TEXAS CONSIDERS NEW LEGISLATION TO DEAL WITH SEXTING

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and state Sen. Kirk Watson plan to introduce legislation making sexting a misdemeanor. Sexting is the primarily teenage fad of sending text messages to each other of sexually provocative pictures.

Currently it is rarely prosecuted because the only law making it illegal is a felony initially devised to punish senders of pornography. The hope is that by making it a misdemeanor it will be prosecuted more often and more attention will be paid to the issue.

But if anyone thinks that legislation is going to end sexting, I have a bridge to sell them. One study found that one in five teenagers sexted messages and that one in three received at least one message. With sexting so prevalent no law going to prevent it and the only effect of such a law will be to give some relatively innocent teenagers a criminal records which may come back to haunt them as adults. Sexting is probably no more harmful than the streaking that occurred on college campuses during the 1970′s when students ran across campus nude. Both are fads which last for a while and then come to an end.

If teens find it offensive, and they should, they can refuse to open up future texts from the offending senders. But I have seen no evidence that sexting leads to permissive sex or to unwanted pregnancies.

Its more of a problem when the fad is adopted by adults who use it, particularly in the workplace as a type of sexual harassment. Then it can become a power play if used by supervisors to force underlings into sexual activity. But in those cases the matter can be handled by our civil laws.