Teen cell phone 'sexting'

High school boys no longer require the internet to view pornography because their female classmates are texting sexually explicit pictures directly to their cell phones. It's a practice some are calling 'sexting' and "includes the act of text messaging someone in the hopes of having a sexual encounter with them later; initially casual, transitioning into highly suggestive and even sexually explicit," as explained by some urban culture specialists. Here is a recent story about the practice:

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The popularity of cell phone text messaging has led to a new and controversial trend for students and parents on Portalnd-area high schools. Teens told Portland TV station KPTV that many of their classmates are using cell phones to take and send explicit photos. They said "sexting" is a major problem at most campuses in Portland. Anton Bogan, a local high school student, said "9.7 times out of 10, it's a nasty photo."

In the news story I watched, teens admitted that it was mostly girls sending photos to boyfriends, for example. The sexually explicit photos are often later distributed throughout the school with the use of the forwarding feature.

Many parents will find this alarming, but it reveals the need for moral formation, forged within the context of real intimacy, to engender the moral virtue not to participate in activities that others have no qualms about. The Enemy's "parasite kingdom" continues to attach itself to technology that could also be used for so much good. The same photo and text messaging feature that allows students to take spontaneous shots of their friends having fun, pictures for an auto accident insurance claim, and so on, is also open to gross perversions like most things.

What are parents to do? Prevent their children from having camera phones? Not allow them to be around other students with camera phones? Not allow them to have the text messaging feature on their cell phones at all?

For those parents of children under five-years-old it can be frightening to think about what will be available technologically for your kids that will tempt them into immorality in ways unthinkable today. Who would have imagined, even 10 years ago, that there would come a time when high school students would send sexually explicit pictures of themselves back and forth to one another, on their cell phones, even during school hours? What's next?