Sexting is Not a Modern Variation of Spin the Bottle

Sexting is Not a Modern Variation of Spin the Bottle. While doing some research for my next blog article, I came across a story from 2009, where Peter Cumming, an associate professor at York University in Toronto, presented a paper on children’s sexuality at the 78th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

In it, he defends the practice as a modern variation on “playing doctor or spin-the-bottle.” What a load of crap!

Spin the bottle was a harmless game that young people played at kids parties, which were the beginnings of them exploring their sexuality. The game ended before the party ended.

Sexting is something quite different. Described by Wikipedia as the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones, the word is derived from ‘sex’ and ‘texting’ to make ‘sexting’.

The first known published mention of the term “sexting” was in a 2005 article in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine in the UK. Today this behaviour has spread throughout the world, and made easy by the ability to purchase mobile phones with cameras at a fraction of the cost to what they were several years ago.

Sexting has become a huge problem to manage. Statistically, girls are more likely to send naked or semi naked images of themselves than boys. Boyfriends often encourage them to do so, and at times, girls may send an image to their boyfriend as a ‘cheeky surprise’.

“Technology today has allowed a snap taken now to be up on the internet within minutes!”

Sadly, many young relationships are short-lived. Once the relationship has ended, about 30% of boys will send images on to their mates. In turn, those mates will send on to their mates, and so on. This often escalates into teasing the victim which leads to bullying.

In the United States, there have been several high profile cases where the victim has taken their own life.

Boys are not entirely immune from sexting behaviour either. A case last year in the US was reported where a gay student was snapped on a mobile phone in a sexual pose with another male. Sadly, this led to the victim taking his own life.

One consideration not often thought of, is that anyone caught with a naked image on their phone of someone under the age of 16, can be considered as child pornography. Cases in the US have resulted in teens being placed on the ‘sex register’ having being caught with such images on their phone.

Some schools in New Zealand have now banned mobile phones in the school changing rooms to help prevent candid snaps being taken.

Technology today has allowed a snap taken now to be up on the internet within minutes!

How do you prevent sexting? That’s a good question. Education is the key. Ensure you have a great relationship with your child. Teach them the consequences of sexting. Explain to them that when a photo is sent from a mobile phone, they loose control of that image. It could potentially end up anywhere.

There are products on the market that can be installed on mobile phones. We’ve tested and sell Phone Beagle , which has the ability to prevent an image from being sent if it contains too much flesh!

While software installed on phones may help, education comes first. Sexting destroys lives, ruins careers and leads to anxiety, bullying and in some cases, worse.