Super Moms Face Challenges TOGETHER

Tech Hero

by Michael Penner

Sexting is the practice of attaching sexaully oriented images to a cell phone text message, and transmitting it to one or more persons. The word comes from “sex” and “texting”.

The unsuspecting receiver of such a message can then open it up, say in the board room, while driving (Oh I’m sure none of you text while driving), or perhaps around the family dinner table.  Now Imagine the reaction of the person sending such a message, believing the recipient of discreet disposition, upon discovering that in fact the transmission was liked so much it was immediately shared with five other people. Nobody would do THAT would they?

There is a segment of society that would in fact be flattered by such unauthorized reproduction of their birthday suit portfolio. For the rest of us that don’t suffer from being in such a sorry state of desperation for attention, this sort of thing could be devastating. And in fact, for one young girl it was.

Cynthia Logan, a beautiful and vivacious 18 year old, committed suicide after being brutally taunted and ostracized because of a sext message she had sent a person who for a time was her boyfriend. The full  heart wrenching story and video can be seen online at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/

Ms. Logan overestimated the maturity of her boyfriend, who apparently forwarded the sext message on to as many people as he knew when they broke up. Those people did the same and so forth. The message spread like a virus.

Sexting could also be defined this way: The act of voluntarily sending compromising photos to others by attaching such photos to a text message, giving them an unprecedented opportunity to exploit you.

Many minors are apparently far less suspicious of people than I was at that their age.  In particular this is concerning for young women. For young women who  think the world is basically a safe place, consider that this may be true because of the circles you run in, but that sexting tends to have a WOW factor to it that could cause your likeness to appear in circles with people very interested in finding out who you are…with your safety being nowhere on their mind. Technology has been described as making the world a smaller place. Very true. And this is not always a good thing. There are certain kinds of people that I would rather not be closer in proximity to physically or virtually.

Just as it is illegal for a person over 18 to send pornographic images to a minor, so it may soon become illegal for a minor to send such images to another minor. If you are under 18 and “sext” someone who is also under 18, the day may come when you could be prosecuted as a sex offender.

I’m not going to offer parents any advice here on how to control the way their kids use their cell phones. Such advice is useless without some sort of trust-based relationship. If I told you what to look for, your kid could easily figure a way around it within a matter of minutes. There are plenty of free apps on the web they could download that would make it impossible for you to see what’s really going on with their phones. You would be none the wiser.

Under Age Sexting is, unfortunately, about to become part of our regular and legal vocabulary. Keep your eyes on pending legislation that makes it illegal for a minor to sext another minor. Be careful that as you approach your 18th birthday it isn’t a label assigned to you by an ambitious attorney trying to make a name as a tech savvy prosecutor. You might be just the case he or she needs to launch a high profile career.