Sexting
From the Daily Mail, by Penny Marshall: "Like a real porn star, Becky is heavily made up and lying naked on the bed as the camera flashes. She could be just another glamorous model as she poses provocatively with practised moves. But she isn't. Shockingly, Becky is just 17 and still at school. She's filming herself in a friend's bedroom in a large, detached house in leafy suburbia as her school friends party downstairs."
It is inevitable, my prurient self supposes, that I would catch the trend of "sexting" and comment on it - how not in this social digital blather? As a middle-aged parent and observer, it is titillating and threatening- and illegal. "Sexting," for those older than me, is sending provocative photos of self to others via a mobile phone. It is almost always younger girls and last year 90 children in the UK cautioned as a result of posting sexual material of themselves or their underage friends in this manner. Given the noxious combination of binge-drinking, video gaming, sexual media and advertising in the UK and US, no wonder teen-agers find sexting normal practice. So here is another generational divide I am left to ponder. When I was young (oh la la la) adolescence confusing enough without pornography - at least we had "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty In Pink" to guide us. Today, there would seem to be a clear relationship between imagery and activity: 'The age at which people have their first sexual experience has fallen dramatically. For women it dropped from 21 in 1953 to below 16 in 2006. 'Teenage pregnancies are higher in the UK than anywhere in western Europe, at 27 in 1,000 compared with only five in the Netherlands." (The Good Childhood Study). A Radio 4 investigation suggests that by age-16, and as young as eight, kids include 'sexual surfing' as part of their normal online experience. Britain offers no parental or other guidelines - though this problem now receives mainstream attention and the sexualisation of young teenage and pre-teen girls through clothes, videos, and music lyrics, and a possible link with sexual abuse and violence, is under a fact-finding review by the Home Secretary. So once again our government - or schools - sought to fix a social concern that should be firstly cared for at home. I, for one, won't let Eitan and Madeleine have a television or computer (for now) and surfing done in a public place - even if only harmless Fabregas Top 10 Goals. Are not there some obvious measures to (re)gain a control?
Image from David Cronenberg's '83 film "Videodrome"
