Via ydhsu @ Flickr.
Did anyone else see this segment on the Today Show last week? Jesse Logan, a high school student, sent nude pictures of herself to her boyfriend. Said boyfriend spread the pictures around via cell phone after the pair broke up. Jesse slipped into a depression as a result of being harassed and bullied at school. Other kids taunted her with slurs like “slut” and “whore” and even threw things at her. Jesse eventually hanged herself.
Now her mother, Cynthia Logan, is crusading against the dangers of “sexting” (i.e. sending sexual photos via text). She said she wants to caution teenagers against “sexting” their boyfriends and girlfriends “without fully understanding the ramifications of their actions.” The results of a National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy survey revealed that 39 percent of teens reported sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and 48 percent reported receiving such messages. It’s alarming to think about kids taking part in something that could get so out of hand and haunt them later on.
But did “sexting” drive Jesse to kill herself – as this story reports in its headline – or did relentless slut-shaming and harassment send her over the edge? In all the stories about this incident, the blame is put squarely on the medium (mobile phones) rather than the behavior of Jesse’s peers. Slut-shaming has been around a lot longer than text messaging. Yet Cynthia Logan is not railing against the misogyny hurled at her daughter, just the “sexting” trend that presumably led to the harassment.
The moral panic about “sexting” does not get to the root of the problem: boys using girls’ sexuality against them, and a general culture of slut-shaming among people of all sexes. Yes, “sexting” makes it a lot more convenient for lovers to share sexy photos with each other (and the rest of the world), but the technology did not create the hostile atmosphere Jesse Logan faced. Furthermore, the language used by Cynthia Logan and the writers who’ve reported on the story (“ramifications of their actions”) suggests that severe harassment is the natural consequence girls will face when they “sext” someone. In other words: boys will be boys.
Poor Jesse. Taking/sending nude photos was an error in judgement, but she’s in high school and that’s just one big, four-year ongoing festival of bad judgment for most kids.
Her boyfriend, however, is a total douche and I would like to kick him in the nuts until he dies. Let’s place the blame on the one who actually committed the malicious act, shall we?
That poor mother is grieving, but she’s also (apparently) an idiot. Plenty of other kids are “sexting” every day — and being harassed mercilessly for other reasons — and not killing themselves. Geez.
Some days the world just depresses me. (But guess what, not enough to make me suicidal — surprise!)
@ my last comment: Sheesh, that was bitchy — sorry! I think it’s time for me to step away from the keyboard for awhile…
Is it an error in judgment? I feel like the only error was believing that her boyfriend would not betray her trust and show his gross friends the photos.
I am seriously going insane today with all the attention on the things women do to get ourselves beat up/raped/shamed/harassed/bullied. Maybe if I wore a burka and never left the house plus carried a gun I could avoid the many pitfalls of living while female.
yes, what about the boyfriend? why don’t we place the blame where it belongs – squarely on the shoulders of the person who brought all the humiliation down on Jesse by maliciously releasing something that should have been kept private. HIS error, not hers, is responsible for her death.
Sexting, and even email and IM (with their copy/forward capabilities), goes into my “things I am glad that I did not have to deal with in high school” pile.
Slut-shaming has always been around, but never has it been so easy to do.
You guys didn’t hear? Sexism, prejudice and intolerance never existed until the internet came along to propagate them.
Oh…wait… that’s not true?
The mother needs to recognize that while it’s important to teach teens (boys and girls) to maintain some levels of privacy… if it wasn’t a cell phone pic, it’d be a polaroid or even word-of-mouth about the time she let her boyfriend go to second base. I don’t know if there’s an effective way to teach teens that sex is something private and personal, but I do think we can teach them that bullying and shaming of any kind is totally unacceptable and has real consequences.
@JD: Yeah, I’m not gonna judge the girl too harshly, but I think sending nude pictures is just generally a bad idea. Even if her boyfriend hadn’t been a douche, there’s no guarantee that one of his friends wouldn’t have come across the phone or the phone wouldn’t have been stolen and the photos ripped and posted that way. I mean, at the end of the day, the only way to guarantee that your nakedness does not go public is not to take nude pictures (or to take them so that your face doesn’t show and you therefore have plausible deniability. Ahem.)
@Dangermouse: Second. This is making me nostalgic for the late 80s/early 90s, which is not something that I normally feel. I’m so glad I didn’t have that ish to deal with as a kid.
You guys didn’t hear? Sexism, prejudice and intolerance never existed until the internet came along to propagate them.
Oh…wait… that’s not true?
MKP, I love you.
@MKP: True. But I think the internet is like handing a bullhorn to the crazy dude who’s raving on a street corner. All of the sudden, it’s much harder to escape the crazy.
@Becky and MKP: I think the one thing the Internet does, especially to teens, is extend peer pressure into the home in a new way. If you want to be cool, you get a Facebook page. Voila. A new way for the bullies to get at your insecurities.
it just seems a lot harder to hide these days. you have to live your life so out in the open on the internet and with phones and stuff. i didn’t get a cell phone until i was like 24. as a kid i got by on being invisible to people who i thought could do me harm. it’s sort of terrifying for me to think of feeling so exposed during such a vulnerable time. hell i keep my cellphone off more often than not anyway.
I don’t think it’s wise to “sext.” Teens are incredibly short-sighted when it comes to these things. I do worry that there’s a lot of pressure on young girls today to be exhibitionists; I’m sure the vast majority of kids “sexting” are girls sending photos to boys. I would tell girls to be less trusting. Jesse killed herself not because of technology but because of cruelty.
but is sexting a new thing? haven’t couples taken naked photos of themselves ever since people started using cameras? i don’t know.
Of course, JD; now there’s just a quicker, easier way to distribute.
When I wrote about this story what I focused on was the fact that this is a genderized form of harassment. When men take nude photos of themselves or they choose to be sexual they are never demeaned, in fact their actions are celebrated. What Jesses terrible experience teaches us that we are not post feminist and young girls and women alike collude with patriarchy to discipline young women.
Yeah, Renee, it is totally based on a sexist double standard. They likely had sex with EACH OTHER and yet the boy knew he could shame her with it. The same act that degrades her elevates him.
The girl’s mother may be an idiot, but she has plenty of company. That’s my mother’s attitude, even today. She has an adult son and daughters and still feels the need to slut shame my sister and I for everything from clothing choices to dating behavior out of this idea that we are responsible for men’s behavior. Meanwhile, she thinks my brother’s girlfriend-juggling antics are a hoot.
What a horrible tragedy. Of the many things that contributed to this girl’s death (pressure/encouragement to send nude pictures in the first place, actually taking them and sending them to her bf, the bf distributing them, and her peer group harassing her) it really does seem like the media is focusing on the least pervasive, least gendered problem.
i think the lesson learned from this is that as a woman, if nude pictures of you exist somewhere in the universe, whether they are arty or not, some guy is going to get their hands on them and show them to all his friends, whether you pinky sweared with him or signed a formal airtight legal contract. and yeah, it’s always a guy.
i hope that boyfriend feels like shit for the rest of his natural life, and i hope his parents are proud of the piece-of-shit they raised that could cause so much scorn and ridicule towards another human being that she saw suicide as the only way out. as much suffering as her family is going through, i hope the shame that his family is going through is multiplied a million fold.