Teen

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