WEBVTT

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People have been using media to talk
about sex for a long time.

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Love letters, phone sex, racy polaroids.

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There's even a story of a girl who eloped
with a man that she met over the telegraph

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in 1886.

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Today we have sexting,
and I am a sexting expert.

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Not an expect sexter.

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Though, I do know what this means,
I think you do too.

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I have been studying sexting since 
the media attention to it began in 2008.

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I wrote a book on the moral
panic about sexting.

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And here's what I found:

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most people are worrying
about the wrong thing.

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They're trying to just prevent
sexting from happening entirely.

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But let me ask you this:

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As long as it's completely consensual,
what's the problem with sexting?

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People are into all sorts of things
that you may not be into,

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like blue cheese or cilantro.

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Sexting is certainly risky,
like anything that's fun,

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but as long as you're not sending an image
to someone who doesn't want to receive it,

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there's no harm.

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What I do think is a serious problem is
when people share private images of others

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without their permission.

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And instead of worrying about sexting,
what I think we need to do

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is think a lot more about digital privacy.

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The key is consent.

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Right now most people are thinking

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about sexting without really thinking
about consent at all.

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Did you know we currently
criminalize teen sexting?

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It can be a crime because it counts
as child pornography,

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if there's an image of someone under 18
and it doesn't even matter

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if they took that image of themselves
and shared it willingly.

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So we end up with this bizarre legal situation where two 17-year-olds can legally have sex in most U.S. states but they can't photograph it. Some states have also tried passing sexting misdemeanor laws but these laws repeat the same problem because they still make consensual sexting illegal. It doesn't make sense to try to ban all sexting to try to address privacy violations. This is kind of like saying, let's solve the problem of date rape by just making dating completely illegal. Most teens don't get arrested for sexting.