Nudes

I thought carefully about what the title of this post should be. I considered something more subtle, to ease into the subject, but the truth is that this is a subject that we should not approach lightly. When I spoke to my daughter about it, with almost every sentence I said, her brow furrowed and her very innocent response was “Why??”.

I started telling her that both adults and children make mistakes, but often adults have had more experience so it’s easier to convince a child to do something inappropriate. I explained that sometimes people will ask for pictures of another person’s privates. I told her that maybe it will be a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Or maybe it will be someone who is telling them they will hurt them if they don’t send it. I told her about Anthony Weiner to prove that it didn’t only happen to children.

I went on to tell her that whether or not you trust the person you are sending it to, text messages are forever. Pictures can be forwarded. Sometimes even by accident. This is a good lesson for anything any of us may ever put online: text or images.

The point of this conversation was to approach a subject that she had not even thought of, so that if ever that issue came up, she already had the information to help her make the correct decision. Now we can only hope she’s never in that position.