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I've seen a few other comments to the effect that if US society weren't so prudish about sex, incidents like this wouldn't be so bad. I do not agree. These situ

I've seen a few other comments to the effect that if US society weren't so prudish about sex, incidents like this wouldn't be so bad. I do not agree. These situations are not about sexual imagery, its about people using that imagery and media to engage in harassment campaigns against others. This harassment is highly misogynist and often is focused on the girl in the photo/video rather than the person who is maliciously spreading that media, even if person doing the spreading appears in said media itself. Fixing this situation requires many things, but at a minimum school administrators needs clear anti-harassment policies that are enforced against people who are spreading this media as a form of harassment. Sex education that focuses on consent and explores issues of patriarchy and rape culture in the US in addition to basic biology and mechanics of sex is also needed. Of course, this is a long running issue in US society, so nothing will happen overnight, but we must demand that institutions we trust with the education and oversight of young folks be a force for defeating harassment and sexism.

asmithmd1 14y ago
If the girl is under age the photo and video are child pormography and evidence of statutory rape. Many states also require consent of both parties for a recording or it is illegal wire tapping. Why aren't these criminal acts being prosecuted?
- bilbo0s 14y ago
  Because ALL of the people in these videos are normally underage. Who exactly do you propose we prosecute? And for what? This is a hard problem with no easy solutions. Principals all across the nation have been struggling with it, its just not as simple as people like to make it out to be.
  - asmithmd1 14y ago
    I would prosecute the people who posses and distribute the child pornography - not the victims who are in exploitive pictures and videos.
    - wmf 14y ago
      In other words, all high school students.
    - bilbo0s 14y ago
      You're misunderstanding how this normally develops. I'll give you an example. Let's take the common version. Don't worry, I'll make it short: Two 15 year old girls hang out one weekend and decide to take sexy pictures of each other. They share the photos with a few other trusted girl friends over time. Everything's ok, so far. Two months later, the girls are now "enemies". Or some girl in that small peer group, (clique), falls out with some other girl, you get the idea. One of them forwards pictures to a larger social group for the purpose of demeaning the girl or maybe demeaning multiple girls. BAM. Disaster. Photos are being forwarded everywhere. Parents are calling. Fights are breaking out in the halls, because maybe someone's brother is a hot-head. etc. Now... who exactly do you prosecute for "distributing child pornography". The girl who was victimized by the bullying right? She was the one who INITIALLY forwarded the images. Do you see the problem school administrators face?
      - asmithmd1 14y ago
        You are right; as the school administrator I am not going to wade into that he said/she said mess. But I would call the DA and tell them there is a child porn "ring" in the school. Have them come in, subpoena phone records, and have a police detective read their rights and interview everyone involved. You probably only have to do that every 3 or 4 years to keep a lid on it.
        betterunix 14y ago
        So instead of one teenager who is embarrassed and emotionally disturbed, you'll have dozens who will go through life as registered sex offenders, constantly harassed by idiots who think they are child molesters, cut off from certain jobs, barred from living in certain neighborhoods, marked with the scarlet letter for something stupid they did when they were kids. Did the police help solve our drug problems? No, in fact, they made society worse than it had been when drugs were legal; now we have teams of soldiers serving search and arrest warrants, all in the name of prosecuting drug offenses. Do you really want to bring that sort of chaos and mayhem into our nation's middle and high schools? Schools already have many of the characteristics of prisons; let's not make that any worse.
  - JoachimSchipper 14y ago
    Going after the person distributing the video seems obvious - distributing child porn taken without (one of) the subjects' consent is not a good thing.
- bskap 14y ago
  It's not evidence of statutory rape. Statutory rape is when an adult sleeps with a child. If two 15 year olds have consensual sex, it's not rape.
  - asmithmd1 14y ago
    IANAL - In your example I think both parties could be charged with statutory rape. I don't think this ever actually happens.
  - georgefox 14y ago
    I believe this varies by state and by age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America#State_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_Ameri...). As I understand it, here in New York, two consenting but unmarried 16-year-olds would technically be engaging in mutual statutory rape, but two 15-year-olds could not be charged with the same crime.
    - bskap 14y ago
      The 16-year-old thing seems like a really strange provision. My guess would be that nobody in the state legislature wants to be the guy that brought up that bill about 16 year olds having sex.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "Why aren't these criminal acts being prosecuted?" 1. That would mean throwing a large fraction of teenagers in prison. 2. This is happening among middle and upper class teenagers just as much as it happens among the working class. You are not going to see suburban angels going to prison, at least not if the sheriff wants to keep his job. 3. Prosecuting teenagers for this will solve nothing; they will just get better at hiding their tracks, talking their way out of it, or not getting caught. In the best case, rather than the videos being released you'll just see teenagers threatening to release the videos, and then you'll just have "he said she said situations. Our heavily armed police force will not solve this problem; as with problems related to drugs, prosecutions will only make things worse.
- rosser 14y ago
  Yeah, because marking minors with the Scarlet Letter of "Sex Offender" for the rest of their lives is an ideal solution to bullying...
addlepate 14y ago
I'm having trouble seeing where exactly your disagreement resides, except for simply stating that you disagree. This harassment is misogynist, and the content of the harassment is about how girls should be ashamed of their sexual behavior. If we as a society didn't think that, the basis for the harassment wouldn't be there in the first place.
bilbo0s 14y ago
This is not a sex education problem... this is a harassment/bullying problem. At the school I am involved with it is termed "Relationship Bullying". It has a range that you would not believe. It typically involves girl peer groups. And it is devastating in its effect. I have seen it turn bright, straight A student athletes into C-D students because of the distraction. This stuff MATTERS to girls that age. Complicating the issue, a school typically cannot get access to any of these online profiles. (That's generally district policy most places. Having teachers forwarded racy pictures of students opens you up to some liabilities.) Even if you could, a school has no control over what a student does outside of school hours. To top it all off, police generally find that no laws have been broken. One friend let another friend take a picture of her and even smiled for the camera. What can they do? This problem is MUCH more complicated than most people believe. Simple solutions don't work here. A "...Sex education that focuses on consent and explores issues of patriarchy and rape culture in the US in addition to basic biology and mechanics of sex...", would bore students to tears and do nothing to address the core problems... bullying and harassment.
- king_jester 14y ago
  I agree that when it comes to anti-harassment policies in the digital age, schools have it tough. As you say, a lot of this is happening in spaces that are outside of the school's control and, sometimes, understanding about technology. When it comes down to talking about sexual harassment, bullying, and how that interacts with someone's daily life, information about sex and culture are hugely important and relevant to young folks. Issues about consent, how you treat current and former partners, slut shaming, perceptions and stereotypes about gender with regards to sexuality, and about sexual agency are all a part of bullying via spreading of explicit pictures/video. These issues are tremendously important because many people do not have any basic information about any of these subjects and these issues shape the way they experience the world. The popularity of sites like Scarleteen show that there is a very real demand for this kind of information and sex education should include this information at a minimum. I agree that what I mentioned isn't enough and that the situation is more complicated. We need to give people information and tools that empower them to control their lives and not let others control it, and issues of bullying and harassment are big issues in US culture today.

asmithmd1 14y ago

If the girl is under age the photo and video are child pormography and evidence of statutory rape. Many states also require consent of both parties for a recording or it is illegal wire tapping. Why aren't these criminal acts being prosecuted?

bilbo0s 14y ago
Because ALL of the people in these videos are normally underage. Who exactly do you propose we prosecute? And for what? This is a hard problem with no easy solutions. Principals all across the nation have been struggling with it, its just not as simple as people like to make it out to be.
- asmithmd1 14y ago
  I would prosecute the people who posses and distribute the child pornography - not the victims who are in exploitive pictures and videos.
  - wmf 14y ago
    In other words, all high school students.
  - bilbo0s 14y ago
    You're misunderstanding how this normally develops. I'll give you an example. Let's take the common version. Don't worry, I'll make it short: Two 15 year old girls hang out one weekend and decide to take sexy pictures of each other. They share the photos with a few other trusted girl friends over time. Everything's ok, so far. Two months later, the girls are now "enemies". Or some girl in that small peer group, (clique), falls out with some other girl, you get the idea. One of them forwards pictures to a larger social group for the purpose of demeaning the girl or maybe demeaning multiple girls. BAM. Disaster. Photos are being forwarded everywhere. Parents are calling. Fights are breaking out in the halls, because maybe someone's brother is a hot-head. etc. Now... who exactly do you prosecute for "distributing child pornography". The girl who was victimized by the bullying right? She was the one who INITIALLY forwarded the images. Do you see the problem school administrators face?
    - asmithmd1 14y ago
      You are right; as the school administrator I am not going to wade into that he said/she said mess. But I would call the DA and tell them there is a child porn "ring" in the school. Have them come in, subpoena phone records, and have a police detective read their rights and interview everyone involved. You probably only have to do that every 3 or 4 years to keep a lid on it.
      - betterunix 14y ago
        So instead of one teenager who is embarrassed and emotionally disturbed, you'll have dozens who will go through life as registered sex offenders, constantly harassed by idiots who think they are child molesters, cut off from certain jobs, barred from living in certain neighborhoods, marked with the scarlet letter for something stupid they did when they were kids. Did the police help solve our drug problems? No, in fact, they made society worse than it had been when drugs were legal; now we have teams of soldiers serving search and arrest warrants, all in the name of prosecuting drug offenses. Do you really want to bring that sort of chaos and mayhem into our nation's middle and high schools? Schools already have many of the characteristics of prisons; let's not make that any worse.
- JoachimSchipper 14y ago
  Going after the person distributing the video seems obvious - distributing child porn taken without (one of) the subjects' consent is not a good thing.
bskap 14y ago
It's not evidence of statutory rape. Statutory rape is when an adult sleeps with a child. If two 15 year olds have consensual sex, it's not rape.
- asmithmd1 14y ago
  IANAL - In your example I think both parties could be charged with statutory rape. I don't think this ever actually happens.
- georgefox 14y ago
  I believe this varies by state and by age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America#State_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_Ameri...). As I understand it, here in New York, two consenting but unmarried 16-year-olds would technically be engaging in mutual statutory rape, but two 15-year-olds could not be charged with the same crime.
  - bskap 14y ago
    The 16-year-old thing seems like a really strange provision. My guess would be that nobody in the state legislature wants to be the guy that brought up that bill about 16 year olds having sex.
betterunix 14y ago
"Why aren't these criminal acts being prosecuted?" 1. That would mean throwing a large fraction of teenagers in prison. 2. This is happening among middle and upper class teenagers just as much as it happens among the working class. You are not going to see suburban angels going to prison, at least not if the sheriff wants to keep his job. 3. Prosecuting teenagers for this will solve nothing; they will just get better at hiding their tracks, talking their way out of it, or not getting caught. In the best case, rather than the videos being released you'll just see teenagers threatening to release the videos, and then you'll just have "he said she said situations. Our heavily armed police force will not solve this problem; as with problems related to drugs, prosecutions will only make things worse.
rosser 14y ago
Yeah, because marking minors with the Scarlet Letter of "Sex Offender" for the rest of their lives is an ideal solution to bullying...

addlepate 14y ago

I'm having trouble seeing where exactly your disagreement resides, except for simply stating that you disagree. This harassment is misogynist, and the content of the harassment is about how girls should be ashamed of their sexual behavior. If we as a society didn't think that, the basis for the harassment wouldn't be there in the first place.

bilbo0s 14y ago

This is not a sex education problem... this is a harassment/bullying problem. At the school I am involved with it is termed "Relationship Bullying". It has a range that you would not believe. It typically involves girl peer groups. And it is devastating in its effect. I have seen it turn bright, straight A student athletes into C-D students because of the distraction. This stuff MATTERS to girls that age. Complicating the issue, a school typically cannot get access to any of these online profiles. (That's generally district policy most places. Having teachers forwarded racy pictures of students opens you up to some liabilities.) Even if you could, a school has no control over what a student does outside of school hours. To top it all off, police generally find that no laws have been broken. One friend let another friend take a picture of her and even smiled for the camera. What can they do? This problem is MUCH more complicated than most people believe. Simple solutions don't work here. A "...Sex education that focuses on consent and explores issues of patriarchy and rape culture in the US in addition to basic biology and mechanics of sex...", would bore students to tears and do nothing to address the core problems... bullying and harassment.

king_jester 14y ago
I agree that when it comes to anti-harassment policies in the digital age, schools have it tough. As you say, a lot of this is happening in spaces that are outside of the school's control and, sometimes, understanding about technology. When it comes down to talking about sexual harassment, bullying, and how that interacts with someone's daily life, information about sex and culture are hugely important and relevant to young folks. Issues about consent, how you treat current and former partners, slut shaming, perceptions and stereotypes about gender with regards to sexuality, and about sexual agency are all a part of bullying via spreading of explicit pictures/video. These issues are tremendously important because many people do not have any basic information about any of these subjects and these issues shape the way they experience the world. The popularity of sites like Scarleteen show that there is a very real demand for this kind of information and sex education should include this information at a minimum. I agree that what I mentioned isn't enough and that the situation is more complicated. We need to give people information and tools that empower them to control their lives and not let others control it, and issues of bullying and harassment are big issues in US culture today.