According to a recent MTV sexting survey, one third of young adults have sexted at least once. Almost half of those saw it as a normal sex practice, while the rest thought it was a “serious problem” but did it anyway. So what exactly happens to those pictures you send to your lover? Well, 17% of the recipients of sexting photos forward the image to someone else. Yep, your love sponge is sharing pictures of your Nakedness with their friends. And they end up on sexting photo galleries.
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: