Following up on yesterday’s story, here is another local story that helps explain why ‘sexting’ is becoming such a hot topic:
Jessie Logan was 18 years old and about to graduate from Sycamore High School when a nude picture she sent to her boyfriend was sent to hundreds of students at schools around the Tri-State.
Last May, Jessie talked to News 5’s Sheree Paolello about how embarrassed and humiliated she was. She said she was being harassed and teased by other students, at home, at school and when she went out.
As she tried to explain what it was like, Jessie broke down crying. “I still get harassed and stuff,” she said. “I just want to make sure no one else will have to go through this same thing.”
Jessie was trying to be strong. She wanted to warn other parents and kids. But Jessie’s mom, Cynthia Logan, says the teasing turned to torture.
“She was called filthy names, things thrown at her,” said Cynthia. “Every single place she went they knew about that picture, they saw the picture. They knew about the picture! It’s abuse. She was abused.”
Cynthia says the moment her daughter’s private picture was sent out for everyone to see, things spiraled out of control. Jessie’s grades plummeted, she started skipping school and Cynthia says when Jessie would go to school, she would hide in the bathroom to avoid being teased.
Jessie’s family and friends knew how much she was struggling to move on but they had no idea how low Jessie had fallen. Two months after Jessie spoke with News 5, she went to the funeral of a boy who had committed suicide. After the funeral, she came home and killed herself.
I want to make very clear that this story is horribly and very tragic, but I have problems with it, especially from here:
“The police department didn’t protect her. The school didn’t protect her. She had no one,” said Cynthia.
Because Cynthia knows she can’t turn back the clock, she wants to change the laws. She says she wants “sexting” to stop and for the people involved to be held accountable.
What should the police have done? The girl was 18. She was old enough to go to war and decide if she should kill someone or not, so she should have been able to decide rather to send these photos or not.
This is another example of parents outsourcing disciplinarian to the police. Sexting has been in the news a lot lately, and I would be willing to be the kids I posted about yesterday knew that they could get in trouble, but they did it anyways. How dare they be kids!
But what happens in sexting isn’t anything new, just the device has changed. Before that it was emailing pictures from digital cameras and also using webcams to show off. For years internet giant Yahoo allowed chat rooms that were specifically named for underage girls to get on webcam and show off. It wasn’t until, then New York Attorney General, Elliot Spitzer took on Yahoo and had the rooms shut down. Never were there any criminal charges.
But even before everyone had computers and that, there was videotape and Polaroid.
So is laws the cure to this problem? Well let’s look at another story to see how laws stop illegal actions amongst kids:
A Hamilton Freshman School student has been arrested and charged with trafficking and drug possession, according to Hamilton Police Department officials.
Now I am willing to bet this kid knew dealing drugs were illegal – yet he did it anyways. I’m sure the millions in jail knew what they did was illegal, but they did it anyways.
New laws WILL NOT WORK! Instead parents have to take a novel approach – parenting. Take time to explain to your children why they shouldn’t do it.
And perhaps its time for the right wing to stop this meme of anything sexual being so “evil”. Making things seem so evil doesn’t stop it from happening, it just helps create new ways and makes kids even more curious.
Sexting, like drug abuse, will never become obsolete. But we can try to curb it through education. Education also isn’t limited to school – the parents must take an active role at home.
Back to the story of Jessie Logan. Again this is very tragic, but would laws really have stopped it? I highly doubt it. And who does she think should have broken the law? Her daughter? Her daughter’s boyfriend? Anyone who saw or passed the picture along?
Now that the whole notion of passing laws against this is on the table in Ohio, we also need to open the discussion for serious reform in sex education. Just making laws don’t fix things like this. And as drugs have taught us, they don’t even help.