The Rush to Criminalize Teen Sexting

[upstatecajun]

By defining sexting as a criminal activity, state legislatures are trying to stop a form of sexual expression without first trying to understand it.

The New York Times recently reported that several states are considering bills that tackle juvenile sexting (the transmission of nude or “provocative” pictures to another person, usually by cell phone). Lawmakers are trying to address sexting largely because of a serious loophole in federal and state child pornography laws. In most states, when a teen sends a nude or “provocative” image of him/herself to another teen, it is not legally distinct from producing, distributing, or possessing child pornography.

Clearly child pornography laws are meant to protect children from exploitation. The penalties for distributing sexually explicit images of minors include lengthy prison sentences and a lifetime of being a registered sex offender. These penalties, however, make little sense if the victim and the perpetrator are the same person.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/150649/the_rush_to_criminalize_teen_sexting/

[Bragi]

1. Let's criminalize every problem!

If any behaviour is a problem, let's solve it by criminalizing it. Because we know the criminal law, courts, prisons, etc. are always the best and fairest way to address any problem.

[Speck Tater]

7. And don't forget that the proson population is a cheap, captive labor force

that can go a long ways toward destroying more jobs in the outside community. If everyone in the country were in jail then there would be no unemployment problem and the uber-rich would have their slave labor pool.

[OwnedByFerrets]

2. Yes, because our jails are sooooooooooo empty and need filling

[Richard D]

3. And because we all know without a doubt . . .

. . . That every teen in Amerika will respect and obey this law.

[ej510]

4. I am tired of all of this crap to.

This law is another fucking distraction.

[KittyWampus]

5. the stupidity of giving teens phones that text- why not just give them basic phones

that allow calling only? When they are independent and their brains more fully developed then they can pick up the texting habit.

It's been demonstrated that texting becomes addictive in the same way as heroin. Also, constantly being interrupted by text messages also increases stress and related stress responses.


"Receiving a text message has been shown to light up the same area of the brain stimulated by highly addictive drugs such as heroin or cocaine. Similarly, some users have described feeling withdrawal and depression when denied access to texting; compulsive texters admit to feeling bad, anxious or sad when they do notget a message. Furthermore, teenagers are losing sleep thinking about their mobile devices. Researchers at the JFK Medical Center in Atlantis, Fla., recently found that one in five teenagers interruptshis or her sleep to text message, whilesome inexplicably even text while sleeping."

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/sep/08/the-new-drug-on-the-block-texting/

[immoderate]

8. Brain info is a little vague.

That texting stimulates the same brain centers as heroine and cocaine is a bit of guilt by association without knowing what their actual function is. They are not there just waiting to reinforce bad shit. What else stimulates them? Basketball? Rock and roll?

I don't like cell phones, and I don't own one. But I don't have to keep track of anybody. Students that have cell phones are likely to be on some family plan. There isn't always a choice. And some are unlikely to want to give up valuable features like cameras and internet.

Texting is good and it's bad. Before there were phone calls, there were "leaving notes for people." It eliminates real time coordination required of a conversation. It's a useful technology.

I think the studies need to be broader. Alterations in thinking and attention go beyond texting. It started with television.

--imm

[KittyWampus]

11. There is now a host of studies on texting and what it does to the brain.

The reason I don't bother posting a thread about it is illustrated nicely in your reply. People will just excuse it and attack the science or discount it.

[immoderate]

14. You say attack; I would say review. It is, after all, science.

I went to the article you linked to. It wasn't about science. It left questions unanswered. Like these brain centers that are excited by heroin and cocaine, are they dormant during, say -- orgasms? And if not, what are the implications?

My larger point is that technology has altered our consciousness. You could say we have created a physical environment in which we are psychological misfits. We are marvelously flexible and extensible, but bending and stretching creates stress, so to speak.

Creating an unenforceable cell phone standard for teenagers, is not as good as banning them from school buildings. The cell phones I mean. (Let's reassign TSA types to doing something useful. And no touching.)

It's distressing to us, not to them. It's characteristic of a generation. It's like tattoos. Didn't they say this about rock and roll?

--imm

[Bragi]

10. Point taken, but why single out teens?

Signaling out teens may distract us from a more important emerging truth: that everyone who spends much time online is in a huge uncontrolled experiment where we may ALL be adopting addictive behaviors, and even rewiring our brains adversely, without even thinking about, let alone understanding, the consequences.

[KittyWampus]

16. Teen brains are still developing. That's the only reason why. Although you bring up a good point.

In one article a teenager complains about the hypocrisy of a parent taking away phone due to misuse of texting whilst parent always on their Blackberry.

And I have found some interesting research on overuse of computers and phones in adults.

[Bragi]

22. There is growing health research literature on the subject

Nicholas Carr's 2010 book "The Shallows" is a good overview.

I also recently picked up but have yet to read "Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-personality" which explores multiple and dissociative personality disorder and internet use. It has 20-pages of footnotes referncing a lot of emerging research in this area.

Bottom line: there is growing evidence that those of us who are heavy users of social media are careening into dangerous territory in terms of our overall mental health.

[JonLP24]

21. That part about

lighting up the same area of the brain may be misleading. Going out for a run will release endorphins which is also what some drugs do. Some drugs stimulate the "reward center" in our brain that also occurs naturally when we do something that makes us feel good. I'm sure the same part of the brain is being stimulated when I see that I got a PM or I get a phone call or an e-mail from a good friend.

[WinkyDink]

6. "trying to stop a form of sexual expression without first trying to understand it." Bwahahahaha!

Oh, yes; adults were NEVER once teens! Teen interest in sex must be "first understood"!

[Forkboy]

12. I'm betting most people on these kind of decency kicks didn't do much fucking as teens.

So yeah, I bet many of them DO need to understand teen sexuality better.

[KittyWampus]

17. the way you phrase that, it seems you value, quantitatively, a lot of fucking as teens.

And you might want to consider that one component of teen sexuality that manifests as "sexting" is coercion and teen date abuse/violence.

[Forkboy]

19. The way you phrase that, it seems you'll read into things what you're looking for.

Enjoy your afternoon.

[ThomCat]

20. Just because they were once adults does not mean that

adults understand experiences that are radically different from the ones that were available to them when they were themselves teens.

If the landscape and opportunities have changed dramatically, the generation gap will make it seem as if the teens and adults are speaking entirely different languages, and the adults really will not understand.

That is so incredibly common from one generation to the next that it is a truism for many families. Not all families, certainly. But many.

[Orsino]

9. Decency crusades are always distractions.

No exceptions.

What should our legislators be doing that they will avoid by inventing "problems" like this one?

[Spike89]

13. The headline is semi-misleading

The article makes it quite clear, teen sexting is already quite criminalized. The real rush is to lighten the laws as they pertain to teens. Of course, the article does make the point that if the laws are made more fair for teens, then DAs might prosecute more of them. I'm not swayed by the examples that this would not be a good thing. It is a bit weird to hear a call against common sense laws and punishment.

[upi402]

15. I talked to a shop teacher who said there are multiple offenders in his classes

All the old juvenile behaviors we all tolerated seem to have been criminalized now. More customers for the US prison industrial complex I guess.

[CoffeeCat]

18. I'm undecided about this---BUT...

...they'd better not use this situation to decriminalize or to marginalize real instances of child pornography
being downloaded, produced or disseminated.

Keep that a serious, severely punishable federal crime.

What to do about teenagers who send naked pictures of themselves to each other? I really don't know. That's a complex
issue.

I just hate to see watered down--any law that protects children. Same with these "Romeo and Juliet" cases where an 18-year
old guy has sex with his 17-year old girlfriend. Clearly, that is different from an adult who has any sexual contact
with a 12-year old, 14-year old--or even younger children. We can't water down molestation and sexual crime laws against
children--because of "Romeo and Juliet" situations.

Adults who engage in any sexual contact with children are armed with very distorted, flawed and bizarre thinking. They
are convinced that they're doing nothing wrong and not harming the child. They often twist the situation and maniuplate
this children to convince themselves that the child wanted the sex to happen. They don't get and never will get that
children cannot consent. So, they invent a bizarro world that is very hard to break through. Total denial. So, these
laws really need to be tough and incredibly punative. There can be no gray areas. The law has to be concrete when it
comes to these perpetrators.

Seems to me that both "Romeo" and these "sexting" situations need to be in an entirely different category that have
nothing to do with real sex crimes against children. They should not be under the same umbrella.