Why we need to talk to our children about sexting

An article by Judith Woods in The Telegraph yesterday reminds us of the
importance of talking to our children. She tells us

“Are you talking about sex offenders? I know a sex offender.”

The adults gathered at last weekend’s barbecue slowed up on their own conversations to listen
in to my friend’s 15-year-old daughter.

“You shouldn’t be eavesdropping,” chided her mother, waving a wine glass.

“If this is about your uncle Desmond, nothing was ever proved,” quipped her dad. “Just because a
man chooses to live in a caravan up a dirt track and reuses his teabags doesn’t make him a
pervert.”

“No, I mean an actual sex offender. On the register and everything. She’s in my class at school.”

Cue slack-jawed disbelief and spluttering all round as the chipolatas
cindered on the BBQ. How could it be? Who could it be?
All you parents out there, if you were taken aback by new revelations from the NSPCC that,
in the last three years, more than 2,000 children have been reported to the police over indecent
images, then I suggest you feel alarmed and outraged instead that children as young as 12 are
risking criminalisation.

My friends live in a commuter town, and their children attend the sort of mixed but robustly
successful state school where pupils are photographed in the local papers leaping into the air
on results day.

Their girl’s friends are the daughters of civil servants and dentists and graphic designers.
And yet one of her classmates – let’s call her Jade – has, at the age of 15, apparently been
questioned by police for the sharing of indecent images.

Jade’s “crime” was to circulate the topless photographs that her friend Lara had taken and sent
to her boyfriend.

Sending “topless nudes”, as they are known by teenagers, is regarded among girls as nasty and
cheap and an offence punishable by social exclusion.

Usually a girl will lose her friends immediately for “being a dirty ho”. On this occasion,
it went much further; Lara received the ultimate in “slut-shaming” when Jade forwarded the
photographs.
What she did was mean and vindictive and cruel. But was it a sex offence? Of course, if you
were Lara’s parents you would probably think it was, and I have every sympathy for them.

But could justice ever be served by branding stupid or malicious or hormonal teenage girls, or
indeed boys, sex offenders? Alongside rapists and abusers and manipulative monsters who groom –
poison – little children with their toxic brew of treats and terror?

To be honest, I’m not at all convinced Jade is on any sex offender’s register. Barbecue gossip
is just that and, curious though they are, I don’t think my friends will be bringing up the
subject with her parents at the proverbial school gates.

But her name is now mired in scandal (as indeed is Lara’s).

Now, from a pragmatic and terribly non-PC perspective, I suppose fears of police raids and
registers might give kids pause before making and
distributing intimate and explicit selfies.

But the real issue is young people’s exposure to violent hardcore on free internet sites,
and “personalised” porn on their handsets.

“Boys send intimate pictures all the time and nobody really cares, because you can’t identify
the person,” sighed my friend’s 15-year-old with a peculiarly disturbing world-weariness. Her
mates all nodded.

We looked at them, a naive bunch of 40+ innocents, with wide eyes and appalled expressions,
wanting to ask the obvious but afraid of the answer.

“Yes, of course, erect. Otherwise what’s the point?” she added with an air of impatience at
our complete hopelessness. “I think it’s revolting, but boys think it’s like porn only more…
personal.”

So there we have it: “personalised porn” for kids who aren’t old enough to have legal sex.

It’s nothing short of tragic that a generation of kids, inured to the selfie culture, is being
seduced or duped or egged on to take pictures of themselves that may well haunt them forever.

Child crime

• One in six people reported for indecent imagery are now aged under 18.
• There were 4,530 cases of indecent imagery in 2013, more than doubling in two years to 10,818 in 2015.
• During that period, 2,000 children were among those reported to police for indecent image offences.
• Police believe sexting has played a significant factor in the rise of child-related investigations.

Solutions?

• The NSPCC has suggested that urgent action needs to be taken, including:
• Internet companies developing technological solutions, including data sharing with the authorities and faster 
• response time to remove indecent images of children when they are found in the public domain.
• The process for removing nude images from internet sites should be streamlined.
• Greater access to support for children and teenagers who have fallen victim to indecent 
• images being shared online.
• Offenders who have been convicted should be offered treatment to reduce their future risk to children.

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