Dirty Little Secrets - Kerry Cohen [54]
Cate has a bunch of photos of herself in her underwear in her album on Facebook. Every time she posts a new one, she told me, at least a couple guys who have been out of touch contact her again. It makes her feel good to know people think of her. I asked her what she thinks they contact her for. “I think that’s pretty obvious,” she said. “They just want to have sex with me. But it still makes me feel good.”
“Good, as in worthwhile?” I asked.
“Exactly,” she said.
Jennifer sends certain Facebook friends seminude photos when she feels like she’s lost their attention.
“It works like a charm,” she told me.
There are some real concerns about older men soliciting teenage girls via Facebook. A few cases have been reported, such as one about a thirty-four-year-old man in North Carolina who had a sexual relationship with a minor after getting to know her on Facebook, or the twenty-seven-year-old Pennsylvania man who changed his relationship status to “Engaged” to a fourteen-year-old girl (the joke in all the headlines was that there was no “statutory rape” relationship option).13
But while these men are clearly predatory, simply posting sexy photos to Facebook isn’t necessarily dangerous, at least not in that way. Just like with sexting, the harm is mostly related to what the poster is hoping to get from having those photos up, and then what she actually gets. She gets attention for her body, of course. But what does that attention really mean about her? Of course, it means nothing. Having a nice body—or even just having a female body, which is all a girl really needs to get some male attention—doesn’t take a girl very far in life.
Studies have made clear that most of what teenagers do on the Web can be considered positive. Most have a “full-time intimate community” they communicate with online—whether through instant messaging, Facebook, MySpace, or other sites—and they don’t do much more than that. When they do, they seek information or experiment with digital media production, such as figuring out how to accomplish something on their own. A study done by the MacArthur Foundation determined that, although it may look like kids are wasting their time online, they are actually building technological skills and literacy, something needed to succeed in our modern world.14
Researchers have also found that Internet and cell phone communication leads to greater self-disclosure, which builds closer, more intimate relationships with friends.15 This is another reason that websites providing real, frank information about sex—and an opportunity for questions—are so valuable. Where talking to parents is important, such a conversation can be embarrassing, for both parties. Even the most self-assured parents would be fooling themselves if they thought their teens were telling and asking them everything. We can think of resources online, and the self-disclosing conversations among peers, as bolsters to the support and education parents and schools can provide.
Parents will get nowhere, however, if their fears turn into what teenagers perceive as violations of privacy. Blocking their Internet usage, checking up on their computers, and wrangling passwords from their teens will only lead teenagers to tell even less, and the more open the lines of communication are between teenagers and adults concerning sex-related issues, the better.
Meanwhile, Johanna continues to send dirty texts, but she won’t send any more photos. She told me that at some point she realized it was degrading.
“More degrading than the words?” I emailed.
“Yeah.” She emailed back from her phone.
I asked her what she thought about other girls sending photos. “If a girl wants to do it, that’s up to her,” she said.
Her signature from the phone quoted her favorite band, Escape the Fate. “My heart’s on an auction.”
When I