Jessica Logan's Family Wants to Make Sexting Illegal: Try Tough Parenting Next Time

Jessica Logan was your average American teenager, that is she had a cell phone with a digital camera built into it. Logan used the cell phone’s camera to send pictures of herself naked to her boyfriend’s cell phone. Before she knew it, the pictured intended only for her boyfriend were posted all over the Internet. The humiliated high-school senior’s embarrassment led her to suicide last July.

Now her family wants to make the practice of ‘sexting’ illegal. Sexting is the process of forwarding sexually charged pictures from a camera phone to other camera phones and posting them on the internet. As tragic as her death is, this is an inconvenient truth that often happens when you decide to risk your privacy by doing something that may wind up in the public’s eyes. This is nothing new.

I don’t think the problem here is the cell phone and the people who forwarded the picture which wound up on the Internet. The problem is the source of the picture. The over sexualization of children have allowed them to become too comfortable with their bodies. As children are exposed to sex on television and their music, in the public schools with free condoms, and other avenues the constantly tell a child it’s okay to give yourself up so easily rather than wait, there becomes less of a sense of right or wrong. This is not to say no teenager has sent Polaroid snapshots to their boyfriend or girlfriend in past decades, but it was consider taboo. Now, the behavior is more accepted. Remember when Bristol Palin went on TV to defend teens having sex? Parents accept their children are going to have sex before they graduate these days. That’s the real problem. Passing laws in hopes that teenagers will stop posting pictures on the Internet isn’t solving the problem. The problem started when the child felt no guilt nor considered the possibilities of what her actions might cause. That’s a problem that could have been prevented in the home and not forcing politicians to babysit the children once again. It’s obvious the politicians are failing as more parents pass off their responsibilities. It’s time for parents to realize their responsibilities, which includes talking to your children about sex and the dangers in the world. It includes being a little nosy. I really tire of seeing parents run to politicians because they failed to meet their responsibilities in life. Next time, look at your kid's phone to see the pictures and read the text messages. Monitor what they do on the Internet. Look in their drawers to see the notes they hide. Find what it is they don't want you to see. It may just save their life.