Challenging the “Stranger Danger” Archetype

For decades, the public’s conceptualization of “child pornography” was tethered to a specific, mid-90s archetype: a predatory adult in a basement, wielding a camera to exploit a child. This “stranger danger” narrative shaped the first generation of digital safety laws, but it relied on a technological bottleneck that no longer exists. In the early digital era, creating and distributing such material often required “intermediaries,” developers or specialized services, who acted as a friction point for reporting abuse. Today, that barrier has vanished. A landmark 2026 study published in Sexual Abuse reveals a landscape that has shifted from adult-captured content to Image-Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA). A broader term encompassing the non-consensual making, distribution, and threatened distribution of sexual images.

The data is clear: the primary producers of modern abusive content are not “strangers,” but the youth victims themselves and their immediate social circles.

A Massive Shift in Content Creation

The study provides a staggering clarification of the digital landscape: the vast majority (86%) of abusive episodes involved images produced by youth. Either by the victims themselves (73.7%) or by peer perpetrators (12.1%).

In stark contrast, images actually produced by adults accounted for less than 8% of the total episodes. 

The velocity of this shift is remarkable.

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Licensed Professional Counselors: Dr. Weeks’ course The Prevalence of Youth-Produced Image-Based Sexual Abuse examines changing patterns in image-based sexual abuse and offers a framework for understanding youth-involved perpetrator dynamics.

Sexual Addiction Treatment Services has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7250. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Sexual Addiction Treatment Services is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

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In 2010, youth-produced images accounted for roughly 40% of law enforcement databases; that figure has more than doubled in just over a decade.

This reflects a fundamental change in adolescent socialization where digital media is fully integrated. The “democratization” of recording devices means the power of production has moved into the hands of the adolescents, often within contexts of dating, flirtation, or peer pressure, removing the traditional predatory intermediary entirely. 

“This shift in terminology [from child pornography to CSAM/CSAI] was intended to emphasize that the images were often made by in-person sexual abusers, who recorded their abusive conduct… The new conception also acknowledged the ongoing harm to the children depicted, as these shareable images can be characterized as ongoing abusive provocations and reminders.”

Why the Stranger Myth is Dangerous

The persistent fear of the “online stranger” creates a dangerous blind spot.

The study findings reveal that only 3.4% of youth perpetrators were “not known in-person.”

Mathematically, for youth-on-youth abuse, the “predatory stranger” is almost a statistical anomaly. Even among adult perpetrators, 59% were offline acquaintances like dating partners or friends. 

While 36.7% of perpetrators’ identities remained “unknown” to the victims, a significant data gap that complicates reporting, the known data points to a reality where the threat is an in-person peer or partner.

Perpetrator Relationship Breakdown

The Victim as the Producer: A New Tool for Adult Abusers

Perhaps the most counter-intuitive finding is the role of the victim in adult-perpetrated abuse.

In 75% of adult-perpetrated episodes, the images were originally produced by the youth victim. Modern adult abusers rarely need to capture images themselves; they leverage unequal power dynamics to manipulate “normal developing interests in sex” into digital assets. 

Adult “Groomers” and “Coercers” no longer require physical proximity to generate material.

By leveraging romantic pretense or blackmail, they turn the victim’s own device into an instrument of exploitation. This evolution demonstrates how predators have adapted to a world where self-production is the social norm, weaponizing the victim’s own agency against them.

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Are you exploring your trauma? Do you feel your childhood experiences were detrimental to your current mental or physical health? Utilize this free, validated, self-report questionnaire to find out.

Take the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire

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The Five-Category Framework for Abuse

To address the complexity of modern IBSA, the study proposes a five-category framework that moves beyond binary labels to define the specific intent and dynamics of the abuse: 

1. Adult Producers: Perpetrators who create images to document their own physical abuse of a child for memorialization or monetization.
2. Adult Coercers: Predators who extort youth into creating and sharing explicit content through the use of threats or digital blackmail. 
3. Adult Groomers: Perpetrators who manipulate youth into self-production by masquerading as romantic partners or offering items of value. 
4. Juvenile Coercers: Peers who weaponize force, threats, or emotional guilt to pressure victims into supplying explicit images. 
5. Juvenile Betrayers: Peers who breach a victim’s confidence by sharing images given voluntarily or by taking secret images of a peer without their consent.

The Prevention Paradox: Why Punishment Might Backfire

The study highlights a critical “prevention paradox”: an over-reliance on harsh criminal sanctions for youth may actually decrease safety.

When the legal system treats peer-to-peer “betrayals” with the same punitive weight as adult predation, victims become reluctant to report. They fear that reporting a peer, or admitting to self-production, will result in themselves or their friends being permanently labeled as sex offenders. To counter this, we must move toward restorative justice and rehabilitation models.

Effective prevention requires providing technical resources for image removal and focusing on the nuances of digital boundaries rather than simple prohibition. 

“Warnings simply to not talk to strangers, not to share information and not to make sexual images are insufficient. These do not address the complexity of the situations many youth face or the context for these offenses, which include romance, bullying, and normal developing interests in sex.”

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Learn why it’s important for everyone, especially teens, to be able to control their online experiences. Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it?

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Redefining Digital Consent

The epidemiology of digital abuse has fundamentally changed.

We are no longer defending against a shadow in a dark room. We are navigating a landscape of peers, partners, and self-captured content.

This necessitates a move toward a “consent standard” rather than a “prohibition model.” Protecting youth today requires multidisciplinary agencies, like Children’s Advocacy Centers, that offer supportive, trauma-informed interventions rather than purely punitive ones.

The Final Thought

If the statistical “threat” is more likely to be a known peer or a manipulated self-capture than an online stranger, are our safety conversations still stuck in the 90s?

We must adapt our education to a reality where the greatest risk to a child is often found in their own contact list. What are your thoughts on this?

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses? stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Consult with a professional.

The post Image-Based Sexual Abuse: Why Stranger Danger Misses the Real Risk first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

How AI Nudification Became the New Adolescent Normal

From Virtual Fitting Rooms to Digital Danger

Generative AI (GenAI) was supposed to be our creative co-pilot. We didn’t see AI Nudification coming.

We marveled at its ability to turn text into art and embraced “virtual try-on” applications that allowed us to see how clothing might fit using nothing more than a smartphone camera. But as a tech ethicist, I’ve watched this innovation take a dark, predatory turn. While the underlying technology, specifically “inpainting,” is legitimate, its application in adolescent circles has reached a terrifying tipping point.

We are no longer talking about a few “tech-savvy” outliers; we are witnessing the mass-normalization of AI-generated Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) among teenagers. This isn’t just the next stage of digital growing pains. It’s a fundamental shift in how the first generation of “AI adolescents” navigates consent, identity, and digital harm.

Takeaway 1: The “Scaling Gap” and the New AI Nudification Normal

For years, educators and parents tracked the steady rise of traditional “sexting.” Historical meta-analyses placed adolescent creation and receipt of self-generated sexual imagery at roughly 14.8% and 27.4%, respectively. This latest data reveals a staggering “scaling gap” that should alarm every stakeholder in digital safety. 

Today, GenAI has effectively quadrupled those rates. According to a nationally representative survey of 13-to-17-year-olds:

• 55.3% of adolescents have used AI “nudification” tools to create sexualized images of themselves.
• 54.4% have received these images.

What was once a niche behavior has become a majority experience. This isn’t just a technological update to sexting; it is a total normalization of CSEM production as a routine part of adolescent sexual exploration.

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Licensed Professional Counselors: Dr. Weeks’ course The Prevalence of Youth-Produced Image-Based Sexual Abuse examines changing patterns in image-based sexual abuse and offers a framework for understanding youth-involved perpetrator dynamics.

Sexual Addiction Treatment Services has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7250. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Sexual Addiction Treatment Services is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

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Takeaway 2: Nudification vs. Creation – The Personal Toll of Inpainting

It is vital to understand the technical nuance that makes this trend so invasive. There is a massive difference between general text-to-image GenAI (which creates an image from a prompt) and “nudification” tools. These tools utilize a technique called inpainting, which modifies a pre-existing, real photo. 

The survey found that usage of these specific nudification tools is significantly higher than traditional AI content creation. This is precisely why the victimization is so direct: it requires the likeness of a real person. As the study notes, these tools are designed to: 

“…visualize what individuals might look like without clothing.” 

By using a real individual as a “basis image,” the technology allows for the digital removal of clothing, turning a casual school photo into CSEM in seconds. The distinction between a “fake” image and a “real” person is erased, leading to a profound degree of direct victimization.

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Are you exploring your trauma? Do you feel your childhood experiences were detrimental to your current mental or physical health? Utilize this free, validated, self-report questionnaire to find out.

Take the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire

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Takeaway 3: The High Cost of Non-Consensual “Deepfakes”

The most heartbreaking aspect of this shift is the erosion of consent. The data highlights a crisis of victimization: 36.3% of participants reported having a non-consensual image of them created, and 33.2% had such an image shared without their permission. 

Victims describe a visceral sense of “powerlessness” and “dehumanization.” When your likeness can be hijacked and sexualized without your involvement, it leads to a state of constant hypervigilance. Crucially, these statistics represent a lower bound of the crisis. Because the study only measured peer-to-peer actions, it does not account for images created by adults exploiting minors or images of children under the age of 13. If those variables were included, the scale of victimization would likely skyrocket.

Takeaway 4: The Gender and Age Myths Around AI Nudification Debunked

We often fall into the trap of thinking digital crises are limited to specific subcultures or older teens. The data tells a different story. The usage of AI nudification tools is remarkably uniform across all demographics: race, region, and sexual orientation showed no statistically significant differences in prevalence. This is a universal adolescent issue. 

While male participants showed higher rates of regular (frequent) creation and distribution, the most startling finding was the age breakdown. There was no statistically significant difference in usage between 13-year-olds and 17-year-olds. This destroys the myth that we can wait until high school to talk about AI safety. To be effective, digital literacy and intervention must begin before age 13, as younger adolescents are already engaging with these tools at the same rates as their older peers.

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Learn why it’s important for everyone, especially teens, to be able to control their online experiences. Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it?

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Takeaway 5: A Legal and Ethical Gray Zone

We must call these images what they are: CSEM. Under federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1466A), the production and distribution of pornographic GenAI images of minors is illegal, regardless of whether the image is “real.” 

This puts policymakers in an ethical bind.

We are currently seeing thousands of adolescents technically committing federal crimes as part of “exploratory” peer behavior. Ethicists and lawmakers are now forced to debate whether we need legal “carve-outs” for consensual, same-age peer interactions, or if the permanent digital harm of these images necessitates strict criminal enforcement. Meanwhile, “gray market” apps continue to bypass app store controls, providing easy access to nudification tools without any meaningful age verification.

Conclusion: A Call for Proactive Digital Literacy

The window for intervention is narrow but still open. Because much of the current usage is reported as “exploratory” rather than “habitual,” we have a brief opportunity to steer this generation toward a more ethical digital future. However, our response cannot be reactive. We need multimodal education that doesn’t just teach “online safety” but addresses the profound ethical weight of AI tools and the lifelong impact of non-consensual sharing. 

Final Thought: As we enter an era where a child’s likeness can be permanently decoupled from their consent in a matter of clicks, we must ask: Are our legal and educational frameworks fundamentally incompatible with this new reality, or are we simply too slow to protect the first generation of AI adolescents?

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses? stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

The post AI Nudification: The 55% Stat Parents Can’t Ignore first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

As I sit to write this, I’m experiencing something I never anticipated in my professional life. I just wrote the phrase “Dick Pic Culture” in the headline.

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Beyond just my blog, I can’t believe I’ll be writing about a study from a respected, peer reviewed scientific journal with the words Dick Pic in the title.

When I started working with problematic sexual behavior nearly 20 years ago, I did not foresee this. Yet here I am, writing, again, about research involving young women being sent pictures of men’s penises. And just how often those pictures are sent without consent.

Enough Shock. Now the Study.

I recently came across this study, published in 2021, by researchers in the United Kingdom. It addressed the experiences of teenage girls being sent “dick pics” and it was done in a rather creative way.

The study examined a number of situations. The first was the unwanted receiving of the pictures from older men on Snapchat. Then they asked the girls (aged 11 to 18) about their experiences receiving these images from their same aged peers.

In the United Kingdom where the study took place, sending a picture of your genitalia to someone under the age of 18 is a sexual offense.

A 2018 survey in the UK of women aged 18 to 24 found that 47% of those women had received an unsolicited image of a man’s penis.

46% of those women received the image from an adult man before they were 18 years old. Therefore, nearly half of the women in that study were a victim of a criminal offense.

For this study, the authors ran focus group discussions combined with an arts-based method of social media post drawing to provide a space for the girls to share their experiences. The researchers worked with 144 girls between the ages of 11 and 18 who were all in school.

Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

The Results

76% of the girls in the study had received a dick pic and, for the most part, these images were not requested.

However, despite these images being unwanted, the girls did not usually report the sender either to the social medial platform or their school. They stated that it was easier to block or ignore the sender than to report them.

Additionally, 70% of the girls had been asked to send nude images of themselves. The standard manner in which this is done is by sending an unsolicited dick pic in an attempt to solicit a trade of nude images.

The researchers refer to this as a transactional dick pic. Images sent by peers are often sent to be transactional.

How Does Dick Pic Culture Reflect on the Victim?

The study’s respondents reported stigmatization if it becomes public knowledge that they received a dick pic. There is an assumption that the girl would have sent an image in return, even if they didn’t. If the trade is refused, she may be subject to the anger of the sender. Or the sender might outright lie about getting a nude image in return.

When someone that the girls thought was a friend sends an unsolicited image, the respondents reported their reaction goes from feeling disgusted, to feeling awkward around the friend to the process being normalized.

Many reported that it was more “of a big deal” when they received a dick pic from someone they thought of as a friend.

When the sender was a friend, it brought up trust issues in the friendship and awkwardness when they would see the sender as they could not unsee the images.

The authors of the study do point out that not all girls are bothered by the receiving of unsolicited sexual images. Some girls have come to associate being sent these images as a sign of desirability.

Struggling with excessive sexual thoughts, urges, or activities that are causing you distress? Take the free, online Sexual Symptom Assessment Scale (SSAS) and get a link to share with your therapist.

What do the Authors Think About Dick Pic Culture?

The authors conclude that apps such as Snapchat have been integral in the increase in prevalence of unsolicited penis pictures.

In talking to the girls, they also found that they did not consider receiving these images a form of sexual harassment and, because of this, they more often than not, did not report the senders either to the app platform or to school officials.

In their conclusions, the authors suggest adopting the concept of online sexual harassment and image based sexual harassment. Doing so will help everyone involved better understand what happens when image sharing becomes a nonconsensual practice. Whether that be an unsolicited dick pic or the nonconsensual re-sharing of a consensually shared image.

A Perspective for the US

In the US, we tend to only take the sending of unsolicited sexual images seriously if the recipient of the images is a minor. This is a criminal offense.

When the recipient of the images is an adult, there appears to be little legal recourse.

This brings to mind an article recently published by the Canadian Lawyer Magazine, where Michael Spratt argues that the unsolicited dick pic should be criminalized, but with care.

Reference: Ringrose, J, Regehr, K. & Whitehead, S. (2021). Teen Girls’ Experiences Negotiating the Ubiquitous Dick Pic: Sexual Double Standards and the Normalization of Image Based Sexual Harassment. Sex Roles, 85, 558-576.

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For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Consult with a professional.

The post Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it? first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

I have been working on a chapter in my new book, The New Age of Sex Education: How to talk to your teen about cybersex and pornography, that addresses the legal ramifications of sexting by minors. While pouring through juvenile sexting law, state by state, I have also been checking out another type of law that has recently made its way onto the legislative floor of some states: Revenge Porn Laws.

To say that everyone sexts today might be an exaggeration, but the reality is that sexting is not uncommon. Sexting among adults is seen as an acceptable practice. Daily, my Google news alert is filled with articles about sexting. Some are about the problems with some teen sexting scandal. The antithesis of these stories are intermingled in my daily news feed. Titles like: 5 fool proof tips to enhance your sexting game from the New York Post or Sexting 101: Best message to get him hot not bothered on Latina.

The messages are entirely counter to each other. Teens should not sext. It is dangerous. It is bad. They aren’t developmentally and emotionally capable to understand the ramifications. But as soon as you turn 18 it is just fine to send sexy texts to your partner. No matter what your moral position is on sexting, we do knowthat people in loving committed relationships do sext each other. People who are dating each other, maybe committed, maybe not, sext each other. Most of the time, this is a practice that can be used to enhance the courtship, flirtation or maintain the bond between two lovers.

What happens when the relationship goes south? What happens to those images once lovingly and voluntarily sent? The answer to that is … well it depends. When a relationship that has involved sexting goes bad, there is a danger. This is where revenge porn comes in. Revenge porn sites are websites that specialize in the posting of images from the sexy to straight out sex videos that were once consensual communications, posted after a break up. The sites change all the time as once they are up, something normally happens, such as an arrest or a law suit and they are taken down. Another site pops right up in its place thereafter.
The premise of revenge porn is that the poster is getting back at or hurting their ex by posting private sexual imagery. These sites have become more common over the past several years causing many states to enact legislation to make the posting of an image (we’re talking adults here as minors fall under other laws) without the other person’s knowledge illegal.

In the state of Pennsylvania (where I practice) a revenge pornography bill was passed by the state judiciary committee on January 2014. The law was amended by the house in June of 2014 and creates a provision under sexual offenses for the unlawful dissemination of an intimate image. A person breaks this law if they post an intimate image with the intent to harass, annoy or alarm a current or former sexual or intimate partner. The law applies to images of nudity as well as sexual conduct. The law does specify that the image is of a former partner which separates it from laws regarding voyeurism or acts such as up-skirting. The law also states that the victim may bring civil action against the perpetrator. The main problem with these laws is that many of the victims of revenge pornography posting do not knowthey are victims. They often find out when a friend or they come across the image.

For those of us who are adults, we all have the choice as to whether or not we wish to send sexual images to our partner via messaging or texting. It all seems grand when the relationship is in full bloom. What we don’t often think about is, “what if this relationship ends”? In our digital age, every digital action has a footprint that really can’t be erased.

So if you are going to sext, do so mindfully.

The post Revenge Porn: When Sexting Goes Bad first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

On March 10, 2015, the Internet Watch Foundation published a report entitled “Emerging Patterns and Trends Report #1: Youth-Produced Sexual Content.” This study was conducted from September to November 2014 by sourcing content from search engines and other online sources. The findings are a bit shocking.

The images that the study assessed were broken down into two age categories. 82.5 percent of the sexual images were of adolescents age 16-20 while 17.5% were of children aged 15 or younger. The images were broken down into three categories: (A) images depicting penetrative sexual activity, sadism or bestiality; (B) non-penetrative sexual activity, and (C) no sexual activity but focus on the naked genitalia of the individual in the image. Most of the images fell into the C category. 53.1% of images of those under 15 and 72.4% of images of those 16-20 were in Category C. 44.8% of images of children15 and under were in Category B while 24.3% of 16-20 year old pictures were in Category B. Finally, 2.1% of children 15 and under had images in the Category A while 3.3% in the older age group had images in Category A. The images were predominantly of females.

One of the disturbing results of the study involves the distribution of these images. Though many of these images are produced by the child or adolescent themselves, the images get picked up by outside parties and redistributed without consent. The study showed that 100% of the images of children under 15 were harvested from the original websites and put up on third party sites. The images were harvested from mobile phone apps, chat sites and social networks.

The age break down of the images of those 15 and under is also quite concerning. Remember, all of the images in this study were PRODUCED BY THE MINOR themselves. The age breakdown is as follows:

14-15 year 14.5% of images

11-13 years 42.6% of images

7-10 years 40.3% of the images

The majority of the youth produced sexual images were created by children 7 to 13 years old. This is an age at which many parents don’t think their children are engaging in digital sexual behavior. Another concern raised is the severity of the content that those children under ten are creating. Almost 20% of the images of young children fell into Category B or higher.

How are children under 15 taking these pictures or videos? We tend to think that everything is done on a mobile phone these days but the study showed that 85.9% of the images were taken on a laptop/webcam and only 8.5% were on a mobile phone.

What do we learn from the numbers? We’ve got some things wrong.

1. The media portrays sexting by adolescents as something that happens on mobile phones. Maybe that is true for older teens (this study did not specify) but for those children 7-13 years old, the main avenue for producing sexual imagery is on their laptop. Often this is occurring on their computer in a private bedroom. If a parent pops their head into their child’s room, it might look like they are simply doing homework but they may actually be webchatting with someone online.

2. We need to start earlier. If children as young as seven are creating sexual imagery we need to start talking to them about these issues much earlier. Parents need to get out of denial and start talking to their children about cybersex. Some of these images are likely coerced by an adult who is either grooming them online or threatening them. However, some of the imagery is not coerced and voluntarily produced. We need to start educating earlier.

When I train, the statistic I refer to is that the average age of first exposure to online pornography is about ten years old. I always say that this is an older statistic and the age is likely younger. Time to wake up. While the study does not suggest that all or even a large number of 7 year olds are generating their own sexual videos or images, some are. This study shows us clearly that we need to start talking about this topic much earlier than we actually are.

The post Sexting, Cybersex & 7 year olds first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

There has been a sizeable amount of press, particularly coming out of the United Kingdom, on the legal aspects of sexting and what could or would happen to adolescents if they are caught sexting, either sending images or receiving images.

Around July 22, 2014, BBC news was full of articles relating to a case of two teens in a relationship who were questioned about an image of breasts that one teen voluntarily sent to the other.  After the couple broke up, the image was sent to friends of the boy.  After the UK police questioned the two teens, it was deemed that they had distributed an indecent image of a child.  Similar to some parts of the United States, this offense is punishable by law including a requirement to register as a sex offender. (www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-28425771?print=true).

That same week, a case in Manassas, Virginia made headlines.  In this case, a 17 year old teenager sent nude pictures of himself to his 15 year old girlfriend.  This case made waves not only because he is now facing felony charges for manufacturing and possessing child pornography, but for how the case has been handled by the police.  The prosecutors wanted to take photos of the suspects aroused penis in order to compare it to the images that were sent and now considered evidence.  This desire to photograph the 17 year old boy’s penis for a legal case, even against his will, obviously engendered a bit of outrage.  (www.bbc.com/news/blog-echochambers-28255255?print=true).

Though we know that not all teens engage in sexting behavior and for those who do, the threat of legal action does not truly affect their behavior; those teens that do sext can face serious consequences if they are caught.  The case law has been expanding on this topic as well.  When teens are prosecuted for sexting, charges are often brought upon both the creator of the image and the person the image was sent to.  In these cases we are talking about consensual sexting and not cases where someone is having pictures taken against their will.  In 2010, Miller v Mitchell (http://sites.duke.edu/writing101zob/miller-v-mitchell/) became the first case in federal appeals court relating to these charges. This case originated from a discovery of sexted images in a school in Pennsylvania.  In this case, the prosecutor gave the girls who were the subjects of the photos the option to take an education course.  If they did not take the course, they were threatened with prosecution for child pornography offenses and sex offender registry.

The court ruled that “appearing in the photograph provides no evidence as to whether that person possessed or transmitted the photo.”  This was a legal step for protecting the “victims” of sexting from prosecution.  It should be noted, that this case only speaks to the person who is in the image, not those teens who might have been sent the image by a girlfriend or boyfriend.

The large number of sexting cases hitting the news last week struck me as a great deal  of the clinical work that I engage in involves child pornography offenders.  It is hard not to make some sort of comparison between the cases I work with and cases of teen sexting.  Child pornography laws were developed to protect children.  They are necessary laws.  Having viewed images of child sexual assault for court testimony, I truly understand that these images depict sexual abuse of minors.  They are images that, once seen, cannot be unseen and stay with you.  There is a sharp contrast between these images and the sexual images that a teenage boy or girl voluntarily takes and sends to their relationship partner.

I recently came across a presentation online that posed some thoughtful questions about child pornography vs. sexting (http://prezi.com/qazypx0fkfo0/sexting-as-child-pornography/).  It suggested that when looking at the issue of sexting, we need to take into account several factors.  First, is it consensual?  This would imply a difference in both motive and consequences between sexual images sent between two teens in a consensual sexual relationship and sexual images that are shared with friends or online without the consent of the sending party.  This tends to happen when the parties in the relationship break up.  It also suggests that we look at the circumstances of the sexting.  Again, suggesting that there is a difference between sexting among teens in a consensual sexual relationship and sending sexual imagery to an online stranger, due to coercion or other factors that do not involve consent.  Finally, should we be looking at sexting from a teenage perspective?  Research previously discussed on this blog shows that teens have different views on sexting and they do not necessarily match the views of adults or the law.  Some scholars suggest that sexting is digital sexual expression, high tech flirting or a modern day spin the bottle (Karaian, L. (2012). Lolita speaks: “Sexting”, teenage girls and the law. Crime Media, Culture, 2012, 8: 57).

The purpose of this blog is not to take a position for or against the prosecution of minors for sexting but to make us think about the best way to deal with this phenomenon in teens.  Does the threat of prosecution do anything to deter a behavior that is a cultural norm?  Does punishment for sexting do more harm than good?  Do we, digital immigrants, truly not understand the culture of digital natives?  What might be better and more productive ways to address the issue of sexting in teens?

The post Sexting and the Law first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.