Under-aged sexting: the damage, the criminal elements and what to do if your child is a victim

Today’s theme is no less than disturbing.

Or better put: it's a disturbing reality of  our times.

Which means that after a bit of waffling on whether to address it or not, I’ve decided to give it to you straight (and I will not be surprised if readers will grow angry, upset, etc.).

First, sexting is rampant in high schools.

Yes, in high schools. And in younger grades as well.

Second, social media, apps, etc. have made our children vulnerable.

Third, girls are victims—of culture, peer pressure and, yes, of social media--and this is even before any sexting takes place. And this pressure is creating bad decisions. Which means it’s wrecking lives, families--and there are also criminal elements at play.

Fourth—and no, many of you will not want to hear this—teenage girls are sexting teenage boys (high school and younger). En masse.

Yes, I said it. Girls are sexting boys. Unsolicited.

All the time.

Now, depending on where you stand in business, politics, gender realities, fantasy-land, etc., you very well may disagree with at least one point or you may well be furious with another, but again, I told you I would give it to you straight. So here goes:

As a detective, I get endless calls from potential clients. And friends. And individuals who for some reason believe that I have an answer for anything evil (and this runs wide, ranging from situations in which there is real abuse to others simply worried about geo politics, nuclear war, etc.). And yes, I do get calls from concerned parents. And yes, from time I talk to cops.

And again and again and again the situation is as follows:

A high-school aged girl has made the mistake of sexting photos to a boy with whom she is infatuated.

And the photos have gotten out.

And most of the time the girl’s parents have found out second hand.

And on top of it all... the boy involved may not even be said boy. He may (or may not) have been a victim himself of identity theft.

Then it gets even more complicated. Sometimes the girl actually does not know that her parents have already been made aware of what has happened (and that they are asking advice), and at that point there is also the worry about long-term psychological damage; about self-harm; about a child's ability to build relationships in the future and yes, about a girl’s future relationship with her own parents.

The whys…

But first, let’s back up. Why did this happen? Or better: why is this kind of thing happening more or less on a constant basis?

First, there is social media. The dangers of social media are supposedly many, but in this detective's humble opinion these range from the ability to connect with the wrong kind of people (and their ability to connect with you) to addiction to a person’s sudden ability to highlight personal vices and mistakes for thousands (if not millions) to see…

And honestly, nobody on God's green earth was ready for that.

In fact, I have dealt with desperate, full grown adults—i.e. successful leaders in business—veterans in terms of life experience, negotiations, high pressure situations---who have literally broken down in front of me because they been tricked (and lost huge money) by fraudsters; have become victims of blackmail, due to a side fling gone bad or even due to “exchanging” illicit photos with scammers or simply due to the fact that someone on line has begun to  systematically attack their professional reputations.

And yes, they are emotionally shattered. And afraid.

And these are adult males.

And I’ve also had adult, respectable women contact me in all-out desperation because they (in hysterics) want already-sent mails or communications deleted, as a secret relationship has gone bad and the consequences are hitting like a train.

These are not freaks. Or perverts. They are quite normal grown-ups who have made mistakes—but in the modern world they suddenly are seeing said mistakes revealed in graphic detail. In Technicolor even.

In short, they are bad people. They are just people.

Now let’s consider younger kids (and here I’m referring primarily to the 13-18-year-old set). This age group suffered through COVID isolation; it has also been bombarded by the worst of “comparative” body pressure photos and films, and now (and this is evident from forums, discussions among teachers, etc.) that many appear to have real difficulties socializing in person.

And it is quite likely that his is also why they are targeted by business, legitimate (if not always ethical) marketing campaigns and yes, criminals and criminal groups.

In other words, that age group is hyper vulnerable. From where I stand, when I see adults in the 45-60 age group fooled and hurt—badly—again and again, I find it very hard to condemn children who, when it comes to life experience, are likely at least a few years behind previous generations  of the same age (thanks to the COVID years).

Girls sexting boys…

Now lets’ take this a step further and get into specifics. As hard as it is to believe (and this is the same for me), high school girls are indeed bombarding high school boys with explicit photos. Of themselves.

(For the record, no, I am not claiming that boys do not reciprocate; that they are angels or innocents or that girls are the villains here—not at all. But yes, among teens, girls are indeed initiating sexting, and if you think this is not taking place, you are naïve).

Understand, this is not a Warsaw thing. Or a Polish thing. Or a regional thing. This is a world-wide thing. I’ve spoken to other detectives on other continents and they have dealt with the same queries. And to make it clear, everyone one of us responds the same:

We immediately refuse such cases and redirect parents to police, schools and law enforcement.

Please read that again: we refuse such cases. We do not want you to send us photos, texts, mails of any kind that demonstrate that underage sexting is taking place.

It’s not that we don’t care—I’m writing this because, generally speaking, we do (hey, detectives are people too)—but if you take any kind of case, evidence will be sent to your mail. I know I’m being repetitive, but let me say it again: we do want this kind of evidence. These are children. We do not want what is essence child pornography sent to us no matter the legal reasoning behind it.

Now, back to the subject. We indeed do care, and what is striking is that yes, the stories are also the same. Young girls are sending photos to boys even unsolicited. And it is not uncommon to hear that this is widespread in a high school class. I’ve even had a concerned parent—the father of two smart well raised young men—ask me how to block any and all photos on his kids phones because yes, they are hit with such photos every single day. And his legitimate question is whether his sons will ever be able to look at women as more than sex objects. In other words, will they be damaged themselves and become unable to cultivate healthy and long-term relationships with the opposite sex.

Now just why this is happening? It may be as simple as social media plus COVID upped competition while also subtracting the real-world development of how to deal with the opposite sex. Which means young women are trying to get attention in the quickest, most dramatic fashion possible (and yes, there are plenty of social media stars that have proven that this is, in the most banal sense, effective and even financially profitable).

Which, again, makes them highly vulnerable.

Yet here is where what is already a troubling situation takes a very, very nasty turn. There are criminal elements also taking advantage of this. And it’s neither simple nor necessarily on small scale.

First, as expected, there are older men—far from that age group—who are “reaching out” to contact underaged girls. This is well-known, and I won’t get into this here. In fact, I would venture to guess that it has been talked about often enough that many girls in the mentioned age group are less vulnerable to this type than in the past.

However, what I am increasingly hearing and believing is that there are underaged boys—classmates—who are actually 1) grouping photos of girls in their class and redistributing them or 2) posing as another boy to do this or 3) both. Once said photos are gathered they can be redistributed either because a young boy is completely lacking in sense and morality (which, let’s all admit this) is not that uncommon or worse; or because he wants revenge or worse: because he can easily find buyers.

And once the photos are out, they are out. You cannot turn back time or undo the damage done.

Protect your child first…

Which leads us to just what can be done? What should be done if you are a parent and your child is a victim.

Now—once again—do not send photos to a detective. Do not even send them to your lawyer. Do not send them to anyone even to get help. You will need direction regarding how to save and protect evidence, but blindly sending them even to your lawyer as part of a request for help is a mistake.

That much I can tell you right off the bat. Do not do this. Any kind of proliferation is dangerous. To your daughter and potentially to you.

Think of it this way: most people do not even know how to send secure emails. You do not want to send anything that could be damaging to your child to anyone. The fact is that police will take this seriously, and police will know how to collect said evidence in a secure fashion.

But also, let’s back up; at this point, the self-harm risk is real. And for this reason I would advise immediately sitting down with your child and making sure that they are safe and will not resort to self-harm as soon as possible. This will not be easy to do (for you as well). You may need help from a psychologist or from a church counsellor, etc., and you may be surprised that there are police officers (typically female) who are quite sensitive and able to deal with this-- but the priority is to reassure your child that you are there for them; that you do not think less of them and that you will all get past this. (In fact, the best thing about the age of social media is that attention span is limited—photos may come back to haunt you, but people also forget).

Law enforcement…

Next is law enforcement. Which, in short, means deal with a lawyer and go to the police. With a lawyer.

But there are also better and worse ways to do this. Again, I would suggest using a lawyer and not just heading to the local police station with your child on your own. Police stations are generally not the place for children, no matter the issue. And  I certainly would not advise having a blow up with a daughter, then trooping down in hysterics to police late at night to demand that something be done. This is traumatic for everyone (likely for the cop as well), and while the police do take such scenarios seriously, theatrics and emotion (even if 100 percent real) do nothing to speed up an investigation.

In fact, especially if there is suspicion of mass distribution or a person (even a juvenile) using a false identity, I would suggest having a lawyer sum up the case and sending an official filing to a prosecutor. Just how you will proceed here should be left up to a could criminal lawyer. In my experience, such a lawyer also does not want said photos, videos, communication sent to him/her, but you do need to keep this for the police to use as evidence. This can get tricky as conversations can be quickly deleted, and saving evidence (screenshots, making a copy of laptop discs or sms/app conversations) is best left to a professional, but yes, the police are very adept when it comes to  this.

In short, time is of the essence on all levels—but you want the police to take over here.

But finally, one last word of advice: if you have a daughter sit down with them now—before anything like this happens and tell them that there is one rule that they absolutely must follow from here on out:

Do not send compromising photos of yourself to anyone. Ever. Nothing good can come out of it.

Even a bikini pic can backfire, especially in this new age of altered photographs and AI.

Yes, the world is competitive, and yes, shortcuts are tempting, but nothing good can happen from this.

And honestly—and most guys will remember this well—if cute girl approached us in high school and just said hello (or even just recognized that we existed)…

Well, that was enough.

And I’m thinking it still probably is.

For everyone’s sake, it’s up to you to make them believe that.

Photo courtesy of Pro Juventute from Zürich, Schweiz, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons