Have you heard of the latest teen fad called sexting?  Just within the past few weeks a young, 18 year old girl committed suicide after her ex-boyfriend freely distributed the nude pictures she had sent to him on his cell phone (see the entire story here)?  I wonder just how suicidal that 18 year old boy is now that his foolish, immature actions have potentially played a role in his ex-girlfriend's suicide?  Just another bold example of how teenage sex is a stick of dynamite that our culture treats like a simple firecracker. 

Which leads me to the following question - What is it in our culture and our society that drives teenage girls to send nude pictures of themselves to boys anyway? I am not just trying to be edgy here, I am trying to understand this. Young ladies and men practicing exhibitionist behavior is not a new thing, but it used to be reserved for only a very small element of society. Now, however, this perverted practice is becoming commonplace in our local high schools and I am just trying to get in the head of a teenage girl who sends nude pics of herself to her boyfriend and others. I understand the technology side of it, that it is much easier to take a nude picture of yourself and send it to someone as opposed to 'getting naked' in front of them, just as it is easier for me to handle confrontation via email as opposed to handling it face to face (which is always a bad choice, by the way). But I still can't connect all of the dots . . . there has to be a major esteem issue involved in all of this. I realize that sexting definitely generates all kinds of attention from a bunch of hormone laced guys, but all of this attention is purely sex-based and totally degrading. So are these teens so starved for genuine affection that even degrading attention feels good?

As the father of 3 daughters, I try to keep my fingers on the pulse of society and how it is relating to girls in particular. In that pursuit, I recently read a book entitled Prude - How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!). It is written by an Ivy League attorney and columnist, Carol Platt Liebau. In this book she very shrewdly dissects our current culture and the incredible sexual pressure it puts on one of our most vulnerable possessions, our teenage girls. The book jacket says it all when it states, Over the last decade, a new female imperative - that sexiness trumps intelligence and character at even the highest levels of influence and power - has emerged, undermining girls' sense of worth in their formative years and glorifying behavior that is destructive to their future health, happiness and self-respect. Can you say Sarah Palin??? How much did we hear about how sexy she was versus her policy positions, even though she is a sitting governor??

My favorite quote from Liebau's book was the following: "So called sexual freedom is really just proclaiming oneself available for free, and therefore without value. To 'choose' such freedom is tantamount to saying that one is worth nothing." Which brings us all the way back to our teenage girls who are sexting their boyfriends. They have bought into this lie, but haven't dealt with the logical conclusion that their behavior communicates to others that they are worth nothing . . . or maybe they already believe they are worth little to nothing other than as a sex object and that is why they do it?  I don't know the answer. . . but I would like to understand because the church has to counter attack this malicious frontal assault on our teenage girls and help them understand that they are infinitely valuable apart from their sexuality. Ideas anyone . . .

Todd Carnes