What Is Sexting?
Do Your Kids Fully Understand the Laws about Sexting?
Sexting is defined as the sending or distributing of nude or partially nude images (missingkids.org).
It’s happening much more often than you may realize.
When I talk to teens, I often hear about the “underbelly” of teenage life. It’s sad to think that sending nudes is considered to be a common occurrence across all genders.
**(Also, don’t miss the other nine points I share below about what parents NEED to know. I think some of them will be new for you and will be shocking.)
I’ve discovered most teens don’t know the laws about texting. Here are the Canadian laws from Kids Help Phone:
Legal definitions related to sexting include:
- Child pornography: it’s illegal to send sexual photos/videos of anyone who is, or appears to be, under 18. This includes taking and sending sexual photos/videos of yourself if you’re under 18.
- Possession: it’s illegal to save child pornography on a phone, computer, cloud storage or any other kind of device.
- Distribution: it’s illegal to sell or share child pornography. This includes:
- showing it to people on your phone or computer
- forwarding it through text or email
- posting it on the Internet
Hearing the story about Amanda Todd may help all teens realize how sending and distributing nudes is very dangerous.
When Amanda Todd was in grade 7, age 12, she and her friends were experimenting with a webcam.
They met people online and chatted with them. Amanda was told she was perfect and pretty and asked her to flash her breasts.
She did and that was the beginning of her three year nightmare. The image of her naked breasts were screen-captured and used to threaten her. This information was then used to demand that she perform “sex shows” in return for his silence.
Ten years later, 42 year old Aydin Coban was extradited to Canada from the Netherlands for a 7 week trial where he was charged with extortion, criminal harassment, child luring and child pornography relating to the case of Amanda Todd. He was sentenced to 13 more years in jail in the Netherlands. (He currently has two more years left of his ten year sentence for similar crimes in the Netherlands.)
Amanda experienced this torment and cyber-bullying from age 12-15 years. She tried to move schools and communities but he always found her and used social media to torment her. Sexual images and videos of her would be sent to family and friends at her new school, where she would then be ostracized and bullied.
In a video she created of her holding up flashcards that silently told her story titled: My Story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self-harm, she admitted to making a “huge mistake”.
In this instance, a guy friend that she thought liked her, invited her over while his girlfriend was away. They “hooked up” (had sex) and when the girlfriend found out, Amanda was targeted by the girlfriend and a large group of teens. She was physically beaten, and left in a ditch, while bystanders filmed the incident.
She also describes how she got lured on the internet by a sexual predator and how she could never get the naked photos of herself back.
Crown prosecutors discovered Coban used 22 fake social media accounts to threaten Amanda.
In a suicide attempt where she drank bleach and was rushed to hospital by ambulance, teens posted on Facebook that they wished she had died.
Amanda Todd did die by suicide at age 15 years. You can watch her very sad flashcard story here.
What Parents Need to Know…
➡ Many teens send naked photos of themselves to their peers – it’s not as uncommon as one might think. According to lifespan.org, teenagers believe that 90% are sexting
➡ Teens today live in an over-sexualized culture. They have so much access to sexual information and are influenced by easily accessible online pornography. Many want to reproduce the images and actions they see there. Do you know that it’s common for teens who don’t even know each other to send a Snapchat message saying “Hook up?” If the other person says “yeah”, they arrange a meeting place, have sex and often never see each other again.
➡ If you look at a “popular” teen girl Instagram account that’s available for public viewing, what do you read and what emojis are in the comments… “How are you so prettty omgg!!” “So sexy 🔥 🔥 🔥” “So unreal” “Sexy model” “Such a babe” “UR stunning!” etc. etc. Even if your kid isn’t posting on social media, they’re still reading comments like this and how does it make them feel?
➡ Social media platforms such as Tik Tok feed into hyper-sexualization. Just search up the hashtag #thirsttrap and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Many of these videos start off looking innocent and then become sexual.
➡ 17 year old Charli D’Amelio is the most famous teen Tik Tok figure with a following of 141.7 million followers! She’s now been in a Super Bowl commercial and it all began with a few dances on Tik Tok. She’s also struggled with eating disorders yet this is who many teens idolize and try to be like her.
As a teen client said to me for this next one….”Buckle in for this one Sharon”! (She is not on this site but she was just letting me know that it exists.)
➡ onlyfans.com Have you heard about this site? For 18 years and over (but many use fake i.d) one can upload photos, and livestream videos. Subscribers will pay for your photos and videos plus explicit sexual content is allowed! Needless to say many sexual predators are subscribers.
‘”But unlike YouTube, Instagram, or Snapchat, OnlyFans allows explicit sexual content. Because OnlyFans is by subscription only, content creators can share nude photos of themselves, live stream pornographic videos, and even virtually interact with their subscribers. Effectively, OnlyFans is live porn.” ~ everaccountable.com
➡ As soon as Danielle Bhabie turned 18, she made an Only Fans account and made over one million dollars (USD) in six hours. Here’s the breakdown: $757,000 USD in subscription revenue, $5500 USD in tips, $267000 USD in messaging revenue. She now brags that from March 26, 2021 to April 2022 she’s made over 50 million dollars on Only Fans.
➡ In the popular video game, GTA (Grand Theft Auto) one can pick up a prostitute, have sex with her in a car, pay her, watch her get out of the car, run her over and murder her and take back one’s money.
➡ You may think your school and home have filters to prevent your kids accessing illegal sites, but if they download a VPN app on to their device, they can bypass all the filters and view whatever they find.
What Can Parents Do?
Amanda Todd’s tragic ending happened ten years ago and the sexual online grooming towards her began thirteen years ago. Six years ago Only Fans was created. With the ever-increasing popularity of virtual reality, I wonder how that is increasing hyper-sexualization amongst teens?
Technology is going too fast for us to keep up but we have to do our best to stay informed.
It’s important to have ongoing discussions with your kids about internet safety, sexual predators, and over sexualization.
It’s very important that teens realize that two people making love looks very different from the aggressive sex that can be seen via online pornography.
It’s also essential that they understand consent. I have written two very important blogs about consent which you can access below.
In my Self-Empowerment groups for kids ages 7-9yrs. and 10-12yrs. I teach about boundaries and bodily consent. We cover many important life skills in this group. You can access more information here.
Please feel free to forward this article to anyone who can benefit. It takes a village to raise a child. The more we can inform each other about the realities of raising kids today, the more we can support one another.
Warmly,
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