luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
The problem of "sexting" is actually a bit more complex than that; and related to the issue of minors (not children but sexually mature minors) creating imagery of themselves involving sexual or non-sexual nudity. It is easy to dismiss it outright or condemn it outright; but the issue contains far more gray area than black or white. While some of it is simply teens exploring their newly developed sexuality; there is also a substantial amount of it that is the result of adult influence, and these teens are either convinced, manipulated, or coerced into creating the material without direct adult involvement.Hear, hear - and I have direct parental experience of this. It was detected, discussed, certain principles explained, promises made and that, so far as I know, was the end of the matter (no punishment necessary). I agree - it's very much a case of doctors and nurses by remote contol, that's all. Absolutely harmless, in most if not all cases, but not best practice, nonetheless, for minors. Just another of life's lessons learned the natural way!
In the case of coercion, that tends to be fairly clearly on the abusive end of the scale. But what about emotional manipulation, or simply outright material compensation? There was an incident not too long ago where a man was arrested for paying a number of high schoolers to create naked videos of themselves and their friends (some of it was locker-room hidden-camera stuff). There was no physical involvement on his part, it was strictly an Internet communication. There was also no apparent blackmail or emotional pressure involved. The teenagers were simply doing it for the money. It wasn't even a povery issue like prostitution often is; because they were all from families well-off enough to afford luxury items like digital video cameras.
There is also a growing issue with minors on public webcam sites doing nude shows for pay; strictly so they can buy popular luxury items. Again, these are not poor, lower-income kids doing this, it is these are all middle- and upper-middle-income teens; and it is spreading to lower age groups as inexpensive high-resolution webcams and p&s digital camers and become more common.
More and more sexual material involving minors is being made by the minors themselves, with little or no adult involvement -- or, indeed, awareness -- simply as a means of making money to buy status symbols. It's going well beyond the simple sharing of personal photos with boyfriends/girlfriends; it's developing into an entire underground industry completely seperate from historical CP channels.
The issue now is how to address this. Obviously the root cause is not adults abusing children for their own gratification; though it's clearly adults paying for the vast majority of the material. Is it the materialism of our culture that places such a high social value on material status symbols? The denial of teen sexuality that leads to a lack of adequate values education? What actual harm is caused to the minors involved, in the long term? If there is any actual psychological harm, how do you quantify it over the long term. And is it inherent in the act itself, or strictly the result of ephemeral, and predominantly religious, cultural taboos?
