"There's things that you guess and things that you know/There's boys you can trust and girls that you don't/There's little things you hide and little things that you show/Sometimes you think you're gonna get it/But you don't and that's just the way it goes" - George Michael, "I Want Your Sex"
You can reside in a Twitterverse, get a virus that's not airborne but in a video form, and Kik a friend who is not sitting right next to you. It's no wonder that as advanced as we are getting in technology, that some smart phones should come with a disclaimer about use by "Mature Audiences Only." Not that it would help, but the thought certainly counts.
Why do I suggest that? Well, there is a new phenomenon on phones that goes along with texting, chatting, even talking on phones (does anyone even really
call each other anymore?). Once the cell phone designing geniuses decided that every phone needed to be fitted with a camera, instant gratification was brought to a whole new level.
Of course with this fun, instant gratification was usually in the form of being daring. And when I say "daring," I mean kids who have cell phones take dares to a new level and sending parts of their respective bodies they probably should not have sent. There's a story on CNN and ABC every day about this phenomenon: that what starts off as a girl sending her boyfriend an "innocent" picture of herself to be seen by their eyes only. Yet we all know, it's quite "provocative," and suddenly he's sharing it with the Varsity basketball team. Next thing you know, her girlfriends find out about it and post it on the Internet.
It happens more than you think. When you click that "Send" button, who exactly is seeing this stuff? It's like the theory of a cockroach: if one person has seen it, chances are, a million are lurking to see it too.
It's not clear-cut black-and-white, as either gender takes their own liberties in sending provocative photos of themselves to blast to whomever. Since this is relatively new, there is no "etiquette" on this spectacle. I mean, I'm sure Miss Manners wasn't exactly thinking of writing a "How-to" book on dealing with the incidence of "sexting."
CNN's Paging Dr. Gupta blog had a piece today about "
Sex Ed in the age of Snooki." I can freely admit that I have never watched an episode of "Jersey Shore" nor do I want to. Yet you see and hear about the exploits about these reality stars all over. I don't actively seek it out, but chances are if you have a Twitter account or follow any gossip columns, you're going to hear about it. The article went on to discuss how women have irresponsible and daring role models (let's not even go there with the men on those shows either -- Gym, Tan, Laundry I believe the operative term is).
When I was growing up, Madonna was the "It" Girl. She did bold things like roll around on stage in a wedding dress singing "Like A Virgin" or present herself in a provocative manner in books like "Sex." Looking back, she got a bad rap, but I looked up to her. She was (and is) a successful business woman who is in charge of her sexual destiny. If anything, she made us question our morals and beliefs and think maybe we might be too rigid and Puritan even in our belief system.
However, it might be a generational shift in that I simply just don't get this whole "Sexting" phenomenon, photographic one's intimate areas and blasting it off to your boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend. As revelers at my birthday party saw last week, I am pretty exhibitionist, but seeing how quickly pictures (especially those that are not flattering) can go viral in a short amount of time, I like to do things there are no cameras and just deny deny deny (And no, I'm not going there right now).
It's not just teenagers, as the CNN blog suggests, I know plenty of adults who engage in risky behavior. And it is. As adults, we sometimes can get swept up into a moment. Believe me, I know the power of "the moment" and emotions that belong to it. I know several successful and good hard-working people who have, ahem, certain identifying characteristics on other people's phones.
When I worked at an investment bank for eight years, reputation was the rigeur du jour. It was always implied and always at the forefront of how we conducted business. One question we would be asked in our ethics roundups would be the
Wall Street Journal test, meaning: if we conducted ourselves in a certain way, would we want that blasted on the front page of the
WSJ? Think about it: if your girlfriend decided to exact revenge on you for breaking up, and she had a picture of your hoo-ha, she could easily send a photo of it to
Dealbreaker.com, and they can say -- hey, do you recognize this lawyer?
I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. A few months ago, a story broke about a future Hall of Fame football player, Brett Favre, sending questionable images over text to an NFL reporter, Jenn Sterger. Now, I can't say that I know the exact details since I was not in the room, but I can say this: Sterger is an attractive female who has a target audience, beer drinking and pizza eating middle-working-class men who think with...well you know. They have a good looking babe giving them football stories. Then in comes a football player, who decides to take liberties with said lady, and gets a little raunchy to say the least.
Favre is a married man, and there are tons of implications about what's "professional," and what's "sexual harassment." There is a fine line. Yet, it's a perfect example of how quickly things can get out of hand, when one believes they are in a safe and trusting environment, and how quickly things can go from flirtation to "What the hell was he thinking?"
In the late 1980s, George Michael, best known for his popularity with the pop group "Wham!", broke off from the norm and released a thought-provoking album called "Faith." The top tune that received the most airplay was a song that had in and of itself a provocative title: "I Want Your Sex."
In an incredibly uptight society where the word "Sex" is even considered dirty, but perfectly natural, this video had to be played at hours when children were not readily exposed to it (yet, there wasn't anything horrible to watch about it) and the song had to be bleeped out on certain radio stations due to complaints from concerned parents.
The video and message of the song was very simple: monogamy and making love can be sexy. In an age where AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases were creating news by themselves, the fact was Michael's message was revolutionary at the time since casual sex was the norm but NO ONE talked about it.
And we have tons of people talking about this whole sexting phenomenon...and no one is questioning the moral values of those who partake in it, namely reality television stars who get paid to make a spectacle of themselves or future Hall of Famer football players when they promote their own perversion?
I think it raises an interesting question about all this repression we've had over generations about the very notion about sex. All it's going to do is create new generations of daring and more risky behavior.
