From one parent
to another, if you have a teenage son PLEASE talk to him about NOT requesting
naked pictures from the teenage girls he communicates with. He shouldn’t be
sending naked pictures of his body parts either, for that matter.
As the parent of
a teenage daughter, I am about at my wits end with these requests. I. Am. Done.
With. This. Crap.
Here’s a
typical, non-unique scenario: Boy and girl meet on Instagram. Maybe they have
an Instagram friend in common, but not necessarily. Maybe one of them just
happened across the other’s account. They may or may not know each other in real
life. One of them posts a message on the other’s page. Back-and-forth chit-chat
and flirting ensues. Then in about 15 minutes after the initial contact, the
request comes, probably from the boy: “Send me a pic of your tits.” Or maybe a
picture of something else. Apparently this is the modern form of courtship.
These
interactions and requests cut across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. Requests
for naked pictures that I know of have come from White boys, Black boys,
Hispanic boys, Jewish boys, and males that attend both public and private
school. I can’t say for certain that all the requestors were teenagers.
And why shouldn’t
young people think this is an appropriate request? Soft core porn has gone mainstream,
after all. What folks used to have to wait until 11:00pm to see on HBO or
Showtime can now be found easily enough on Instagram. One young women (don’t
know her or her age) I stumbled across on Instagram one day featured her naked
breast with a ring through the nipple as her public profile picture. (Note: This
isn’t even the most graphic thing I’ve found on Instagram.) If that’s
acceptable for public viewing, then what’s taboo? What’s the difference between
that and porn? Where’s the line in the sand in this modern age?
There’s nothing unique
about the ongoings I’m describing. If it’s happening in my house, then it’s
happening in many other homes across America. We parents of daughters do the
right things – we talk to our kids over and over and over (“No naked pictures.
No naked pictures. No naked pictures.”) Will they always listen? Do kids always
listen? We hope so, but…
So what’s a despairing
parent of a teenage daughter to do to alleviate the power and pressure of
teenage male lust? There’s the obvious - take over all the accounts. Bye-bye
Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat, AskFM, and all the other unnecessary crap.
Replace the iPhone with a flip phone. Password protect all computers and
laptops in the house, and disable devices’ cameras. No more Facetime calls or
Oovoo groups chats. Have wifi blackout periods for several hours daily in the
house. It’s a basically social-media-free summer. Except that now requests for
naked pictures come over the flip phone (with its disabled camera) and on the
house’s hard-line phone (no camera capability). When it’s explained to the
requesting lusty boy that no naked pictures will be forthcoming (sorry, no
camera), lusty boy hangs up the phone in anger. Tears follow. Nice.
Which brings me
to this thought – why, as the parent of a teenage daughter, am I to do all the
heavy lifting? Where are the boys and their parents on this issue? If I have to
repeatedly warn my daughter to not take or share inappropriate photos of
herself, shouldn’t the boys’ parents be explaining to their sons not to ask?
Crime prevention
tips all well and good, but they disproportionately focus on the would-be
victims. It reminds me of the rape prevention tips that colleges give mostly to
their female students: Go to parties in groups. Watch your drink. Arrive and leave
with a friend. Don’t leave female friends behind at frat parties. Don’t wear
clothing that’s too revealing, skirts that are too short, or shirts that are
too tight or see-through. Wear underwear. So if a young woman doesn’t take
these tips, does it become okay for the young males to attack? Shouldn’t the
conversation include both genders, and focus on victimization AND perpetration
prevention? The same logic can apply to requests for naked pictures by and from
teenagers.
Last I checked,
there’s not exactly a shortage of Internet porn already available, including
some from reputable smut websites that won’t infect a computer with viruses. If
one must have pornography, then I’d ask that it be porn that already exists.
Not newly created, child pornography that also happens to be ILLEGAL, by the
way. When a teenage boy asks a teenage girl to take a naked picture (or, God
forbid, make a naked video) of herself, he’s asking her to commit a crime. And
if he receives the photo and likely shares it with his buddies, then guess
what? He’s a criminal too, and so are they. Some states are beefing up their
laws about this, criminalizing behavior that teens have been doing for some
time. What used to be reckless, stupid and disrespectful teenage idiocy may be
criminal in your state.
Many of us have
heard about teen sexting scandals that burst into the news, scandalizing a school district, parents, and some of the
involved students (the girls more so than the boys). Each time a request is
made for naked pictures – often, but not always by a boy of a girl – it increases
the risk of harm and scandal. Parents of daughters and sons should work
together to educate our kids about not doing this. It begins with the ask – as in,
DON’T ASK other teenagers to take naked pictures of themselves.
Connie Hassett-Walker,
PhD
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