By Julia Hahn, Columnist
The new term “sexting” has a negative connotation, largely due to numerous amounts of sensational stories in the media. The typical story of a person sending their significant other a nude picture, which then circulates around their school and beyond, does not help the term win a positive reputation.
In my hometown, there were several scandals surrounding this same topic. Some instances even cause the person involved to drop out of school, move away, or in the most upsetting cases, commit suicide.
Lacey, WA is the site of the most recent sexting scandal. An eighth grade girl sent nude pictures to her boyfriend. When they split up he sent the pictures to another girl. Eventually thousands of middle school students had seen the picture. The local police accused the ex-boyfriend and both of the girls of disseminating child pornography, although the charge was lessened to harassment in a plea deal.
This case has shown just how hard it is for school administrators, parents, and police to stop kids from sending horribly inappropriate pictures of themselves to others in the digital age. Could harsh punishment be the answer?
Some government officials think turning sexting into a felony case would work well. This could be the only way to really give kids a wake-up call. Kids have heard horror stories about people who got caught sexting, but the message just doesn’t seem to be getting through. Teenagers are still carelessly pressing “send” on their cell phones without even thinking about the consequences. This is another classic case of “It will never happen to me!”
The odds are, if you go to high school or middle school, the person you are sexting will eventually send the picture to someone else, and the domino effect will happen. Even if you don’t think the chances are that high, why would you even risk something like that? It could reach thousands of people and the experience would most likely stick with you for a very long time. Do you want to be known as that girl? I doubt it.
If police in these cases were allowed to place much harsher laws on the people involved, kids would think twice. Harsher laws in place would force teens to think about the likelihood of the nude picture leaking, and the legal consequences after it did leak. It would bring the risk factor for sexting to a new level. There isn’t a gainful reason for sexting, so there should be a reason in place to prevent the act.
