Exhibitionism, 'Sexting' and Teens' Not-So Private Parts

We hope to move on to less salacious topics in the future, but this blog's second post will again touch on the topic of nudity. (What else might one expect from a blog with "private parts" in its title after all?)

The Aiken Standard reports on sex crime charges against two Ohio teens. The crime of one of the teens was taking a photo of herself naked with her cell phone (creation of child pornography) and sending the photo to her boyfriend (distribution of child pornography). The crime of the other teen, her boyfriend, was looking at the photo (consumption of child pornography). Apparently, "sexting" is all the rage at high schools these days. And, judging from the amount of hits resulting from a "sexting" on Google News, prosecuting the crime is all the rage across the country too.

The New York Post is on to the trend and even tracked down an image from a Manhattan teen's cell phone for its readers' viewing pleasure. The media sexting obsession seems to have been spurred by a few cases prosecuted nationwide, but also by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy's study, released last month, which found that 20% of teens have sexted. If we are really in a post-private age where exhibitionism comes naturally, our response is, "Only 20 percent?"

The sexual behavior of the young never ceases to shock the old. What seems novel to the older seasoned generations these days is how teens are using technology to enable their wild and sexually deviant ways. For example, see this recent article on teens and the "faceless and amoral world of cyberspace" in England's Daily Mail: Generation Sex.

That many a teen is hormone-charged and sexually irresponsible is not terribly shocking. That the hormone-charged teen taking a cell phone photo of herself undressed will face criminal charges is a bit shocking.

On the one hand, teens do shed their personal privacy by exposing themselves through naked images sent out into the world via text. But even if these "pornographers" are minors, it's amazing that some kind of privacy/ownership rights do not extend to their self-portraits. In the name of protectionism, authorities intervene, telling the kids, essentially, "It's true. No privacy for you. Those images are not private; they are illegal and prosecutable."

Police shocked by what they find on kids' phones [Aiken Standard]
SEX 'CELLS' FOR NAKED TEENAGERS [New York Post]
How the faceless and amoral world of cyberspace has created a deeply disturbing... generation SEX [Daily Mail]