanks to his cell phone and a slew of sassy ladies, his love life is more interesting than ever.

Shocked? Don’t be. More and more of the 50+ set, both single and married, are using text messaging to spice up their sex lives. Boomers, often sandwiched between teenagers, aging parents, and busy work schedules, are taking advantage of the new technology because it’s fast, easy, and fun.

Although this issue impacts men and women, many young girls erroneously believe that expressing their sexuality in this way is a feminist act, when in fact having control over your sexuality is a feminist act. Placing nude photos of yourself such as, a sexting photo gallery in the hands of others is a decidedly non-feminist act. Teens are inundated with information, and just as they confuse ideological ways of thinking, they are confused about sexuality and expressing it.

It is up to adults to help make it clear for them. Teach your sons and daughters that it is the lowest of the low to send nude photos of someone else over the Web — period. If they would not like it done to them, then they should not do it to others. Further, they should not participate because there are moral and legal consequences.

The seventh-grade girl at Cumming’s Liberty Middle School sent the nude photo of herself by cell phone to three boys at three middle schools in Forsyth County.

The 10th-grade boy at Forest Park High School sent the naked image of himself with his phone to a 16-year-old girl at his Clayton County school and it was forwarded to four other students, one of them 14.

The girl and boy were punished the same day last month in metro Atlanta school systems about 40 miles apart. Their consequences were quite different.

The girl, a juvenile, was suspended for 10 days and told she would face a school tribunal and might be expelled or sent to an alternative school. The boy, Malcolm Radcliff, 17, and an adult under Georgia law, was arrested at school, charged with the misdemeanor of furnishing obscene material to a minor, spent a night in Clayton County jail and was released the next day on $2,000 bond.

They were caught “sexting” – sending nude photos by text message — a phenomenon that has infiltrated school systems and involved law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in Georgia and across the nation, and left them unsure yet how to stop and how to punish the behavior.

Radcliff said this week he sent the naked picture of himself as a joke. Only now does he recognize the repercussions could be serious and last for years.

“I planned to go to college, but, if something like this is left on my record, I might not get in a big school,” Radcliff said. “I might have to go to a community college or no college at all. I know it’s going to follow me.”

A few days after Radcliff’s arrest, Lois Woods, the Clayton County solicitor’s office investigator, intimated this might be a test case when she said, “He could become the poster child for sexting picture galleries– and that might not be a bad thing.”

However last week, Clayton solicitor general Tasha Mosley said she wouldn’t pursue prosecution if Radcliff volunteered for community service. “He’s shown remorse,” she said. “What he did was stupid. This is a way to dispose of the case without a lingering record.”

Yet across the state, schools and prosecutors have struggled in how to deal with sexting images. Under state sex statutes, written before cell phones and the Internet, they are bound to treat the behavior as child pornography which, according to details of each case, can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor or a felony.

Last month two eighth-graders were caught sexting photos at The Lovett School in Buckhead. One was suspended, the other left the private school. The case was investigated by Atlanta police, but school spokesperson Kim Bass said this week the students were not charged.

If convicted as a felony, the sentence is a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, and the person’s name is placed on the Georgia sex offender registry for at least 15 years.

This is behavior, some have argued, that’s no more of a crime than streaking was three decades ago when college students ran naked across campuses and through towns and were seldom arrested or prosecuted.

In at least 14 states, including Florida, Connecticut and Arizona, legislatures are considering rewriting sex laws to update them and separate sexting from child pornography, and make punishments less severe. (In Georgia, it’s not illegal for consenting adults to send naked pictures to each other on electronic devices.)

Florida state Sen. Dave Aronberg, running for attorney general, is supporting a bill in that state’s legislature to decriminalize sexting and punish it as a misdemeanor with a $60 fine, or eight hours of community service.

“There has to be some punishment because the state has a compelling interest to keep naked pictures of children off the Internet,” he said. “But, right now, police and prosecutors are reluctant to enforce [the laws], they’re so draconian.”

J. Tom Morgan, former DeKalb district attorney and an expert on Georgia child law, gives seminars on this subject to parents and students at schools across the state. He tells them several Georgians have been prosecuted under the current law and are on the state sex offender registry.

The teens on that list have great difficulty getting jobs or into colleges. Morgan has represented some of those teens and currently is working on behalf of a high school senior, 17, in a case pending in Cobb County. He has declined to identify them.

Georgia law is so conflicted it’s legal for teenagers to have sex at 16, but those same teenagers can be arrested for sending naked pictures to each other.

“If a 17-year-old girl takes a nude picture of herself and sends it to her 18-year-old boyfriend she is technically guilty of child pornography and could be sentenced to 20 years in prison,” Morgan said.

Morgan has addressed Georgia legislators about the need to rewrite the state’s sex code. A bill was introduced this session to give those listed on the sex offender’s registry a chance to appeal, under certain circumstances, to a judge to have their names removed.

There’s been no effort to change the punishment for sexting. “Legislators don’t want to appear soft on crime,” Morgan said.

One of five teens has admitted sexting, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. It’s impossible to say how much of that takes place during school hours. In the Radcliff case, he took the photo at night and the girl was caught showing it at school.

Sexting Galleries

The Georgia Department of Education doesn’t track sexting offenses. They fall under sexual harassment, disorderly conduct or other violations, spokesman Matt Cardoza said. Officials at three of the major school systems in metro Atlanta, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett, couldn’t confirm a single case of sexting this past year.

Forsyth schools have had five recent sexting cases, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Caracciola said. Atlanta Public Schools had one. Clayton schools had two. Parents only now have become aware of the phenomenon.

“When I found out about it, it was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know this was going on, this kind of promiscuous behavior,’” said Debbie Worthington, a Forsyth County mother of two students active in anti-drug and anti-alcohol school programs. “But I can see with the kind of peer pressure kids have in school how a girl might feel compelled to do something like this to get attention.”

Cyd Cox, president of the Clayton County Council of PTAs, said her group is meeting with the solicitor’s office to formulate an education program for parents and students about school codes of conduct and the dangers of sexting and violations of state law. Clayton schools’ cell phone policy, similar to other school systems, forbids students from using the devices during school hours. “But that doesn’t mean your child can’t send them to another student after school,” Cox said.

Tracking sexting remotely with technology is difficult. The student typically has to be caught in possession of the cell phone with the photo on it. Since students can’t have their phones turned on during school, it presumably takes another student telling on them for teachers to find out.

“The truth is, we’re not going to find out somebody is sexting unless our students report it,” said Chantel Mullen, dean of student discipline and affairs at Atlanta Public Schools. “So, as an incentive for them to report, we don’t punish students who receive the pictures and don’t forward them.”

The GDOE doesn’t have a recommended policy for state schools to prevent or punish sexting. “We consider that a local school issue,” Cardoza said. Most, however, follow the same guidelines: Don’t forward it, and report it and you don’t get punished.

The three Forsyth County boys were not disciplined for receiving a nude photo of the seventh-grade girl because they didn’t forward them. In the Clayton case, the girl who received the naked image forwarded it and was suspended from school for three days.

Clayton and other metro school systems are stepping up efforts to educate parents and students about the perils of sexting. Cobb schools distributed 100,000 Federal Trade Commission pamphlets on the Internet and cell phones to every student and parent with children in the school system.

The message is different than it was a few years ago, said Patti Agatston, a psychologist who runs the Cobb program. “In the old days we emphasized being safe by being careful with what you download,” said Agatston. “It’s a two-way street now. Now you have to think about the consequences of what you upload.”

Malcolm Radcliff’s record will be erased once he goes through community service. However, his memory of a night in Clayton County jail, getting treated no differently than the other criminals, likely will stick with him for a long time, said James Tukes Sr., his older brother and legal guardian.

“It’s a lesson learned,” Tukes said.

This is a phenomenon known as “sexting”. However these young people are not being rewarded with their own T.V. show but instead with charges being pressed against them. These minors are being charged as sex offenders, a life-long title, because they are supposedly creating and publishing child pornography.

How are these minors supposed to know that there are consequences for their “sexting” when their celebrity idols get rewarded with popularity and fame? Paris Hilton is now a household name because everyone knew of her sex tape. Kim Kardashian got her own show and is now one of the most popular celebrities out there. None of these sex tape scandal victims have been punished for their mistakes and experimentation, so why should a teenager? Especially when they only learned it from these STARS. It seems as though minors are always getting blamed and punished for their mistakes when they only make them so they can learn and grow. Adults should understand this and not punish them for it, especially with severe charges like being a sex offender. These celebrities are the ones who should be punished for their irresponsible actions. I mean, they’re grown! Why are their mistakes seen as opportunities for more FAME and publicity when the mistakes of these teenagers are seen as crimes?

There is no room in society for teenagers to grow and learn from their mistakes without having to face severe consequences. This is only going to result in more negative behavior, and probably much worse than the act of ”sexting”.

For starters if you have some sort of sexual fantasy or desire that you would like to be fulfilled you can use text messaging to let your partner know. Sometimes it is very hard to talk to your partner about things you desire so text messaging is a to say what you want without feeling any added pressure. Being able to send a text instead of having to say it face to face will make things more comfortable for you.

Text messaging can also be used as a form of foreplay. Stop thinking that foreplay can only happen in the bedroom. Foreplay should start way before the actual act of intercourse occurs. Through out the day you can send each other suggestive messages that will get them in the mood. Tell your partner what you want to do to them when they get home. Trust this will make for some mind blowing sex. The anticipation alone will make it well worth the wait.

Though text messaging can have a great affect on your sex life there are a few things you should be cautious about. DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT send text messages to a phone that is not exclusively used by your partner. These type of text messages are private and should not be able to be read by anyone else. Also never ever ever send text messages to a phone that has been issued to them by their employer. Those phones are the property of the company so anytime they choose they can go through that phone and see what has been going on.

There are emotions that go through the person sending the messages and the person receiving the messages. Then the person receiving the messages responds, then it becomes a conversation. But is it cheating?

It can destroy the “other” person! The person that you are in a relationship with, the one who is trusting you with your phone. To know that your “other half” is texting someone sexual comments and obviously having thoughts about that person, can destroy a persons trust, their life, their whole being.

They start to question themselves. What’s wrong with me? Am I not good enough? Am I not pretty enough? Is it my weight? What did I do wrong? How do I fix it? How do I change it and make it better?

What is the “It”?

I believe it is cheating. It can mentally hurt and destroy a person. It is not the act of doing, but the intentions behind the texting. The thinking and actually saying, maybe not vocally but with your fingers, that you want to do these things to this person. It is saying to someone other than the person that you are with, that you want to do these things to and with them. You are actually saying it.

Now the denial. Deny, deny, deny! That’s what happens! It wasn’t me. It was meant for you! (yeah, because you had this whole conversation with someone else and thought it was me, while I was in the other room!) It was an accident. I was drunk. I was on drugs.

All of the excuses in the whole world cannot fix what has now been done to this person. You have just destroyed the one person that you say that you love and trust. How do you fix this? I don’t think that you can. I think that the more excuses that are made just makes things harder to deal with.

So, I ask you, do You believe that it is cheating? Physical or Emotional.

A great example of sexting and sexting photo galleries is when a woman in her 40’s sends nude pictures via text saying she’d like to perform sexual acts on him. The story from a serious sexting case for your reading pleasure.

A New Hampshire high school English teacher who allegedly e-mailed nude photos of herself to a 15-year-old male student was arrested Friday on a felony charge of indecent exposure and lewdness.

Melinda Dennehy, 41, of Hampstead, turned herself in to Londonderry police and was later released on $10,000 bond for her sexting photo galleries. She was placed on administrative leave from her job at Londonderry High School on Wednesday, the day school officials and police were notified about the pictures going around school.

The boy who received the photographs told police Dennehy also sent him text messages offering to have sex, and that she kissed him on the mouth in a classroom at least twice in recent months.

Several male students, including the recipient of the images, were interviewed, and at least one photograph shows Dennehy with her genitals exposed, Londonderry Detective Kristen Gore wrote in an affidavit.

Calls to the home of John and Melinda Dennehy in Hampstead seeking comment were not immediately returned.

The student who received the photos told police he forwarded them to two male friends. He also told police that Dennehy sent him text messages or engaged in sexting “continuously.”

Dennehy used her private AOL account to e-mail the photographs, according to a copy of an e-mail supplied to police, the affidavit said.

Because the boy who received the pictures is under the age of 16, Dennehy faces up to seven years in prison and a $4,000 fine, Londonderry Lt. Chris Gandia said.

It wasn’t immediately known if the boy who received the sexting photo galleries was one of Dennehy’s students. She has taught sophomore English at the school for three years.

Fortunately, networks with large teen audiences — MTV, for example — are using their platforms to warn teens against the dangers of teenage sexting. And the website That’s Not Cool uses teen-speak to help resist cyber peer pressure. Hopefully, these messages will get through.

New Jersey has gotten a fair share of attention lately thanks to the arrest of a 14-year-old Clifton girl for posting nude pictures to her Myspace page.

But here’s the kicker–the girl is facing child pornography charges and may have to register under Megan’s Law for life as a dangerous sex offender.

Now I wholeheartedly believe this teen is misguided, needs some help and should be forced to remove the picture, but I think lumping this under Megan’s Law is totally insane.

What do readers think?

When I think of a child pornographer or a sex offender, I think of an adult that preys on or exploits helpless children.

A ’sexting’ teen, on the other hand, is a hormone driven young adult that makes stupid decisions in an attempt to a) fit in, b) get attention or c) find love in all the wrong places.

Besides the nudity involved, I can’t find anything remotely similar between the two.

Yes, this girl put “pornography” out on the internet and yes, she is technically a child, but it was not done to exploit or abuse her. She did it to herself for whatever reason.

Similarly, forcing this seriously misguided teen to register under Megan’s Law as a sex offender is only going to make things worse. If that happens, she can pretty much kiss a good job and a trusting relationship with her neighbors goodbye in the future.

Even Megan Kanka’s mother (the girl for whom Megan’s Law was named) has gone on the record to say, “”This shouldn’t fall under Megan’s Law in any way, shape or form. She should have an intervention and counseling, because the only person she exploited was herself.”

This leads me to my final two points.

Teenagers make bad decisions. I know I made a few–and thank God they didn’t follow me around for the rest of my life.

Those pictures do not make the girl in this case a predator, and I hope the prosecutors will move on and go after the real criminals out there that endanger and exploit our children.

Finally, if you are the parent of a teen, make sure you know what’s going on online. Google your kid. Check their Myspace and Facebook pages. Learn how to check your web history–especially if child pornography charges start coming down for risque behavior online.

Teens have tunnel vision and don’t understand the long term consequences of a Megan’s Law violation on their record. Therefore, it’s up to us as parents to make sure our kids are doing the right thing and behaving appropriately online.

But what do you think? Should teens face child pornography charges for posting nude pics online? Or better yet– what should be the consequences of posting nude pictures online?

While there is no legal definition of sexting, it is important to note that most people’s understanding of sexting generally does not include situations in which young people send sexually explicit images of themselves to adults. This distinction becomes more difficult based upon the age difference between the two parties. For example, when one of the parties is the 18-year-old boyfriend of a 16-year-old girl, is this sexting or more serious criminal behavior? In addition, sexting is not the appropriate term to describe youth sending sexually explicit images of themselves to others as a result of blackmail, duress, coercion or enticement.

Youth can use various technological tools including cell phones, computers, web cams, digital cameras, and/or certain video game systems to take and distribute sexually explicit photographs of themselves or others in their peer group for the purpose of sexting photo galleries.

Sexting is an extremely complex issue. As a result, it is very difficult to provide guidance on how best to handle these situations. What we have learned thus far is that there are four roles to every sexting photo galleries cases: the person seen in the photo, the person who took the photo, the distributor(s) of the photo, and the recipient(s) of the photo. In some cases one person may assume more than one of these roles (e.g., a child takes a sexually explicit picture of herself and sends it to a classmate). In other situations, multiple people may take on a single role (e.g., a child takes a sexually explicit picture of himself and sends it to a classmate who then forwards the photo to the entire high school senior class). It is important to consider the intentions and motives of each of the parties in every situation.

Youth sometimes engage in risky behavior. However, the combination of the Internet, easy transmission of digital photos, and poor judgment can lead to serious and unintended consequences — including becoming the victim of enticement, blackmail, harassment and exploitation by both adults and other youth. Increased education about these consequences and law enforcement’s use of prosecutorial discretion will help prevent these situations. The primary challenge is for prosecutors to determine at what point on a scale of severity accountability should be assigned. A permanent record, juvenile or criminal, for any sex-related charge can have serious lifetime consequences for both the child/youth and parent, so considerable thought should be given before any filing of juvenile or criminal charges.

The following factors should be considered in each sexting situation:

• Are there photos involved or only written messages about sexually explicit conduct?

• If there are photos involved, do they violate state or federal law, based on statutorily-prohibited types of sexual conduct?

• Are the photos self-produced?

• If the photos were self-produced, were they done so voluntarily, under duress, or as the result of encouragement by a boyfriend/girlfriend/classmate/friend/online acquaintance?

• What kind of pressure and/or duress did the boyfriend/girlfriend/classmate/friend/online acquaintance exert?

• Was the distribution of the photos done with no malicious regard or desire to harm another, or was it the result of malicious intent by one or more senders?

• What are the ages of the youth depicted in the images and the age of others involved in the production and/or distribution of the photos, and are they close in age?

• Do the photos depict only the self-producer, or were there other youth and/or adults depicted in prohibited activity?

• What was the intent behind the production of the photos, on a severity scale ranging from a benign reason to supporting a separate and malicious criminal purpose?

• At what point on this severity scale should accountability be assigned?

• Is the range of distribution of the photos so large and complex that investigation and prosecution cannot be meaningful or practical?

• Will prosecution achieve a result which addresses the larger problem of “sexting” adequately?

• What is the range of harm to the child depicted in the photos, the recipients of the photos, and to the community?

• Is there an alternative, non-criminal, sanction that would discourage the participants from sexting in the future and effectively educate the children involved about the negative legal, social, and emotional consequences of their actions?

There is a boy at my college who I was sort of interested in for a while. He knows alot about me, things I don’t like and do. One of the things I don’t like is sexting. I will not send a nude or semi-nude photo of myself to a guy so he can have the pleasure of maybe jacking off or showing off the picture to his friends. ( Ladies, there is something called a little self respect. ) This boy had the nerves to ask me for a photo. I said no, he kept asking. Than he said: You slept with four guys, and you can’t send me a picture. Who the fuck are you to bring that into the situation? I said no once, no means no. Thats freakin wonderful if you want to see me naked, how about maybe talking to me? Like me more than a friend? Ask me out? Then maybe we’ll see about seeing me naked.

Personally I believe asking a girl for a nude photo of themselves is fucking disrespectful and if they agree to send one then there is seriously something wrong with them. Desperate much?

Oh and by the way, if you so happen to be a 14 year old girl, 15, 13, any of those underage numbers, believe it or not but sexting is a felony and if the guy is recieving those texts, he can be arrested. So have fun with that girls.

If anything, I am really upset at the situation that just happend, wait no, PISSED THE HELL OFF. If anyone knows the song Kerosene or Gunpowder and Lead by Miranda Lambert, thats the kind of mood im in right now.

What does everyone else feel about sexting? I think its wrong between a girlfriend and boyfriend too, can’t they just wait till they are ready to have sex to see your spous naked? Seriously. Its degrading to sext.

It’s no longer the telephone companies’ dirty little secret: Cellphones are the newest sex toys.

Instead of playing coy by promoting their technological innovations, cellphone makers have embraced what they call the “textual revolution” and are actively selling their short-message service (SMS) as a sex aid.

Many cellphone companies have researched the market, and have been releasing their findings dressed up as Valentine’s Day trivia: That texting, as an integral part of sex life, is hot, hot, hot.

Virgin Mobile Canada recently asked TV sex kitten Pamela Anderson to write a book called The Joy of Text, to be sold in bookstores and given away with a cellphone kit that Virgin calls its “Pleasure Pack.” In it, Ms. Anderson talks about “textual intercourse” and offers Canadians advice on “how to spice up their text lives.”

Vonage Canada breathlessly reported the other day that there are great advantages to text sex. About a third of their text sex users said they liked not having to get dressed up for a date; about one in five said they liked to do other things while exchanging moist messages, and one in 10 said it was because they didn’t have to take precautions.

“The days of calling someone to ask them out on a date or sending a Valentine’s Day card are so yesterday,” reports Virgin Mobile Canada marketer Nathan Rosenberg.

Sex texting is even less “real” than its elder cousin, phone sex, which has reached such universal levels that more than half of Canadians confessed to Vonage that they engage in phone sex.

Rhonda, a 20-something professional in Toronto, says that sex texting adds a whole new dimension to dating. “It’s a masked confidence. There’s no accountability, because you’re not seeing a reaction.

“It works on two levels, before a relationship and during one,” she adds. “You can use it to advance a relationship, and you can use it during a relationship – just to show someone you’re always thinking about them.”

Messaging can get very graphic, she says, detailing clothing or what one is going to do with a tongue. And from the male point of view, she says, seduction is often the intent: “If you do it enough,” she says, “maybe you’ll get in.”

Women initiate sex texting as often as men do, she says, but there’s a fine line between how the two sexes react. Most women mistrust men who rely too much on texting, because it shows a lack of respect. A woman might enjoy the heat of hot text, but will not agree to a date unless it’s made when a man actually calls and asks.

Because it does not happen in real time, texting can also work both for and against people communicating that way. Long silences may or may not be meaningful, and responses tend to be a little more considered before being written, so it takes a lot of intuition to gauge the effectiveness of the message.

Sex texting starts just after high school, says Vonage Canada’s marketing director Patti Jordan, when kids leave for different colleges. “Long-distance relationships have become unavoidable as more people relocate to attend post-secondary school and to take new jobs,” she says.

The telephone — voice as well as texting — becomes a way of maintaining those relationships.

“We’re just happy to be able to do our part to help keep relationships healthy and happy without breaking the bank, but what people say and do during their conversations is really none of our business,” she adds coyly.

On one thing all marketers can agree on is that sex texting is most popular among people from their late teens to their early 30s, one of the most desirable demographics for any product. That realization, however, comes with a dark cloud: The arrival of unwanted and as-yet unregulated advertising via SMS. Clickatell, a U.S.-based SMS text messaging company, is set to release a major study next week (Feb. 21) called Targeting with Texting, advising industry on how to reach that market.

Canadians have yet to be deluged with SMS advertising, but it has become so prevalent in the United States — where you actually end up bearing some of the cost of receiving such messages — that people who can’t afford to pay simply turn the SMS feature off.

“It became more trouble than it was worth,” says Mila, a university student in Chicago.

The telephone companies jumped on the texting bandwagon four years ago, when the four major carriers in Canada agreed to allow SMS messaging between cellphones subscribing to different service providers, something they couldn’t do before.

Today, Canadians are sending more than two billion text messages a year, Virgin’s Rosenberg says. But we’re still pikers in that regard; Peter Baker of The Dating Channel in England says that the British passed the 13 billion-per-year SMS mark in 2001. And Mr. Baker’s survey found that two in five cellphone users say they would rather give up chocolate and one in 10 are willing to live without TV rather than lose their ability to text.

Sex texting is also subtler than the marketers can describe. For instance, Rhonda says, it’s permissible to text someone at 3 a.m., but not to phone. At that hour, it’s almost always about sex, she says. But if the sex texting is from someone she doesn’t like or from someone with whom she no longer has a relationship, Rhonda says it crosses the line, and becomes irritating.

Is it like stalking, or harassment?

No, she says right away. “It’s just annoying, it’s junk.”

She responds by not responding, and doesn’t feel threatened by it. A stalker, she says, is usually a stranger and there will likely be a threat involved, and you can block the sender’s phone number anyway. But sex texting almost always involves someone you know.

Depending on the culture, sex texting can be a liberating experience or a crime, too. Italians and Singaporeans alike have taken to sex texting in a big way, reports a website called Textually.org, and almost 90 per cent in both countries cited messages as proof of infidelity — and text messages have become admissible as evidence in divorce courts.

But is it morally wrong? While most Canadians appear to regard sex texting as fun, The Independent newspaper in London reported on a study that concluded sending flirtatious e-mail or phone texts behind a partner’s back can be just as damaging as a real-life affair.

After all, most conservative religions have strictures against the intent to sin, similar to the sin of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who once confessed famously to having “lusted in my heart.” Similarly for sex texters, it can be sinful to having lusted in your thumbs.

Sober minds attending the annual British Psychological Society conference in London were told that “a cyber-relationship is viewed as a serious infidelity by both men and women.” That happened shortly after the British media had a field day with the overtly sexual messages intercepted between soccer star David Beckham and his former personal assistant Rebecca Loos, which in 2004 outraged a British public still mooning over Beckham’s marriage to former Spice Girl Victoria Adams. Beckham denied infidelity, but he was condemned in the court of public opinion.

The Beckham story shows the dark of sex texting, which in cases where there is no real relationship, it suggests there might very well become one.

When that happens, Rhonda says, “It becomes a New Age booty call.”

There are likely many reasons why young people might send such an electronic message. Most teens have experimented sexually, and it’s possible that sexting is just another available venue to do so. For some, it could be a way of getting attention, for others a method of seduction or anther way to say, “I love you.” The answer could be as simple as “because they can,” and some have suggested it is partially due to the proliferation (and therefore normalization) of sexual and sexualized images on the internet.

While most teens and young adults who send these photos may see it as a harmless flirty note, the potential ramifications are far greater, because once it is sent, the photo is a permanent record that is now out of the hands of the sender. Approximately 40% of teens say it is common for nude or semi-nude photos to get shared with people other than the intended recipient. In Ohio in 2008 a middle school girl sent a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked and the photo subsequently circulated throughout the middle and high school. The girls was suspended and then was taunted so viciously by her peers that she ended up hanging herself. In yet another example of where the photos might go, there are pornographic websites online devoted solely to sexting photos that include pictures of teens.

In addition to the potential lack of privacy, pornographic use, and exposure to humiliation, one of the other issues related to sexting by teens is that of child-pornography laws. Last year, shortly after he turned 18, a boy in Florida sent a naked photo of his 16 year old girlfriend (that she had taken and sent to him) to her friends and family after an argument. The result: he was convicted of sending child pornography, sentenced to five years probation, and required by Florida law to register as a sex offender. More recently, the ACLU was able to block prosecution of three girls in Pennsylvania who had made risque photos of themselves that showed up on classmates cellphones.

Kids make a momentary decision to take a nude photo of themselves and send it, much in the way teens make many of the decisions during that time in their life. However, in this case, that photo is “out there” forever, and potentially widely dispersed for an indefinite period of time. This presents another issue related to modern technology that our society (psychology, law, schools, etc.) has not yet caught up to. Is it a crime to create and send sexually provocative photos of underage girls or boys? Thus far, this has been considered pornography. But what if the photographer was the teen themselves? Who then should be charged? Only the individual who disseminates the image, or also the teen who took the photo and sent it? If so, should it be a felony or misdemeanor? There are no easy answers to these questions, and issues such as First Amendment rights, child protection laws, and age of consent are at stake.

Some, such as Marty Klein, a Palo Alto author and sex therapist, believe the issue has been blown out of proportion. “Sexting is the latest way adults are getting panicky about teen sexuality,” he asserts. This may or may not be true. The question of sexuality and sexual rights and protection of young people has yet to be a fixed concept in our ever-changing society. However, sexting as an expression of sexuality amongst teens is potentially graver, given the permanence of it. Meanwhile, while one in five teens send or receive sexual images to each other, parents, schools, and the legal system scramble to try to figure out what, if anything, to do about it.

Its a happening thing these days in school campuses, as a local High school student said,” 9 times out of 10 it is a nasty photo.”

Teens told a TV station that many of their classmates(notice it is always the other class mates not the person giving the statement- that’s wise dude) are using cell phones to take and send explicit photos. They said “sexting pics” is a major problem at most campuses.

By texting, students are able to keep their conversations secret because they’re not talking on the phone. They can even use their phones in the classroom.

Some students admitted to texting up to 4000 messages in a month. Those typing fingers should be registered as a weapon. But it is OK long as kids texting messages, things can go out of hand with sexting because an inappropriate photo can turn into a criminal matter.

In Utah, “sexting” led to criminal charges when a parent had found an explicit photo and called police. Several students at one school were found to be texting inappropriate photos.

Portland-area prosecutors said parents can also face charges if they are aware of their child sending racy pictures and allowing it to continue.

Students said the worst part is that one photo can get to dozens of people in a matter of minutes and the photo can end up in the wrong hands.

The net circulates such graphic images all around the globe, so watch it next time you are clicking yourself in your B’day suit or the whole world might end up watching you, unless that’s what you want.

So what are the long term consequences of viewing inappropriate images to the point that it becomes normal? Patrice Oppliger is the author of “Girls Gone Skank”, a book that looks at the sexualization of girls in American culture. “Girls normally play with their sexuality, but it’s gone too far, and it’s become skanky, not an attractive, but more of a dirty look to it. Skanky as opposed to sexy or sexual,” Opplinger says. She blames, in part, the internet, as well as magazines and movies, saying girls as young as 12, 13, and 14 are emulating the scantily clad women they see, believing if they dress and act like them, they will get the guy.

“A lot of young girls dancing in their underwear and slips, it’s sort of a wow, they’re so young and how did this become so commonplace and not shocking to them anymore,” Oppliger says. Besides issues with self esteem, other studies suggest initial curiosity can lead to problems with intimacy, or even worse, addiction. “Boys in particular that watch a whole lot of porn are beginning to think of sex as just another natural activity like eating and breathing, and that there is no relationship between having sex with someone and having an emotional, fond feeling for them,” says certified sex therapist, Dr. Aline Zoldbrod. She says you shouldn’t overreact if you discover your kids have come across inappropriate material, it’s likely normal curiosity and she emphasizes that only 4% of the kids who view online nudity will actually become addicted. How kids react to these images, she adds, is largely based on parenting style. “If you bring up a kin in a family where there is eye contact and love and empathy and if they know when something goes wrong they can come to you, that kid is not going to forget that lesson,” Zoldbrod says. So with the internet, magazines and music videos here to stay, experts say communication is key to having a well-adjusted kid.

Honestly, when you were growing up, how often did you come across a picture of a naked person that made you feel slightly uncomfortable?

Was it dad’s Playboy magazine hidden under a stack of towels that you found in the powder room?

The point is…when I was a little girl it didn’t happen very often. I was so modest, I thought National Geographic was even a little crazy.

Fast forward to 20-10 and kids these days are being inundated with nudity.

Just Google sex and see what you find. You don’t have to be 18 either. You just have to be old enough to know how to turn on the computer.

While doing research for my story, I came across some pretty startling findings. A sergeant from the Norwood police department told me almost half of 5 and 6 year olds who have access to a computer have, at some point, come across inappropriate images that made them feel uncomfortable.

One 12 year old I talked to told me when she was only 9 years old, she Googled her name out of curiosity and up popped a porn site. It worries me that young people are being exposed to so much nudity and sex at such a young age that it’s becoming so “normal.”
I wonder how it will effect them in the long run. Are we raising a generation of kids who are desensitized when it comes to sex?

When you consider the popularity of “sexting,” and Chatroulette… it pretty much seems that way.