Every new field develops a new lexicon. A new word I recently came across is “sexting.” How do you like them apples?
It may not take a genius to figure out what sexting is. It is texting sexually, right? Or SMSing sexually? Or with sexual content and innuendo? According to this CBS piece, teens are communicating sexually with one another via text message. So what is it that they are doing?
No less a personage than the very smart Andrew Sullivan has blogged about sexting and offered up a (quoted) definition. Check it out.
Well, it turns out that alphanumeric text messages aren’t the only form of sexting. Indeed, two Seattle cheerleaders got into trouble for sending nude photos of themselves around school. Or, at least, when those nude photos got sent around
school.
The example of the Seattle cheerleader girls is both most unfortunate and no doubt one of many. We can expect this trend to rise rapidly around the US and globally. Photos posed for or taken furtively–in school, out of school, etc..–will find their way into circulation.
They don’t even have to be nude pictures to be damaging. I spoke recently with a middle school administrator who told me an unhappy story about a seventh grade girl in his charge. Some boys in her class got hold of her phone, persuaded another girl to pose her forefinger and middle finger closed together, took a close-up picture of the same, and then sent the photo around from the first girl’s phone to others, together with a suggestive message. The girl who owned the phone was humiliated.
It’s a new day.
1 comment so far ↓
[...] is the new craze among America’s tech-savvy hormone laden youth. Michael Fertik wrote an informative post about the nature of sexting and the many ways that kids these days are going about [...]
Leave a Comment