Teens, technology and sex
Monday, April 13th, 2009
No charges were filed in the recent court case involving three Pennsylvania girls who used their cell phones to send out sexually suggestive pictures of themselves. But the case continues to make national headlines and parents are concerned about their kids sending inappropriate messages on their phones or posting naked pictures of themselves online.
Maiken Scott discussed teens, technology and sex with psychologist Dan Gottlieb.
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I was disappointed, but not surprised, by Dan Gottlieb's comments on the "sexting" case. Not surprised, because the promo had made no mention of the nature of the court case, in which the judge threatened not just three, but dozens of teens, mostly girls, with charges of "child pornography" for sending pictures of themselves, not engaged in any sexual activity, to their friends — unless they submitted to "sexual violence awareness" classes. Are we really supposed to believe that boys are less eager to show off their looks? Or isn't this clearly a case of one judge's attempt to enforce traditional standards of female modesty?
Yet Gottlieb made no mention of this context. Instead, he urged parents talk to their children about "long-term consequences," taking for granted that those same traditional norms of modesty, clearly already being challenged, will still be in place "when they're thirty."
By implying this, and urging parents to convey the same to their children, Gottlieb was in fact perpetuating the same puritanical attitudes as the judge is trying to enforce. It's time he thought about the long-term consequences of his own actions.