The Debate On Stifling Sexting

Wiener expedites his wiener along virtual byways and receives little more than a social slap on the wrist, and a conveniently knocked-up wife on his arm. Teens held hostage by their hormones who succumb to the same texting temptation might be forever stamped as felonious, dirty degenerates along with the rapists, murderers, and pedophiles of their ‘sort’. California School Districts’ view of ‘sexting’ as an infraction worthy of expulsion and legal conviction is seen as uber-harsh and nonsensical by most; what will Cali-born kids be raised to think? That cyber sex is cool when you can tastelessly dodge the law from your congress seat? Most say that as long as provocative politicians remain in office, teens with X-rated inboxes should neither be axed from classroom roll calls nor severely sentenced.

‘Let kids be kids’ is the majority opinion in this debate where sexual exploration and freedom take precedent over rational decision-making. California school districts and the state legislature, however, are hardly embracing this ‘You show me yours, I’ll show you mine’ premise behind teen sexting. On May 31st, the state senate unanimously passed a bill proposed by Democratic Senator Ted Lieu, that gives schools a license to expel any student involved in graphic sexual communication. The bill defined ‘sexting’ as, “sending or receiving sexually explicit pictures or video electronically”. The senate is serious about ensuring that telecommunication remains a nonsexual nexus, essentially inviting schools to police even teens’ extracurricular time, “School districts can punish behavior that occurs on school grounds, while coming to or leaving school, during lunch breaks or en route to school sponsored activities.”

Many look at the ‘school sexting’ dispute as a matter of discipline and delegating disciplinary rights; should it be the principle or the choir teacher’s job to allocate adolescents as registered sex offenders and felons permanently barred from school hallways? Or should parents carry the big stick and correct sexually frustrated pubescents? Those in opposition to the law see room for a reasonable compromise; perhaps if a student is caught photographing their privates and pressing ‘send’ on school grounds during school hours, the school can take the case. After all, sexting under one’s desk mid-lecture would be comparable to looking up porn on a school computer or having sexual relations on school grounds. Moreover, students under 18 years of age exchanging nude images would find themselves in child pornography crises, which have grave legal and moral implications in our society. The other part of the compromise involves parents meeting educators halfway, which means that at home, parents would introduce and enforce notions of self-respect, modesty and constraint.

The American Civil Liberties Union opposes California’s bill because of the extent to which it limits young people’s sexual liberty as their levels of curiosity reach catalysts. In such puzzling and hormonal stages, many think that teens deserve the prerogative and the leisure to investigate sensuality and intimacy (with the help of their cell phones if need be). With teachers turning them over to the law to be jailed, and parents rummaging though their messages, many argue that cellular devices will never rightfully serve as safe havens to probe sexual possibilities. Surprisingly, Apple may aid both parents and academia in their intrusive attempt to stop the sexting with their new ‘anti-sexting’ iPhone app. The feature would have the following capabilities, “Certain words, even if abbreviated, would be identified on the message, and that would either keep the message from being sent or the questionable words would be changed.”

Discipline and freedom aside, some authorities ultimately hold qualms abouthypocrisy and fear the inherent contradiction banning sexting in schools that provide students with condoms and contraception. If schools are encouraging sex or enabling promiscuous behavior through condom distribution, then sexting is mere foreplay to that frisky behavior and thus can’t be condemned.

Still, all things considered, disciplinary rights, sexual freedom, and hypocrisyare miniscule notions of absolute nothingness if we lack teens whose lives we can apply them to. Too many ill-fated, devastated parents of suicidal teens have fixed their tear-streaked lips to declare that the social evil of sexting has eternally claimed their children’s lives. An archetypal victim of ‘the sext’,18-year-old Jessica Logan hanged herself in Ohio after foolishly giving in to her carnal desires via electronic media, and reaping the social repercussions. Upon choosing to transfer nude treats to her boyfriend’s phone, Jessica surely never imagined that after they broke up, he would send them to other female students, triggering torturous bullying, endless name-calling, and even physical attacks from remorseless peers. The humiliating post break-up malice was indeed on ex-lover’s agenda, and Jessica found herself suffocating in flames from the excruciating social inferno she would endure for the next two months. A naïve Logan stifled her vitality and capacity for unseen victory for the thrill of showing some skin.

One out of every five high school students says that they have sent an explicitly sexual image of themselves to someone else, and about fifteen percent of high school boys say they have disseminated sexts from their exes as a means of coping with hostile break ups. The beauty of a young body does not always stay in the eye of the intended beholder. If legal action initiated in academia seems too extreme, we must take moderate measures to keep exploration of the birds and the bees of teens’ smartphone screens, and to exterminate the deathly data plans that seduce impressionable high schoolers all the way to their graves.

Share:

PCM Lifestyle