*sigh*

[samsom]

I sometimes wonder if I'm too much of a prude or if it's just as appalling (I know! Such a fuddy-duddy word!) as I think it is.

helping out with my daughter's birthday party, and we went to Target for some things. He kept looking at his phone, I noticed, but I didn't think anything of it. Then this little sixteen year old goes by us and I was teasing my nephew (who is barely seventeen) about her. Know what he said? "Been there, done that."

My jaw dropped. One thing led to another and he tells me that girls approach him all the time. He said it just happened and I'm like "I didn't see anyone". So he pulls out his phone and shows me the picture a girl just sent him of herself - from the dressing room where she stripped her shirt off before taking the picture!

Then, while I'm scraping my jaw off the floor, he scrolled and showed me some other girls' pictures. Apparently it's some weirdly ordinary occurance where girls will take nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves and send them to him. The girl in the dressing room sent a follow up text telling him he was such a 'cutie pie'.

So. Appalling. Y/Y??

~~

My daughter's party was today, even though her birthday is tomorrow. It went well, even though we had some no shows and the wind would NOT stop blowing. I got some sun, and my daughter got a face full of cake. I'm glad it's over. I am not a naturally social person so every birthday event is a litmus test of stress and anxiety.

Finally, I can stop thinking about it.

Gabs, I got your PM, I am brainstorming, and now that I have some free time, I'll be able to talk to you about it. I didn't forget, boo. *hugs*

Comments

[damnskippytoo.livejournal.com]

Sending nude or semi-nude pics is the newest thing with hormonal teens. If you don't do it, you're just not cool apparently. Is it appalling? I think so not because I'm a prude but because these girls seem to think the only thing they have to offer is their bodies. And they don't think about those pictures following them forever and that they may come back to haunt them later.

Happy birthday, Sam!!! I hope you had fun with your friends and got some cool presents. ::mwwaaahh::

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I wondered what these girls would have thought if they knew he was showing me, and others probably, their pics. I just...I dunno.

Not to mention, when he becomes a legal adult next year, these might qualify as child pornography.

Or is it if they're the ones sending them through the phones?

thanks! She had a great time.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

There was an article in Reason magazine about that very subject. Some teenage boy now being held on federal charges of trafficking in child pornography because some 14 year old sent him semi-nude pics.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

It's a can of worms, I think. And even though I think the authorities overreacted in the case you mentioned, what if some unscrupulous teen tries to make a living selling these images to perverted old men? It's impossible to traffic something so gray and new. I'm not sure you can use the existing laws to police such things as this. Not without either redefining those laws or being absolute in enforcing them as they stand. And that will get a lot of teenaged boys and girls in very big trouble.

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're a prude.

I'm saddened and disappointed by how little respect kids today have for their bodies and sex.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

It's like sex is the new way to flirt!

Sex was just as prevelant to us when we were in school, but I remember a lot more discretion going on, you know?

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

It's like sex is the new way to flirt!


Well, put.

I don't think exactly think sex was as prevalent back in the 90s and 80s, even the earlier aughts. But I'm not sure. There was a whole lot of fucking going on between the permissive 70s and 80s, and then the realization that heterosexuals could catch HIV. I think what's happened is that sex is far more casual and, a bunch of American girls have been socialized in a context where it's expected that girls at least give head (whereas it's not expected that boys reciprocate). Kids have grown up seeing, hearing, and reading about things that were kinks and taking it as a matter of course. We've had girls who've become experts at giving oral sex in junior high and high school and having that be a point of pride. We've had, at least in the US (though I hear the UK has as much permissiveness and openness regarding children, pre-teens, and teens having sex in public or not having sex be something private if not more so) 8 years of abstinent only education coupled with a pronounced unwillingness for adults and parents to make spaces that are for adolescents. It's like we expect them to read our books, watch our movies, right out the gate. I know innocence is transitory and privileged, but I really have trouble with young men and women relating to each other as sexual objects in such a way that reminds me of skin-comedies of the 80s-- but as a matter of course.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

You make a lot of good points. Sex is everywhere and there aren't enough shields in place for kids, especially in the last eight years with the availability of camera phones and internet connections. Heck, there are kids writing NC-17 (and, btw, badly) in our fandoms. And we treat them too much like adults because what they can't afford to be children for very long. It's sad. But what mystifies me is how that allowed girls to hold their own sexuality and self respect so cheaply. Are boys suffering too? Are they getting singed in this fire or are they somehow escaping? My nephew acted like he was priviliged (if I can use that word) - a well fed male in a room full of ripe fruit, leisuring picking only the best. It doesn't appear as though he's suffering in any way and yet the girls on his phone are, even if they don't know it.

[kristinholt.livejournal.com]

Sexting!

I've threatened my 13 year old that when he does get a cell phone, that I will be grabbing it randomly. Just to check.

:(

*hugs*

[samsom.livejournal.com]

It's scary raising kids, everything seems to be so permissive these days.

[kristinholt.livejournal.com]

It is. Try to find a bra in the kids' section that doesn't have padding, too. I'm sorry, my 9 year old has no need of padding. She still plays with baby dolls, ffs.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I can't even find shorts for my six year old daughter that doesn't have an extremely abbreviated inseam. Daisy Dukes are not for any child under sixteen! *blows a vein*

[kristinholt.livejournal.com]

Not at Walmart to be sure! Check at Old Navy, actually. With sales and online coupons, I can actually afford them. I've threatened Jordan with her brother's old shorts a couple times.

Sears had a few pairs the last time I went shopping, also.

I miss Steve and Barry's. I could actually find clothes for my girl there that didn't look like hoochie mama stuff. :(

[starlet2367.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're a prude. ITA w/ Deb and Ruthy -- it's sad and scary b/c not only do the girls not respect themselves the pics will follow them around forever. How do we, as women, get girls to understand their value isn't related to the sexual pleasure they can give to men?

Happy birthday, Sammy girl! Give your sweet mama a hug for me!

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. I think peer influence is so incredibly strong and if a few girls are doing this and getting what they want - the superficial 'popularity' among the boys - then I think other girls will be strongly tempted to get their egos stroked the same way.

Girls have so much more to offer the world, but I'm afraid a lot of them won't ever get to the point where they realize this. I know some thirty somethings that have this same need for attention. Everything is wrapped up in who they're going with.

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

I'm fifteen (sixteen in a few months, whoo!) and I don't think you're a prude at all. It bothers me too. Because as the others have mentioned, you should respect and love your body. Plus I wouldn't want a guy walking around with a nude picture of me on his cell-phone. Especially if we haven't been going out for a long time and it's more of a "hey I'm interested in you here's what I look like naked" kind of thing. I probably wouldn't even do it if we had been going out for a long time.

My body and my sexuality is important to me. I don't want to have sex just because and especially not before I'm ready. There are girls in my school who, at the age of 14, have already slept with over 25 guys. I don't necessarily believe in "the one" but I want my first date and my first kiss and my first time to at least be something special.

I want someone who can respect who I am as well as what I look like, and it feels to me that if I were to send a nude picture of myself, it's kind of like telling him it's okay just to see me as a sex object.

Apparently these thoughts make me uncool, but I don't care.

Happy birthday to Sam!! *sends huggles*

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I warn you - send a nude pic to someone and it WILL end up on the internet where you will be oggled by millions.

[ladysophiekitty.livejournal.com]

*shudders*

No thanks.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

*nods* I remember being twelve and not understanding the drama that was happening with one of my friends. A group of them told me it was 'over my head'. Turns out she thought she was pregnant. AT TWELVE!!! Kids were having sex right and left around me, and thinking it somehow made them more special or older. My view was limited but I thought it made them pathetic. If you can't remember your first time because of the sea of faces in your past, there's something wrong with that.

I'm not telling you that your first time, whatever age it will happen, will be fireworks, but you should at least be old enough to fully appreciate it for what it is. Good on you for the sensible head on your shoulders.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I just think it's sad that so many teenage girls have so little self respect.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I think part of the problem is that they don't see it as a matter of self respect and not having any. It might be so ordinary an occurance now that it's not any more noteworthy than random kissage.

It is indeed sad.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. Maybe it's a competition - "look at my body" - and they truly don't feel anything is wrong with it. I'd love to ask a few of them about it.

And yeah, they're all doing it, like tattoos on the small of their backs. It was done to be different but instead they end up looking like they came off an assembly line.