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How to practice safe sexting

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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
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    where two 17-year-olds
    can legally have sex in most U.S. states
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    but they can't photograph it.
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    Some states have also tried passing
    sexting misdemeanor laws
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    but these laws repeat the same problem
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    because they still make
    consensual sexting illegal.
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    It doesn't make sense
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    to try to ban all sexting
    to try to address privacy violations.
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    This is kind of like saying,
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    let's solve the problem of date rape
    by just making dating completely illegal.
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    Most teens don't get arrested for sexting,
    but can you guess who does?
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    It's often teens who are disliked
    by their partner's parent.
Title:
How to practice safe sexting
Speaker:
Amy Adele Hasinoff
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
14:25

English subtitles

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