What is your opinion on sexting?

I've been watching a series about problems with sex education and how to improve it. One episode was about sexting. One side wanted to teach students to never take any photos you don't want to become public because leaking is common. The other side wanted to teach recipients to keep intimate photos between them and the sender, and that it could then be a fun and exciting addition to a relationship.

I'm ideally for the latter, combined with prosecuting the perpetrator and supporting the victim if a photo gets out anyway. But society isn't currently like that. People who share someone else's photo get more praise than heat, and people in those photos get more blame and shame than support. As long as that's the reality, I tend to agree people shouldn't take any nudes, but that it should become possible with very low risk.

The first form of education prolongs victim blaming, but the second form isn't safe until everybody attended those classes and most people alive will not do so anymore. So I'm not sure what's best.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

LordShadowfire · M

Nobody should ever send nudes of themselves unless they absolutely trust the other person. End of story.

The problem is, so many people are adept at manipulating people into trusting them. I don't necessarily think it's victim blaming to teach young people never, ever to trust a stranger with their nudes, but we absolutely need to be more proactive about prosecuting people who publicize them.

NerdyPotato · M

@LordShadowfire teaching people to not participate isn't victim blaming indeed, but it creates an environment for victim blaming. If someone ignores the advice and a photo leaks, it gives people an excuse to say "I told you so". And it's also an excuse not to teach recipients to keep it private, because if we teach everyone not to send them in the first place, nobody is going to receive any and there's no need to learn how to deal with that.

LordShadowfire · M

@NerdyPotato That's very true. We need to teach people not to allow themselves to be put in a position to be victimized, but we also need to teach people not to victimize.