'Not my kid': Counselors, law enforcement warn teens of the dangers of 'sexting'

Mar. 11—Studies are now showing evidence to suggest the ways teenagers are engaging in sexual activity is changing. More high school students are "just saying no" to physical intercourse, but the shift towards virtual intimacy could lead to damaging consequences.

The most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the Center for Disease Control shows a nearly 20% drop in high school students who have ever engaged in sex — down to 30% in 2021 vs. 47% in 2011. The same study also shows decreases in the number of students who are currently sexually active and who reported having four or more lifetime sexual partners.

While those numbers show evidence that might cause parents to rejoice, the rise of "sexting" — defined as the sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone — amongst teenagers still leaves cause for concern.

In 2020 the National Library of Medicine conducted a meta-analysis of 28 studies produced after 2016 that showed 19.3% of all pooled teenagers had sent explicit messages and 34.8% admitted to having received these types of messages.

Learning Support Specialist with Cullman County Schools Karen Pinion said those are only the statistics that are reported, and the true prevalence is likely to never be realized.

"We will never have a quantifiable grasp on the severity of it," Pinion said.

Pinion said it is an easy conclusion to come to that more kids began sexting as a result of being forced into isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is as likely that teenagers were more prone to discretion in previous years.

She theorized as teenagers lost family members and loved ones to the virus, and witnessed the uncertainty of adults over the course of the pandemic, they began to project that uncertainty onto their own lives.

"I think it is possible it is not an uptick, but that it's gone on to an extent for a long time, but kids kept it more to themselves. When our kids experienced Covid, people were losing their relatives to some virus that nobody understood or knew anything about. You had some people saying it wasn't a real virus and others saying it was the end of the world. For kids, I think they didn't know what the future held ... so, did coming out of Covid cause an uptick in all of these things? Or, is it that it was always there, but that kids all over the world understood that not every day is guaranteed and the future is uncertain and they became more comfortable with what they were doing and not hiding it as much?"

Several states have adopted laws pertaining to sexting but Alabama is not among them, meaning that teens can potentially receive harsher penalties under the Alabama Child Pornography Act. The law classifies possession of child pornography as a Class C felony. Creating and distributing the images are classified as Class A and B felonies respectively.

The law also does not specify that the image must be of another minor, implying that a teenager taking an explicit photograph of themselves and sending it to their boyfriend or girlfriend could potentially be found guilty of producing and distributing child pornography and be sentenced up to 99 years in prison.

Director of the Cullman County Juvenile Probation Office Kay Bell, said this type of punishment is extremely rare but not unheard of.

"We try to make sure that they just get counseling," Bell said, but mentions that not every office in the state practices the same type of discretion.

"We have legislation for a reason. I know of an instance where a girl was charged with over 100 counts just because she took some pictures."

Under Alabama law, an adult found guilty of sending a minor explicit images only faces misdemeanor charges and can be sentenced up to a maximum of one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.

"The thing I think with kids is this, they think 'If I'm sending it and it's on me, or it belongs to me, and I want to send it to my boyfriend or my friend, I can do that because it's my body. The problem is they're so young they don't fully understand the ramifications," Pinion said.

Apart from immediate legal ramifications, Brook's Place Child Advocacy Center Director Gail Swafford said, with the prevalence of social media sexting can easily move outside of a teenagers immediate circle of friends and into the world of online anonymity.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy' "Teenage Sexting Statistics" report shows that 15% of teenagers who have sent nude/semi-nude photos of themselves do so to people they have never met.

"What happens is these kids are on social media and these predators learn how to talk to them. They're going to speak the language, they talk about music. Basically, they act like they're another kid the same age and the next thing you know — they're asking for pictures," Swafford said.

Swafford said the number of times she has been contacted by the FBI and homeland security is too frequent to put an accurate number on, but says through the recent developments in facial recognition software there have been instances of local victims being notified years after a picture was sent.

During a recent training seminar, Swafford learned after a single picture is sent, it is likely to be sold or traded online and viewed upwards of 400,000 times.

Bell said it is not only predators who are likely to view these images. After a complaint is submitted, pictures become evidence which will be reviewed by law enforcement officers, attorneys and judges.

"People have to see that evidence in order to file a complaint. If there's one thing that I can make kids remember, it's that you don't want adults seeing that," Bell said.

Images are also likely to be used as leverage in a form of blackmail Swafford refers to as "sextortion," to manipulate teenagers into sending additional pictures.

Executive Director of Victim Services in Cullman, Carol Hortsman said being a victim of this type of abuse can result in long-term consequences. She estimates nearly 90% of the adult victims seen at her clinic were exposed to some type of childhood trauma.

"It sort of sets them up to end up in those types of relationships as an adult if it's normalized as a teenager," Hortsman said.

Bell said that "sextortion" isn't exclusive to the realm of online predators. Boyfriends and girlfriends often engage in this manipulation tactic without even realizing the severity of their actions.

"Kids are just young and dumb and I don't say that to speak down to them, I say it because I was also young and dumb," Bell said before adding "luckily we didn't have cell phones back then."

Cullman County District Judge Rusty Turner agreed, saying often times teenagers "don't see [their actions] as potentially ruining someone's life or reputation."

Turner said with the exemption of when there is intent to cause another person harm, he would rather educate teenagers through the courts various counseling programs like Juveniles Seeing Others as People (JSOP).

"The JSOP program particularly is very specific about teaching them that the other person is not an object, they're a person," Turner said.

Swafford — who is certified to provide this type of court ordered counseling — said it has been proven to be an effective method of intervention saying research indicates the overwhelming majority of adults who are incarcerated for sexual offenses began showing signs of this type of behavior while they were teenagers.

"We have seen hundreds and hundreds of cases over the years. Of those, I think that we have had maybe five repeat offenders," Swafford said.

Unfortunately, Swafford said there isn't much parents are able to do to enforce restrictions on their children's online activities. The recommended course of action is educate them on the dangers involved in sending explicit images.

"Kids are a lot smarter than adults give them credit for. Once they figure out we know about a certain app, they just delete it and move on to the next one," Swafford said.

Bell equates allowing teenagers to use their cell phones unsupervised for hours on end to "giving them permission to open up the door for things to happen."

She suggests in addition to education, parents exercise the same amount of monitoring applied to other aspects of a teenager's life when it comes to their online activity.

"We monitor them for everything else, who they can go with and what time they have to be home etc., but then we hand them that cellphone and it's a gateway to the outside world," Bell said.

"Parents still need to be parents and monitor everything. The famous last words of any parent are 'Not my kid. They would never do that, because I've talked to them about it.' You can just throw that logic right out of the window," Bell said.