Bullying: The Real Sexting Scandal

It's a story that's been told too many times. A young teenage girl sends a racy picture to her boyfriend, intended for his eyes only. Then something goes wrong, and the next thing she knows, it's going around the school, and everyone, sometimes even the broader global internet community has seen it. It's a nightmare for the young girl, but is she really to blame? Most media outlets seem to agree, but many people seem to be missing a key element: bullying.

What's being ignored is why the picture circulates around school. Yes, the girl knew she was taking a risk, but she's not the one who sent it to everyone. She sent it to one person, and it was only meant for him. It's not her fault he decided to be a jerk and send it to his friends, who then decides to send it to their friends. The people who leak a picture are responsible for it getting out, not the person who originally took it. That's the bullying element.

Some may say that a girl is getting what she asked for when she originally hit send - that seems to be the common attitude towards sexting. It almost sounds like slut shaming, the idea that a girl did something impure and now she's suffering the consequences. No one seems to blame the people who leak the picture. No one seems angry at the boyfriend who betrayed the girl by sending a picture meant only to him to his friends, and no one seems to care that people choose to send it along and further humiliate the girl, when they could send it to one place: the trash file. It doesn't even seem to matter if the boyfriend pressured her to send it in the first place. Only one person's actions are carrying the full blame, and it's the person who has already been through hell.

Why do people only blame her? Is it because they genuinely do believe she should have avoided the situation entirely? Or it is because people just believe that sexting is wrong and society should punish girls who dare to do it? It's the same way people tend to view teen pregnancy, they blame the girl who had sex and rarely consider the father to be a partner in crime. Perhaps this attitude comes from the dated notion that men will be men and women have to be the gatekeepers. Men aren't held responsible for their actions because they can't, but women can be because they should know better, and can put the brakes on a potentially messy situation.

It's time to see a story on sexting that doesn't put the full blame on the girl whose picture was circulated, and considers that other people contributed to the situation. It's time to mention that the boyfriend sent it along despite promising her he never would, or the kids at school who kept hitting send rather than delete. It's time to focus on the bullying that turns a private picture into a nightmarish school scandal.