Sexting
Getting the moral vapors over sexting is the latest parental scare. That word gives me the creeps. It’s another one of those made up internet words, a combination of the words sex and texting. How do you combine sex with texting? Easy, a teenage girl sends a naked picture of herself to her boyfriend. If we did not live in a patriarchy, the boyfriend would probably keep the picture for his own viewing or delete the photo. I’m sure that is exactly what happens a lot of the time. But you can very well imagine what happens when the boy wants to humiliate the girl for whatever reason. He forwards the photos to all of his friends and puts it on all the social networking sites.
If this were a fair or sane world, this would result in a butt-kicking by the boys’ parents for violating the trust of his former girlfriend and generally being a meanypants for no good reason. But we don’t live in TanyaLand, we live in a patriarchy.
It seems that the general consensus is this: these terrible girls that send these pictures must be punished! Criminal charges must be laid. Being labeled a sex offender will learn the young’uns good. Pervy old school administrators must confiscate the phones, look through the pictures and give those girls a firm talking to. They do this for the girls’ own good.
Luckily these girls have advocates on their side. A caring “leading authority on cyber-crime” Parry Aftab, is campaigning to have the girls’ charges reduced from child pornography to a misdemeanor. This is apparently the best that anybody can do. Except in Vermont. At least Vermont seems to have the right idea. There is currently a bill to legalize the consensual exchange of pictures between young people.
But no word on whether boys send out pictures of their penises, and if they do, what punishments they should receive. Males can do no wrong.
This blog post inspired by something I read at I Blame the Patriarchy.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
I was born way too late, clearly. I think it is very unlikely I can talk anyone into sexting me. So yes, punish the girls as sex offenders!