Of particular concern is the way in which young people are now uploading sexualised personal content which is then immediately available for peers and others. According to one study[30] completed by the ‘National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy in America’, as many as 1 in 5 teenagers have electronically sent a nude or semi-nude image or video of themselves. This statistic which has been widely reproduced in media articles, has alarmed parents and children’s rights groups everywhere. Blended with the concern that young people may be jeopardising their reputations and employment prospects is the fear that such photos could fall into the hands of paedophiles, as once those photos are online it is virtually impossible to control how they circulate or where they end up.
But beyond reputational and personal safety fears, there are additional concerns regarding why these images are being produced in the first place, and what motivations underscore the actions of those who make them. In the above study it was found that 51% of teen girls say “pressure from a guy” is one reason girls send sexy messages or images, and 52% of girls who had sent images said they did so as a ‘sexy present’ for their boyfriend.
When considering the enormous pressure placed on young women to appear attractive and to participate in a hypersexualised culture which rewards exhibitionism, it is not surprising to learn that so many girls and young women are producing nude or sexualised images of themselves. These photos then become the currency that young women use to gain access to a culture that affords social approval to those who are willing to perform within tightly constructed sexual scripts that privilege the male gaze.
But while girls are often taught to equate their self-worth with their sexual desirability, paradoxically, they are also taught that women who seek out and enjoy lots of sex (or lots of sexual partners) are somehow ‘dirty’ or ‘slutty’. The result is that girls learn that they must appear desirable, but be lacking in any desire of their own; they are taught that male sexual pleasure is considered the goal, while female sexual pleasure, desire and sexual expression are often pathologised as polluting or dangerous.
Deborah Tolman, a professor of human sexuality at New York’s City University, suggests that rather than enjoying their own erotic pleasure, girls are becoming most concerned about how they looked during sex.
By the time they are teenagers, the girls I talk to respond to questions about how their bodies feel – questions about sexuality or desire – by talking about how their bodies look. They will say something like, ‘I felt like I looked good’.[31]
And it is against this cultural backdrop which devalues sexual intimacy and female pleasure (while excusing and promoting the objectification and commodification of female bodies) that young women are being culturally groomed to produce sexual representations of themselves as ‘sexy presents’ for the gratification of others.
While there is a need to continue to discuss the competing pressures bearing down on young women, there is another set of risks of an entirely different nature facing young people who produce such images; namely that sending or receiving a nude photo could result in a conviction or jail term for a teenager.
The Pennsylvania Case Study
In 2009, 3 teenage girls in Greensburg Pennsylvania took nude and semi-nude photos of themselves on their mobile phones before reportedly sending those photos on to 3 boys. When the images were discovered on the boys’ phones, the girls (for photographing their own bodies) were threatened with charges relating to the production and distribution of child pornography, and the 3 boys were threatened with charges relating to the possession of child pornography.
In the media commentary that followed, a debate erupted over the definition of child pornography and the application of the law in cases involving teens who ‘willingly’[32] photograph their own bodies. On the one hand, some claimed that prosecution was an appropriate response that would serve to deter other teenagers from engaging in a behaviour now known as sexting.[33] But others raised a series of probing questions: Why are laws which were initially intended to protect children now being used to criminalise teenage sexuality? Is it appropriate to group sexually curious teenagers in with convicted paedophiles? How can a girl be both the victim and the perpetrator of the same crime? And what possible good can come from labeling these teens as sex offenders and putting them on a sex offender registry for the rest of their lives?
Eventually the Pennsylvania case was dismissed after the American Civil Liberties Union launched a countersuit against the District Attorney for threatening to lay the charges against the teenage girls. But the significance of the case was clear: the law had been utterly outpaced by the speed at which the technology had evolved and was now woefully ill-equipped to respond to the current paradigm. Clearly, at the time when these laws were first developed, no one had comprehended the possibility of children (or young people) themselves being the ones to produce the pornography. Beyond this, the case also demonstrated a need to differentiate between cases of ‘agreed’ sexting (where a photograph is willingly produced and does not travel beyond the intended recipient) and situations where images are produced and/or distributed without the permission of the subject.
Just kids being kids?
There is a long history of children expressing curiosity over bodies and sex. While there is nothing inherently unnatural or dangerous about expressing an age-appropriate interest in bodies and nudity, there is growing evidence that technology has accelerated the rate at which young people access and consume sexualised material with added concern that this material is more sexually graphic, violent and exploitative than ever before. Against this backdrop young people are now emulating and authoring their own pornographic images and movies, simultaneously performing the roles of porn star, director, producer, distributor and audience.
While authorities are dealing with the legal dilemmas arising around sexting, there is another far darker side and set of consequences to this behaviour which needs urgent attention.
In May 2008, a young woman named Jesse Logan appeared on a Cincinnati television station to tell her story. She had sent nude photos of herself to her boyfriend who sent them on to other classmates after the relationship ended. Logan was harassed and repeatedly labeled a ‘slut’ and a ‘whore’. She became depressed, withdrawn and avoided school. Two months after agreeing to talk about her experience on television Jesse was found hanging in her bedroom. She was only 18.
In 2010, another 18-year-old student, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide by jumping from the George Washington Bridge. Clementi, who was not openly gay, had recently had a sexual encounter with a man in his dorm room. His roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another student had secretly filmed and streamed the footage of the encounter. Clementi’s Facebook status at the time of his death read: “jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” His body was found a short time after.
In 2011, an 18-year-old female cadet in the Australian Defence Force engaged in consensual sex with a fellow cadet. Unbeknown to her, the sex was being streamed live via Skype web cam to 6 male cadets in an adjacent room. Still photos were also taken and distributed to other people. On learning what had transpired, the cadet known as ‘Kate’ stated that her “whole world came crashing down”[34] and that she was physically ill. After speaking out publicly, Kate was then subjected to further harassment from fellow cadets who labeled her a ‘slut’ and a ‘whore’. Meanwhile, those who produced, distributed and consumed this non-consensual pornography continued on for a month before being charged, and, at the time of writing (May 2011), were still attending classes with their peers. Kate, meanwhile, was excused on ‘compassionate leave’.
31
2 Cited in ‘Girls, what you see is not what you are, or what you can achieve’ published in
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3 For a photo to be sent ‘willingly’ it must be sent of one’s own volition without any pressure, force or coercion. ‘Pressure’ under this definition does not only include pressure deliberately or inadvertently exerted by an individual, but it also includes pressure that results from cultural paradigms, peer groups or social contexts.
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4 ‘Sexting’ refers to the production and distribution of sexualised personal photos via mobile phone or online.