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Teens on sexting: It's, like, totally lame
By AprillBrandon in Pop Goes the Culture
March 23, 2009

It's no big secret that parents, law enforcement, judges and the like are all up in arms about the latest teen fad: sexting (re: sending naughty photos of yourself (re: nekkid) to your peers via cell phone).

I've written a couple of blogs on this topic before, mainly cause I found it outlandish that the punishment for this bit of youthful stupidity was, in many cases, being charged with felony child pornography and having to register as a sex offender for 50 bahjillion years (mind you, the kids are the ones getting charged...the kids that took the photo of themselves...are getting charged with pornography of themselves...ow, my head hurts).

But now, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, all the hand wringing and moaning about sexting is all for naught. Most kids aren't doing it. In fact, to them, it's like, lame, dude. For real.

In one study, only 20 percent of teens said they posted nude or semi-nude photos of themselves via computer or cell phone. Which means 80 percent aren't.

And when author Anastasia Goodstein (who wrote "Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online") interviewed teens at a Texas high school recently, no one was even aware of the term or admitted to doing it.

Now, could these kids be lying? Well, of course. They're kids. Shoot, I still lie about some of my youthful indiscretions.

But that doesn't change the fact that people (re: adults) are overreacting over the issue, mainly over how to address it. Sex therapist Marty Klein, who was quoted in the article, sums it up best.

"I recognize that some teens are using sexting in a desperate attempt to be popular or liked and we need to address that sense of desperation with the kids themselves in a conversation.

"Hopefully, that adult would have the kind of conversation that is not about punishment or morality but asks first, 'What is on your mind and can we talk about it? Have you thought about the feelings of the boy or girl whose picture is getting sent around school?' But in order to have that conversation, we need to first understand sexuality is not bad."