A recent study found that 28 percent of all teens text fully nude photos of themselves, and 77 percent of the girls and 82 percent of the boys who had admitted sexting were no longer virgins. We parents thought phone cameras were used for sending photos of our babies and Instagraming our dinner. We completely forgot that those babies grow up and might think nothing of electronically sending, or posting online, nude or semi-nude images of himself or herself. WHAT? Damn you technology. We’ve come full nude circle.
As the mother of little girls, this scares the hell out of me. Technologically advanced children have become accustomed to instant gratification. Teens get caught up in a moment; pose, click, send. Poof! Within seconds, that same photo is on FB, Twitter, Instagram, in an email or a sext sent to some unrequited love interest. A nude photo of himself or herself is out there forever. Forever, people.
When I was in high school, in the late '80s, we would have first had to coax ourselves into taking the nude photo. It would have involved some peer pressure and copious amounts of Zima. More often than not, we’d end up with a hangover and still too freaking chicken to take, let alone mail, that nude photo. If we had the balls to take the photo, we still had to morally talk ourselves into mailing that photo and then wait 3-5 business days before there was any fallout. There was even a very slight chance that we could intercept it or it would get lost in the mail. It was a much more taboo thing to do then. People would think you were a whore and chances were the douche you sent it to would show the entire football team.
I would never have sent a nude photo or sext to a boyfriend for the simple fact that 1) those Zack Morris cellphones didn’t have camera capabilities, 2) I was too afraid my dad would find out and kill me, or 3) worse, it would be shown to the entire school on a projector or something. Good old-fashioned parenting and giant ineffective phones scared me straight.
Today, teenagers have convinced themselves that it’s not a big deal to give a classmate oral sex. What? I know I’m knocking on the crypt keeper’s door by being almost 40 but isn’t sticking someone’s business in your mouth a little more “intimate” than the actual act of having sex? In my book, oral sex is as intimate as it gets. There may be a few good men who can say they’ve gotten into these knickers (okay and a couple of assholes), but not many at all who can say they’ve gotten their business into this mouth. But teens today think it’s no big deal because it’s not sex. News alert, oral sex is sex. It says so right there in the title. THAT scares me.
We are raising our kids in a world where the kids who aren’t doing “it” are made to feel like freaks and those who are having sex don’t think it’s a big deal at all. Pass the condoms. Do today’s teens think they are living in an episode of Skins? I’m all for experimenting and coming of age but I’d prefer the cumming happens around 17/18 not 12.
What do you think about the slippery moral slope of technology and today’s teens?
Image via Ed Yourdon/Flickr
This Hot Dad Wants to Do Your Ironing
This Hot Dad Wants to Cook You Dinner
This Hot Dad Cooks AND Does the Dishes
Kanye West is Gay?! 
Comments 25
Evey new communications technology has come with it's own burdens. For years, experts were concerned that teens were using the phone to distance themselves from emotionally compromising/stressful situations and weren't learning to cope with life head on (they call people to ask them out, break up, resolve a personal conflict ect. rather than face the other person head on) text was even worse in that vain. Clearly the allure of this technology is that it's instant, there isn't a physical copy to lose, you don't have to go to the drug store to have the picture developed and most importantly, you don't have to see the other person's reaction to your body. Just like having a phone made it easier to date, this makes it easier to be seen naked. It's the new normal I guess.
Does not sound old at all. I'm 24 and im a mother of an almost 2 year old daughter. Technology scares me. I don't even want to begin to think about what will be out there when she is 15 or 16. Hopefully she is smart enough not to take nudies of herself.
I'm with 4mutts. The best way for parents to stay a step ahead of kids is to be familiar with the advances in technology themselves. It's a lot more difficult to monitor something that you don't understand. Don't just assume that salesteen at Best Buy knows what he/she is talking about. Do your own research.
My hubby is a computer programmer and has been programming since he was about 7 or 8 years old and using the internet since well before Al Gore "invented" it. He is adamant that none of our children will ever have a computer in their bedroom. And I agree.
I would hate to be the child of a parent that restricted my access to the internet like the4mutts suggested. A better solution is to make sure your daughters have good enough self esteem not to feel like they NEED to take naked pictures to make someone else happy. Cause, news flash, it's not like most girls just send them out on a whim, they've been asked by the boy and feel like they have to oblige. So instead of not trusting your child, teach your child that a situation like that might arise and that they're better and more valuable than what's under their clothes. Because punishing your child before they've even done something wrong can damage the trust they have in you as a parent.
Oh, and btw, its not just YOUR kid you need to worry about. Its everyone else's. Don't forget, if your sweet, would never do such a thing daughter receives a nude picture of a classmate, and doesn't tattle, she is now in posession of child porn, and can be charged with a felony.
So feel free to believe that "morals" *much like abstenance only education* will be enough to keep your precious from taking a nudie pic when she's in the hormonal "honeymoon phase" of her first love.
My mother parented like you. I f*cked 10 guys before I graduated high school, because my mom relied on teaching me her morals, but never gave me any safeguards against real life, and what it would throw at me.
I don't agree with it. When I was in my sophomore year of high school this girl sent a naked picture to this guy she liked, who sent it to all of his friends, I barely knew her and I got one. I mean everybody in the school pretty much got one. I thought it was stupid of her to send it in the first place, but what that guy did to her was just cruel. Kids now are growing up so much faster than they used to. It's disturbing to me and a little frightening. I'm 2 months pregnant and I'm terrified of what my son or daughter might be trying to do in the next 16 years! I think parents need to monitor their children more closely. I really don't like the digital age we live in. not one bit.
teach your daughters about self-respect and you don't have to teach them about technology..it isn't the tools that get girls into trouble it it the attitude.
But be a realist and accept the possibility your kid may indeed mess up in this manner and be ready to take away such privileges as computer, cell phone, and internet. In the end we're all only human.