Posted on 04/01/2011 10:31:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Revolutions are always unpredictable, depending on the way always unpredictable people adapt to them. That's true of high-tech revolutions as well as revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and a lot of other places. Humans are curious creatures.
The revolution in communications, for example, for all of its benign access -- and success -- comes with social consequences that continue to surprise and occasionally alarm. Nothing seemed simpler for increasing opportunities for adults to stay in touch with their children's comings and goings than the cell phone. The cell phone that seems to grow out of the ears on every teenager's head and allows them to reach out to their friends seemed harmless enough. At first.
But the tiny instrument, so neutral in its processing power, can wreak havoc in the lives of the young when naive, inexperienced or vengeful adolescents use their cell phones for less-than-savory purposes. The power of this tiny tool, you might say, lies in the hands of the holder. Cell phones, like guns, don't hurt people, but the people using them sure do, and can make a terrible mess of things.
So it happened with Margarite, a sensitive adolescent who, at the tender age of 14, finds herself the protagonist of a front-page story in The New York Times because she took a picture of herself nude with a _cell phone camera and sent it to her boyfriend. She became the center of a perfect storm of adolescent angst in the electronic age.
Margarite's tale reads like a bad but believable teenage novel: Innocent young girl longing for love and appreciation sends her boyfriend a cell-phone photo she took while standing naked in the bathroom. We don't learn (but we can imagine) how her boyfriend responded to the full-length full-frontal nude photograph, but we do know that when he broke up with Margarite, he sent it to another girl who appreciated the image with a singular purpose, to ruin Margarite's reputation.
She sent it out to their school network with a mean-girl sexting message: "Ho alert! If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends." The sexual revolution as it affects young teenagers does not reflect either a liberated spirit or generosity in judgment. "Slut" and "ho" are the operative words they've heard in the lyrics of a lot of their music, but they don't use them to entertain. In this, instance they were meant to humiliate Margarite, and they succeeded.
The pop culture is rife with sexuality, and you could forgive the young for claiming they're merely imitating their parents and even grandparents. AARP, the magazine of the American Association of Retired People, writes about sassy seniors who enjoy aging electronically, if not necessarily gracefully. A sexpert says sexting is not just for kids but enables the elderly to forge a relationship naturally outside the bedroom so that "when you come into the bedroom it's your _playpen." (So who's going to talk about acting your age?)
The rural prosecutor in the state of Washington first charged three_ children in Magarite's case with disseminating child pornography -- a felony -- but reduced it to a gross misdemeanor of telephone harassment. The prosecutor sounds overzealous (and maybe looking for a headline or two), but he wanted to frighten teenagers into understanding the seriousness of the offense. Curbing mean behavior is a necessary thing to do, but not many of us would criminalize adolescent acting-out behavior.
There's an argument over whether the creator of the image, as well as the distributor of it, should be prosecuted. Definitions can get ambiguous. It's easy to criticize parents for not monitoring their children's use of their cell phones, but many parents confess to finding it increasingly difficult to manage all of the electronic data that pours into their children's consciousness. Many schools ban cell phones; some principals have been allowed to examine the content when they confiscate phones.
Angst in adolescent relationships is hardly new, but what's thought to be permissible has changed radically in an increasingly sexualized culture where teenagers with raging hormones are titillated by fashion, ads and music. Only 5 percent of 14- to 17-year olds surveyed by the Pew Research Center say they send naked or partially naked photographs or videos of themselves on their cell phones. Other estimates run higher, and sexting is difficult to monitor. Kids, like adults, have been known to lie about sex.
In spite of the electronic devices meant to make life easier and more efficient, busy parents increasingly take their work home and run their electronic gadgets (we're not talking juicers, blenders or rice cookers) in the living room or at the kitchen table, distracting attention from what's going on elsewhere in the family circle. So it's not just the kids _who need to cut back. Self-control is not age-specific.
Not so long ago, we only had to worry whether cell phones affect the brain. Now we're learning how they can stimulate the glands, too.
I’m pretty sure that at the age of 14 I would have been horrified to even imagine taking a naked photo of myself, much less sending or giving it to someone else. Wow...
Something similar happened to a girl I knew at 12. Back in the 80s she took a few shots for her b/f on their dad’s polaroid. It got out..ultimate embarrassment for her. However it was no reason to send her to jail and put her on the sex offenders list.
Then 2011 arrived. Govt says, “we put you on the sex offender’s list to protect you”.
But what the hell, cops dont have to pay for it. And they need these sexting offenders to keep their jobs. Go after terrorists?? Why do that when you can play fish in a barrel and arrest people for looking at dirty pictures.
Teens never think before acting that’s why they must be bridled.The young and the dumb die first.
I’m glad that my kids at 14 and 16 would be horrified to do something like that.
For one thing, they know they can be expelled from their private Christian school if the administrators find out. They love their school, and do not want to go back to being in public school.
Secondly, they know that I routinely look at their messages.
Thirdly, they are all 3 nice kids. The girls are especially modest and won’t even wear bikinis. They are much more modest than I was at their age. My mom allowed me (even encouraged me) to wear bikinis and other revealing clothes.
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Today? I think not. I would opt for OnStar or similar service, plus a metered emergency cell phone with no camera or app capabilities.
But that's just me.
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I can't believe the author is serious. "Innocent"? Margarite ruined her own reputation.
*Then 2011 arrived. Govt says, “we put you on the sex offender’s list to protect you”.*
I’m pretty sure it was the dude who got charged in this case, not the chick.
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Yes, I have to think that her parents may be partly to blame here. I don't remember kids that age being so cruel, either.
Our culture tells our kids, over and over, that women have to be hot and eager to have sex in order to be of any value.
That 14 year old must have had some bad influences on her, bad parents or maybe a perverted public school or too much TV?
The good news is that the ones I still know have all turned out to be very good mothers who are nothing like how they were growing up.
Fortunately, most kids to learn and mature with time. Sadly for this girl, her education came at a high price.
I have intimate knowledge of a 14 yo girl and a 17 yo boy, who did NOT participate in virtual reality, but ACTUAL reality: back before cameras - when images were scrawls on cave walls...
Go after terrorists?? Why do that when you can play fish in a barrel and arrest people for looking at dirty pictures.
I’m no friend of the “pornography industry” — but I tend to agree with you. This isn’t about protecting kids. How do you protect them by putting them on a sex offenders list for life? It has quite the opposite effect.
And even “good kids” do DUMB things. It’s the NATURE of being a teenager! Especially in the day in which we live. The “shame” will be more than enough punishment for the “good kids.” If the kids aren’t good, do you really believe their pictures getting out will matter to them? NOT so much.
This kind of garbage is more about make work for police and other law enforcement agencies than it is about “helping” kids. It’s about UNION jobs. It’s easier to catch those “evil” sexters than it is Osama or Abdullah or Nassir or Muhammad before he shoots up a military base or blows up a school bus or detonates a small nuke or pops the cork on a chem or bio-weapon.
Yes. Exactly right, and some don’t survive their mistakes. When I think about simply all the times I didn’t wear a seatbelt I’m amazed I’m still here.
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