Sexting: A New Way to Flirt

Colin Leahy wanted to be famous. Most likely he didn't envision the way that fifteen minutes of fame came to him. He made the national news by being arrested for sexting. The reason he got in so much trouble is that the recipient of his sext was a 12 year old boy. Sexting is a common practice among teens and young adults, far more so than the parents of same would like to believe.

It is a fact that teens are always looking for ways around adult prohibitions concerning sexual mores of the time. This is true today with the latest method known as sexting and was true in my day when the Polaroid camera was the newest thing used to circumvent those annoying rules. My children's generation used the internet for their clandestine adventures. In my grandmother's day it was letters, some of which could cause major problems later when discovered by their parents or worse yet children.

Today most parents are relieved to have cell phones which help them keep in touch with their children; meanwhile those children have discovered new ways of getting into trouble with those cell phones. The term sexting is now part of the urban dictionary and slanguage.

Many teens consider it flirting. As such, some of this sexting is fairly innocent, but for nearly half (40%) of teens it involves posting or viewing semi-nude or nude pictures. Young adults, 20 to 26 years old, are slightly less likely to indulge in this behavior. Only 33% of this age bracket admits to sexting. USA Today, Cosmogirl and National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy are my sources for these stastics.

I suspect these statistics are skewed for two particular reasons. One, a certain number of people are always going to lie about sexual activity or lack there of. Two, what is meant by semi-nude? I suspect the numbers are larger than indicated by the various polls.

Is there anything parents can do to keep this problem under control? For children and younger teens parents can get cells phones with limited capabilities that will reduce the temptation. This doesn't mean they won't use a friend's more advance phone, but it will at least put up a small road block.

The best way to protect children is to give them a good sex education before they reach this age. Sexual information should come in small increments from an early age. When a child asks questions they should be answered as honestly as possible. Do not avoid answering the questions or provide evasive answers.

If parents fail to give children correct information about sex and sexuality be sure they will get it from their peers. This is not good, because there is no telling what kind of erroneous information those peers will provide.

For those with older teens there is probably no way to completely prevent the older teen from sexting. Of those answering the questions about sexting 73% claimed to be aware of the negative possibilities of sexting. According to Anatomical Changes in the Emerging Adult Brain in Human Brain Mapping, November 29,2006, people under 25 years old do not have the synapses connected in their brains that correctly evaluates long term consequences. For these older kids the best a parent can do is carefully point out what long term results can be if some of these risqué pictures and messages get out onto the internet.