EL PASO, Texas — A young high school girl in Cincinnati committed suicide because her boyfriend leaked photos of her naked to the whole community. The leaked photo caused so much humiliation, ridicule and abuse that it drove the young teen into hanging herself. This story made national headlines a few years back because the sexting phenomena and its effects were just starting to become a fad. The personal words and intimate photos that used to be part of love letters and kept private in an intimate relationship are now becoming public on mobile phones. The new it thing is called “sexting.”
UTEP’s Women’s Resource Center along with the Sexual Trauma & Assault Response Services (STARS), told students that “sexting” has both legal and personal consequences. The spokesperson for STARS, Katherine Jones said, “Many people sext today with another person without thinking of the damage that sending sexual content (i.e. pictures and messages) via text or e-mail can have on their reputation, careers and their future if that content happens to slip into the wrong hands.”
There is currently no legal definition of sexting, but according to the Teen Health section of About.com, “Sexting is the use of a cell phone or other similar electronic devices to distribute sexually explicit pictures or video.
