DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: My older brother is 16. Lots of girls think he’s hot and they text him nude or sexy photos of themselves which he saves on his phone. He shows the photos to me and his friends and everybody laughs. I don’t want to tell on him, and I don’t even know the girls, but can’t he get in trouble for this even if he doesn’t spread the photos around? — The “Dumb” 8th-grade Brother, Pasadena
Editor’s Web Note: As a teen advocate, I’ve felt the fascination by the adult community about teen sexting has been overblown — and diversionary. Here we have over 50 percent of the adult population watching pornography (the largest industry on the Internet by a truly staggering margin — with real child pornography by real pedophiles comprising 20 percent of the industry), and 47 percent of families reporting pornography a problem in their homes, and we decide to start charging our minor teens as pedophiles for sending racy pictures of themselves to their boyfriends and girlfriends? Instead of pointing the finger at the segment of the population with the least rights (i.e., minors), shouldn’t parents and elders be unhooking from porn themselves, putting their intimate relationships back in order, and raising kids to have better judgment in the first place? — Lauren Forcella
Comments
-
I’m in major hot water over this and my advice is to immediately delete any pictures like this that somebody sends you. This girl who I’m not even interested in was pursuing me and sent me some nude picutures that she had her sister take of her on her cell phone. I forgot to take my cell phone with me and left it in my room. My stepsister whose 11 and who I have to share a room with decided to fool around with my phone and found the pictures. She doesn’t like me and loves to get me in trouble and showed them to my mom and stepfather. They were furious that I had them on my phone and that my stepsister was exposed to them. They blame me, even though she shouldn’t have been snooping on my phone. Now I’ve had my phone taken away indefinitely and am also grounded. I never asked for the pictures, and didn’t find them a great turn on, but I did keep them and even though I didn’t get in trouble with the law, I still got in major trouble and it wasn’t worth it.
Tom
-
My comment is for any girl who may be considering doing this: DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! Other girls in the crowd I go around with were doing this for their boyfriends, and my boyfriend hinted that I should do the same. I was afraid of losing him and I had my sister take a nude picture of me on my cell phone since she’s the person I’m most comfortable being nude in front of. I got my boyfriend to promise that the picture was for his eyes only. However, not to long after, he not only broke up with me, but broke his promise and passed the picture on to his friends who passed it on to others and now it’s gone around the whole school. I can’t tell you how humiliating it is to know that half the guys in the school have seen a nude picture of me. My parents also found out and a friend of theirs who saw it on their son’s phone sent it to my dad since they thought he should know about it. I can’t even begin to explain how embarrassing it is to have my dad see something like this. They took away both my cell phone and my sister’s and grounded both of us to our room. I really feel bad for getting my sister in trouble since she was reluctant and tried to talk me out of it, but I really pushed her to do it, but our parents say that she should have known better and say the usual “if you sister asked you to jump off a cliff, etc.?” I can tell everyone from experience that doing something like this isn’t worth it.
K.K.
-
I’m similar to K.K.‘s sister. My best friend talked me into taking naked pictures of her to send to her boyfriend. Her parents found out and made her tell who took the pictures and they told my parents, and now I’m in big trouble too. I really didn’t want to do it and it was against my better judgment, but she really pressured me and I gave in. This has now caused a major rift in our friendship. Never again will I let somebody pressure me into doing something against my better judgment.
Molly
-
My sister and I were at a slumber party where we all decided to take pictures of each other on our cell phones nude is sexy poses to see what we looked like. We didn’t see anything wrong with this since it was all girls and everybody’s casual about nudity at all girls slumber parties anyway, and we all agreed to delete the pictures when it was over. It seemed like fun at the time and we all laughed about it. But one girl kept some of the pictures and sent them to her boyfriend who shared them with other guys which was very embarrassing to the rest of us. We will never do anything like this again. The rest of us are no longer speaking to this girl and have lost someone who we thought was a good friend who we could trust.
Jen
-
A guy does not respect a girl when she sends him a dirty picture. He does not think she is better for it. More often than not it is just a ego booster. He doesn’t care who it is or how much he likes them, he just wants a later sexual turn on. I have a friend who is sexually active but not in a relationship. Several of the girls that he had sex with would pose for him to take pictures of later. These pictures he showed to me. These pictures he showed to his friends, his coworkers, guys, girls, anyone. He showed them and said, “look what I got last night.” He used them, he knew it, he liked it.
Sexting, it’s dumb, criminal (even if it’s only a diversion Lauren. Judicial and Executive powers can’t say ‘he’s young and naive so let him slide.’), and it’s wrong for everyone to do. Stop.
