Kids Gone Wild by Joel Best & Kathleen Bogle

In 1994, when I was 16, you never hear of a teenage girl letting her boyfriend take nude photos or videos of her; she would’ve said “are you crazy, someone might see them!” Today, cameras are so cheap and commonplace that teens use them to post photos all over. It creates a kind of “delusion of grandeur,” making the average teenager think she’s a media star. The problem is, these teens have no idea how others see them, and they’re learning not to safeguard their privacy.

The authors devote a lot of effort to drawing a fine line between fact and sensational rumor; sex bracelets and rainbow parties are just mass hysteria, and anyone who lived through the 1980’s will probably have wised up to these things. Remember the satanic daycare abuse hysteria? What about the Dungeons & Dragons killings? Perhaps you might remember getting the flyer warning you about the temporary tattoos laced with LSD? We’re all wary of these moral panic sensations, so the rainbow parties and sex bracelets we don’t worry about as much. But sexting is real. It happens, and it’s a serious social problem.

In the chapter “Controlling Teen Sexting” it discusses the troubles with stopping kids from sexting each other. The problem is hard to control, the laws regarding it are hard to enforce, and prosecutions can tie up the court’s time. The schools in Kelso, Washington, have this approach; the teachers can confiscate students’ phones, and if there are nude photos on it, the parents are notified, and the student can be suspended or expelled. However, this is not without criticism. Many argue that topless photos of girls are not considered “nude,” because boys can be photographed topless without accusation of lewdness. Do we make the law different for girls because they have breasts? What if a girl has no breasts at all, do we consider topless photos of her to be “nude” because of the way men look at it? And what if a boy has gynecomastia, do we consider topless photos of him “nude” because he has breasts? Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, had a similar problem, and the parents sought help from the ACLU. They claimed that topless photos of their children were not child pornography, and sued for invasion of privacy. According to their lawyers, 12 year old girls in bras might or might not be lewd, but they were not child porn. The case tied up the courts time.

The authors of this book stress education over regulation. But this book came from NYU Press, and college professors and sociologists are usually more liberal. Conservative like Sarah Palin aren’t interested in sex education (I wonder if her daughter Bristol had any) but in abstinence education.  Sexting can be discouraged among young people the same way smoking, drug use, unprotected sex and drunk driving were discouraged. We need to face the fact that the internet is a bigger influence on kids than parents, teachers, doctors, and religious leaders. Get to the kids before the internet does.

I will conclude with a quote from right-wing economist Dr. Thomas Sowell. He says “every generation is a barbarian invasion, we must civilize them before they grow up.” He also says, and I stress this with regard to people who aren’t taking charge, “when life comes down to the wimps versus barbarians, the barbarians always win.”