Sexting just teens exploring their sexuality, child-culture expert says

5-28-2009 Canada:

No charges in Canada over dissemination of suggestive images

Teens who use cellphones to disseminate suggestive messages and images are just doing what teens have always done -- exploring their sexuality -- a researcher in child and youth culture says.

"Sexting" is neither a phenomenon, a craze nor an epidemic, says Peter Cumming, co-ordinator of the Children's Studies Program at York University, who spoke Tuesday at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Carleton University.

Cumming points to his own near-disgrace in Grade 2 after he was "hauled before the authorities" for trying to look up girls' dresses in 1957.

Despite the uproar in the popular media, no charges have been laid in connection with sexting in Canada, he said. In some countries, though, child pornography laws have been applied like a "sledgehammer."

Take the case of a Grade 8 Texas student who spent a night in juvenile detention after his football coach found a nude picture a fellow student sent him on his cellphone, Cumming said. Or Florida resident Phillip Alpert, a spurned 18-year-old who avenged himself on a 16-year-old former girlfriend by mass e-mailing nude photos of her to her family. Alpert was convicted of transmission of child pornography and faces being labelled a sex offender until he is 43.

"The law is a very blunt instrument," Cumming said.

In New South Wales in Australia, the education ministry has launched an awareness campaign with the tagline "Safe sexting: No such thing."

However, there has only been one survey on the subject, and it was an online poll by the U.S. National Council on Teen Pregnancy and Cosmo Girl magazine, Cumming said.

Even that survey suggests youth do it for fun. More females than males engage in sexting: 20 per cent of females aged 13 to 19 reported sending suggestive messages and images, compared with 18 per cent of the males. The girls were more likely to say they did it because it was fun and flirtatious than because they felt coerced.

Katherine Albury, a researcher at the University of New South Wales, said cellphone images have been used in some alarming cases in Australia, including a gang rape, but the child pornography law has also been used to prosecute teens in cases that are more about indiscretion than criminality.

Last year, for example, a Melbourne-area 16-year-old was charged with producing child pornography after he held a wild party and took cellphone photos of semi-naked girls playing Twister. Australian 16- and 17-year-olds can consent to sex, but they cannot consent to being photographed in sexual situations, Albury said.

"A game of semi-naked Twister is absolutely legal, but they can't agree to being photographed."

Cumming says society is uncomfortable with the idea that teens, especially girls, are sexual beings. Albury agrees.

"I suspect there are adolescent girls who want to experiment with sexual self-representation," she said.

Cumming concedes there can be real-world consequences for sexting. Cyberbullying and sexual harassment are indeed cause for concern.

"However, teenagers have no monopoly on foolish choices and devastating consequences," he said. ..News Source.. by Joanne Laucius, The Ottawa Citizen