Protecting Youth’s Right to Engage Media: Sexting

Abstract

Teenage sexting is a growing phenomenon and is common in high schools all over the country. With teenage sexting on the rise, lawmakers, judges, and prosecutors have crafted legal responses to the potential problems caused by teen sexting. Nearly all “solutions” have been rooted in criminal law, including prosecuting minors for sexting under existing child pornography laws. However, punishing teenagers for participating in consensual sexting acts against the best interest of minors. Laws relating to sexual consent generally permit some form of sexual activity among adolescents and it should be consistent between sexual activity and sexting. Consensual teen sexting cases should be removed from criminal justice systems and legislatures should enact statutes decriminalizing consensual sexting between minors, and perhaps consensual sexting between a minor and an individual within 3 years of age of the minor. This will ensure that parties may recover from the harms associated with exploitative sexting, while minors will not be prosecuted for engaging in sexting with other minors. In place of criminalizing minors, schools and parents should work together to implement an effective sexting education regime. In schools, this could be incorporated in previously existing courses or initiatives. Since parents do not have all the necessary information to teach their child about sexting, or detect if their child is involved in an exploitative sexting situation, schools should educate parents about the reality and dangers of sexting.