Over the past week, stories have emerged in North Carolina about the existence of nude photos of teenagers posted on Instagram. Cases have been brought to light throughout Wake and Durham counties and police say they're investigating the "criminally inappropriate use of photographs" on certain Instagram accounts that seem to have been created for the purpose of spreading child pornography.
For anyone who knows a teenager and is not in the habit of pretending that teenager lives under a rock, nude selfies are not news. Teenagers have been making the decision to share their bodies with each other forever - sexting is just a new platform for doing that from a distance. But in these cases, their private photographs were shared against their will with a vast online audience. Unsurprisingly, the bravery the students and their parents showed in coming forward has been met with an onslaught of slut shaming. A lot of that slut shaming has assumed that all the victims were girls, despite news reports that the Instagram accounts included nude photos of girls and boys. Some examples from the comments section (never read the comments section!) include:
The issue is not whether the teenagers should have taken the photos. Yes, girls and boys should be better educated about possible consequences for their actions, including the action of texting a nude photo to a trusted recipient. Parents have a duty to talk to their children about the risks involved in all sexual behavior. But putting the blame on the teenagers for taking the photos in the first place - for daring to be sexual - distracts from the larger issue. That issue is consent. These teenagers consented to a photo being taken and shared with one, perhaps a few, specific recipients. What they did not consent to was that photo being shared with anyone else, let alone on the Internet. Revenge porn raises the same issue, though it usually involves adults. Rather than making the conversation about how to repress sexuality in young women and men - restricting their access to the Internet, phones, cameras, etc. - let's make it about the importance of sexual consent, whether in person or online, for people of all genders.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |