Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Nokia Lolitas

The Hartford Advocate explores the phenomenon of children taking sexy photos of themselves and each other with cell phone cameras.
As the new tech has taken hold, it's been accompanied by a spike in amateur, do-it-yourself exhibitionism. It's a sexual revolution that's trickling down to teens, who are experimenting with sexuality in a way that's more public than ever before. And it's getting a whole lot of them into trouble.

"As soon as there's a new technology, it's used for sex," says Sarah Jacobs, curator of the Museum of Sex in Manhattan, which explains why people of all ages and persuasions send out naked pictures via cell phone, Craigslist and MySpace and post their sex videos on sites like YouPorn.

That's all legal. It can be fun—and it's eating into the adult industry's profits. But what about when minors get involved? An emerging trend of DIY teenage sex imagery raises questions about the limits of technology and the appropriate legal response. Should kids be facing criminal records for taking naked pictures of themselves?
The article fails to draw a clear conclusion, blaming technology, the permissive media, and the Internet. The biggest fear of parents, educators and the police seems to be that the images can fall into the hands of "child pornographers". Certainly there are a lot of negatives in today's society with anyone posting nude photos of themselves on the Internet, but it's a rapidly growing phenomenon, and younger people seem more than willing to jump on the bandwagon. Eventually authorities have to come to grips with the realization that teen sexting is here to stay, along with all the physical sexual activity that is already taking place, and has been taking place for centuries. Teens consider the nude photo swapping merely another means of sexual expression, like flirting.

Throughout history, parents have been trying to stop their kids from having sex. There used to be a process called bundling, but that didn't work either. The urge to merge is very powerful, and love always finds a way.

As privacy slowly fades into the sunset, people will eventually realize that a nude image of themselves on the Internet is not the end of the world. Everyone should just post a nude photo of themselves today and just get it all over with.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This new puritan attitude is starting to get scary! So... the KIDS should get a permanent record because they took pictures of THEMSELVES, and MAYBE a pedophile MIGHT see it?? Incredulous!

On another tangent, these puritans are seeing porn in simple nude pictures & paintings of children. *shakes head* Like i said... scary.

It's like the gay basher. More than likely they're gay themselves but hate it so much that they lash out. Is this the same with these puritans? Do they have pedophile thoughts deep down and they're lashing out because they hate that in themselves??

Methinks they doth protest too much!