For the past two days, Good Morning America (GMA) has been running an Internet safety series on “Sexting,” a new phenomenon of the digital age. Internet safety expert Parry Aftab has been on the show for the past two days to take questions from parents, and recommend strategies for parents to keep their kids from falling into the sexting trap.

We call it a trap because that’s exactly what sexting turns out to be for most who participate in it. There have been multiple cases of minors facing felony charges for sending nude pictures of themselves or people they know over their phones. Phillip Alpert, 19, was convicted of distributing child pornography and is now on the Florida sex offender registry for emailing nude pictures of his 17-year-old girlfriend. Often cases can have far more tragic results—Jessica Logan, who had her nude pictures distributed to 4 different schools by a jilted boyfriend, was so consistently harassed that she eventually committed suicide.

Sexting is a very real and very widespread part of youth culture today. Aftab told GMA that 44 percent of high-school boys had seen a naked picture of a classmate, and that children as young as 12 are sending lewd and even pornographic images of themselves.

Parents, of course, want to know what they can do to prevent their teens from sexting. Aftab offers a few strategies that we agree with:

• Google your child’s phone number, surrounded by quotes (e.g. “123-555-7890″)
• Google your child’s name in quotes
• Call your mobile coverage provider and tell them you will not pay for picture messaging

These are great strategies, but as Aftab admits, are not fail-safe solutions. After all, a cellphone or other mobile device is just one way of taking and circulating images among many, including but not limited to laptops and desktop computers. Also, the pervasiveness of phones with camera capabilities, and cell phones in general, makes it almost a sure bet that even if you don’t allow your child to have a phone, or give them one of the few out there left that don’t have cameras, they will know someone their age with a camera phone.

As far as we are concerned at InternetSafety.com, any true discussion of sexting has to deal with not just the new technology children are using, but why children and teens have so quickly accepted sexting, and why it is so popular.

One really doesn’t need to look past Brittney Spears. Or Jenna Jameson. The fact is the lines that used to exist between popular entertainment and pornography have been blurred in recent years, thanks in no small part to the internet, which has the capability of turning every living room in America into a XXX theater. Pornstars, once viewed as fringe elements in the media market, have become full-blown celebrities. Full-blown celebrities, at the same time, have begun to increasingly look like pornstars. Just pull up a recent Spears or Christina Aguillera video on YouTube and you’ll quickly see what we’re talking about.

It’s no wonder that the absolute pervasiveness of pornographic images has made today’s youth a bit too comfortable when sending naked pictures of themselves. After all, they see a world all around them that rewards and glorifies such behavior in adults. The main difference, unbeknownst to the teens, is that adults are old enough to recognize the consequences of their behavior, and its ability to determine the course of their life. Teens are not, as evidenced in these words from Jessica Logan as told through her mother, Cynthia:

“She said to me it was the stupidest thing she did. She said ‘I do realize I made a mistake and I wanted to talk to the parents,’ and she started to cry.”
—Cynthia Logan to GMA

Ashley Garcia, another girl who sexted nude photos of herself to a boyfriend, echoed these thoughts on her experience:

“It didn’t really register in my mind, like, what I was doing. And it was just like common sense. I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing before I sent it.”
—Ashley Garcia to GMA

I doubt there are many, in fact any, adults reading this who would even be capable of sending a nude photo of themselves over email or text without thinking about the consequences. It’s because adults constantly live in a world with real and permanent consequences that are simply on a different level than the consequences that a young teen is familiar with. It is every parents duty to pass that knowledge on to their children, especially when they might be engaging in an activity with the adult version of consequences, like jail-time and unending humiliation.

There are other things parents can do as well. While parents can not rid the world of sexual images, or prevent their children from ever encountering them, they do have a choice of whether or not their home—their own living room—becomes another place where their family is bombarded with sexual images. Most parents would never dream of paying for a XXX porn channel that their children could view at any time. Yet any parent who has a unfiltered internet connection in their home is doing exactly that. By actively taking control of the internet through filtering software, parents can allow their home to be a safe haven for their children where they can relax and enjoy the internet without constantly feeling that they aren’t as sexually mature as the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, innocence is one of those things that we only truly appreciate once it’s gone. We can’t expect our kids to want to stay kids and not emulate what they see around them. But we can talk to them, and do our part as parents to value their innocence, even if they don’t.

Filed under: Internet Safety News