Yesterday I brought you the piece, The fine lines between porn and cyberspace, on virtual child porn and the gray areas that it has now created. However virtual child porn is not the only door opener to child sexual exploitation. With advancements and an increased access to technology, we have also an increased access to child porn and exploitation. Mobile technology is continually increasing, as phones and pda’s are now Internet accessible, laptops work on public transportation, fewer and fewer people are without access to the worldwide web. This open wave of technology has literally left the door open for any kind of porn to surface, mingling the tame with the down right perverse, seamlessly merging grown women with young girls, all of which creates murky waters in the commercial sex industry, the line of legal and illegal seems to be drifting further and further apart. All of this brings not only the line between virtual and real porn into the fog, but increasingly brings commercial sex and sex trafficking closer and closer, leaving many divided on where the “line” actually stands.
Child porn also drifts into the gray areas once again with “sexting”. “Sexting”, which is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or images, through some electronic means, and is most often found on cell phones. The act itself has become something of a phenomenon among teens across the globe. While sexual innuendos and games are far from new among teenagers, there have been sexually orientated games such as “spin the bottle” and “seven minutes in heaven”, they have begun to take on a much more explicit approach in recent years, such as with the game “snap”. The once innocent jelly bracelets of the 1980’s have turned into sex bracelets, now each color of which stands for a different sex act, then whatever colors one wears is a symbol of what they would be willing to do with a partner. In the game “snap”, one goes to an intended or desired partner and literally snaps, or breaks, a bracelet off the wearers wrist and then they are required to do the act noted by the bracelets color.
Teenagers have always had a sexual curiosity and promiscuous behaviors are not new to any generation, however the age at which this begins appears to be younger and younger. And as mentioned the explicit nature has dramatically increased, no longer are these games able to be seen as innocent curiosity. Of course general outrage has been made against such games, and while banning and deterring the wearing of bracelets are inherently simpler, the issue is more complex when technology becomes involved.
Regardless of nature of the images sent while “sexting”, or their intention, once sent the images are unable to be returned. And in this virtual world images of any nature spread like wildfire. Thus an lapse of judgment can quickly turn into a case of child pornography, and sexual exploitation, which can never be erased. Once the door to child sexual explotation is open, it can never be closed, as the images remain circulating and the victiminzation never ends.
