Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Wishing to Legislate Stupidity

Once again I am being reminded just how close or maybe not close but reminded that I am now an old fart. In an ever increasing curve, I am losing touch with what is hip and what is not. Seems the rage of "texting" has an offshoot called "sexting". Nude, porn and other tawdry images are being transmitted between teens all over the nation. And now a recent teen suicide is being blamed on this phenomenon.

It seems a young lady from a high school in Cincinnati "sexted" a nude picture of herself to her boyfriend. Okay fine. Whatever. But as these things go when dumb kids are involved, it got out of hand. Suddenly her picture was being transmitted all over the high schools of Cincinnati. She became so distraught, she killed herself.

It is always tragic when a teenager commits suicide. No matter the reason. But now it appears her parents are attempting to build support for a type of censorship I find more insidious than the natural urge of teens to abuse anything in their hands. Her parents want to somehow get the government involved in filtering out what we can transmit over our fancy phones. That somehow the Nannie state fell down in it's duties and now their child is dead.

They contend that this problem is not one that should be laid on the parents and their failure to do their job. This is the fault of Society and Society's total lack of regard for their implied duty to provide a safe environment for our children. Once again, someone is attempting to get the state involved in things we all should hope they do not.

I don't blame the parents. I don't blame society. I don't blame the government. I am sorry, but the fault for this can be laid at one person's doorstep. The teen who transmitted her image in the first place. She was in High School. Certainly by that time some responsibility for one's actions needs to be in their own hands. This is one of those situations. Sexting a nude photo of herself was not an innocent, "I did not know what I was doing" kind of action. She most certainly did know what she was doing. That future teens should somehow be protected from their own stupidity is not the job of government. Kids will continue to be stupid. No legislation will change that.

Had our Society not been so hung up about nudity and sex, this young lady might not have accumulated the type of hangups that would have caused her to go over the edge in so dramatic a way. Instead of railing against the lack of protections, maybe we should redefine just what nudity is. It is nothing but humans without clothes. Who cares? It should not be that big of a deal. Instead our anal retentive attitudes about sex and nudity create unhealthy imbalances in our youths minds, leaving us with stupid numbers of pregnant youngsters, sexually deviant behaviour, and diseases spread because of puritanical restrictions on information that might keep the diseases under control. It is not censorship we need. We need a more realistic approach to the issue.

It bothers me that we are becoming a society that no matter which side of the political aisle we hang in, we are more inclined to look to government to resolve every issue that invades our lives. The government is usually only too happy to jump in if they see another avenue of control to wield in our direction. This tendency to give away our freedoms makes me nervous.

Later.................

(601 / 9645)

11 comments:

Kulkuri said...

This is definitely something that doesn't need Big Brother. The nudity thing has been screwing up our heads since 1620. All we have to do is look to our neighbors to the North to see it didn't have to be this way. Canadian TV has way less censorship than ours, maybe they figure adults can decide for themselves what to watch and what not to.

Chef Cthulhu said...

With few exceptions, I do not want any legistlation protecting people from their own stupidity.

It is a sad and tragic loss for her family. It is a sad and tragic loss for Liam Neeson and his children that Natasha Richardson is dead. It is sad and tragic that 14 people in a private plane crashed on the way to go skiing.

But the bottom line is ALL OF THESE PEOPLE made choices - "sexting", skiing without a helmet, overloading a private plane (well, in the case of the pilot at least) - that require very little imagination to see how they can create problems.

Your best and most important advocate is you. The person in the mirror needs to think through and weigh the risks and benefits of his or her actions.

Demeur said...

Unfortunately we're not talking about adults here. It is a know fact that teens have a part of the brain that isn't fully developed. That part of the brain deals with reasoning and thinking ahead. We have rules governing driving, drinking, when you can get married, when you can own a gun. Why? Because we know that young people under a certain age are not responsible enough to do the right thing. I know there's been some teens who were driving on the farm when they were 12 but they are the exception not the rule. We put rules on our teens in hopes they will make it to adulthood with all their fingers and toes intact.
If they can't act responsible with their "toys" then I'd say it's time to take them away. If you act like a baby you'll get treated like a baby. That sure works to turn a teen around. Teens want to be seen as young adults.

We as parents have gotten lazy in our duties and now seem to expect someone else to do our dirty work.
Remember we're not talking about rational adults here (although there are some adults who aren't too bright either).

Randal Graves said...

I cannot disagree with either the post or the previous comments. A law isn't the solution. Communication with your kids is the key, as it has been since one million BC and Raquel Welch was running around wearing barely anything, which is why that flick only gets shown at 2 am on Skinemax.

All you have to do is instill in your kids a healthy distrust of any and all people and they'll get along just fine.

Gary ("Old Dude") said...

I agree, this is not something that needs further legislating. The parents failed the girl, one by not keeping on top of what she was doing, but failure to give her the love and trusting atmosphere where she could come to them with her problem.---and again I agree, our socienty is so up tight about sex ---yet at the same time we tolerate the blantant theme of sex in our advertisments, and devour anything said or televised about todays current famous people---(example britnet spears)----

BBC said...

It's sort of good to know that some things really never change, like kids and sex.

I started out sort of late, at 20, but have never gotten over it, or trying to catch up for five lost years, ha ha ha.

Sex education will always be in cars, trains, automobiles, the parents couch, or bed. Whatever, there is no changing that, just fix them before they start screwing.

I modified an LED light that I bought last year. SPIRITS PROJECTS

BBC said...

We need a more realistic approach to the issue.

Oh, it's under a hundred bucks in an adult store. I'm pretty sure my nice pocket pussy won't give me AIDS or something like that.

And I don't have to deal with the bullshit so many women stack on you these days.

But kids, na, kids are kids, and I can't blame them for that. It's sad that she killed herself, it would have been better if she just owned up to it and said it was fun and no one else's business.

So the pictures got out there, her response should have been something like. "You like my body?"

Actually, I have pictures that blogging buddy women on the internet they have sent me. And they have pictures of me.

But I will never share their pictures with others, and I trust them not to share mine.

If however one of them did, I would just own up to it. "Yeah, we shared that, now go mind your own fucking business."

Anonymous said...

" ..... the natural urge of teens to abuse anything in their hands." - Crummy

Indeed! Hands down.

BBC said...

The only reason we didn't do sexting when we were young is because it wasn't available.

But I'm not knocking our old hands on way. After all, it is a touchy feely world and I'd rather touch it than talk about it.

Utah Savage said...

I'm here to tag you. The big Ape, Dr Zaius tagged me and now I'm passing on the pain. This is how I thank you for all the help and hard work. But now I want to know more about you and it's Dr. Z's fault anyway. So anon.

Monique said...

Well I'm just glad that my daughters are grown up young adults now.

I work in a Boarding school and the young ones entering are having sex pretty much soon after. And they are only still thirteen. The worrying thing is, that they are all put on the pill by their parents as if they are saying have a good time but for goodness sake don't become pregnant.

One girl that I know of picked up an STD and when told by the san nurse that she should inform her boyfriend it turned out she already had had about sixty sex partners and she was fourteen at the time.

Grim