As the sad story of the bullied Canadian teenager shows, girls are especially vulnerable to imagery sold by the porn industry
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A YouTube image of Canadian teenager Amanda Todd, who reportedly killed herself as a result of bullying after a stalker posted nude images her online.
Amanda Todd, a teenager who lived in the Vancouver area, died earlier this month by her own hand. Shortly before she killed herself, she made a YouTube video describing the bullying she had suffered both in school and after school that had driven her to abuse drugs and alcohol, and self-harm –and which would, ultimately, result in her suicide. She described boys tormenting her, and girls beating her so severely that, when they were done, she simply lay in a ditch until her father found her.
What caused the bullying that pursued her so viciously?
In seventh grade, Todd had logged onto a webcam site where she met a 30-year-old man who cajoled her into showing him her breasts. When she sought to withdraw from the man's persistent attentions, he contacted her via Facebook. He threatened to send the topless photos of her to "everyone" if she did not "put on a show".
Unfortunately for Todd, it was no empty threat: the man had obtained her personal data, including where she lived and went to school, and made good on his word. When she changed schools to avoid the people who had seen the uncensored photo, he made it his profile picture on Facebook.
The media, as well as the girl's school, have stressed the issue of bullying in this story, but they must also address adult male cyberstalking and the influence of porn on teenage social interaction. The last two issues are often considered too "difficult" to address in the mainstream, even though their influences are very much ingrained in the mainstream.
In fact, Todd's case is not an isolated one. At least two American girls have reportedly committed suicide after their former boyfriends, following a break-up, forwarded nude photos of them.
A study in the peer-reviewed journal Archives of Sexual Behavior found that almost 18% of high school students – boys and girls, some as young as 14 – acknowledged sending "explicit" images of themselves on cellphones to other students. Previous studies had just asked about "provocative" images, which are not illegal (nude images of minors are). In the survey group of 600 private high school students from the US south-west, 30% of girls reported having received an "explicit" image, while 50% of boys did. (The difference between the numbers of self-reported senders and receivers had to do with forwarding, according to the researchers.)
Most students left a question that sought to ascertain their awareness of the illegality of this kind of sexting blank. In other words, the students did not understand that what they were doing was illegal.
How has the influence of pornography created such an ungated torrent of sexually explicit images that invades lives like Todd's? And why, in a consumer culture in which you can buy anything, is it so difficult to place real filters against such intrusions?
As a free-speech advocate, I believe that adults should have access to any material they want. As a parent, and a community member, I think people should be able to protect their homes from imagery – much of it violent – that is, I feel, a form of child abuse when adult society inflicts it upon children. Porn is one such example of imagery that has come to be a powerfully negative influence on youth culture.
The ownership of the porn industry is, oddly, cloaked in mystery (though we know that Goldman Sachs recently got out of the lucrative prostitution listings business). It is also hard to establish the actual money involved: estimates for the value of the porn industry range from $10bn a year to $13bn (for the US market alone). Neither of these figures is as striking as the 2009 United Nations estimate of the value of the porn industry worldwide: $100bn, with child porn accounting for $20bn.
Why is ownership and revenue data in this huge industry so opaque? Authors Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray of Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry argue that "porn money" has bought up research departments in universities, and contributed to governmental lobbying efforts. If true, that would certainly help to explain the absence of any practical controls that would keep the industry freely available in a strongly filtered adults-only space.
This free market inundation of explicit imagery is certainly affecting teens. Guidance counselors in Manhattan schools, as well as schools in the US midwest, have expressed their concerns with me that online images, "sexting" and homemade erotic videos are all increasingly used to torment and isolate kids – especially by "slut-shaming" girls and young women.
Caught in an impossible double bind, teenaged girls are encouraged by the ubiquity of porn's influence to post suggestive, racy pictures of themselves on their Facebook pages or via other social media, and even engage – as Amanda Todd did – in more direct, self-revealing behavior online that is then captured forever. In a vacuum of any responsible adult conversation about privacy, dealing with porn imagery and chat rooms, or appropriate sexual behavior, these girls are left to the mercy of an industry setting the bar for their interactions. That then becomes the behavioral norm for both sexes in youth culture.
The outcome? This dangerous proliferation of teenagers using technology to paint scarlet letters on girls that are practically impossible to delete from cyberspace. How many Amanda Todds will there be before we act on this problem?
What caused the bullying that pursued her so viciously?
In seventh grade, Todd had logged onto a webcam site where she met a 30-year-old man who cajoled her into showing him her breasts. When she sought to withdraw from the man's persistent attentions, he contacted her via Facebook. He threatened to send the topless photos of her to "everyone" if she did not "put on a show".
Unfortunately for Todd, it was no empty threat: the man had obtained her personal data, including where she lived and went to school, and made good on his word. When she changed schools to avoid the people who had seen the uncensored photo, he made it his profile picture on Facebook.
The media, as well as the girl's school, have stressed the issue of bullying in this story, but they must also address adult male cyberstalking and the influence of porn on teenage social interaction. The last two issues are often considered too "difficult" to address in the mainstream, even though their influences are very much ingrained in the mainstream.
In fact, Todd's case is not an isolated one. At least two American girls have reportedly committed suicide after their former boyfriends, following a break-up, forwarded nude photos of them.
A study in the peer-reviewed journal Archives of Sexual Behavior found that almost 18% of high school students – boys and girls, some as young as 14 – acknowledged sending "explicit" images of themselves on cellphones to other students. Previous studies had just asked about "provocative" images, which are not illegal (nude images of minors are). In the survey group of 600 private high school students from the US south-west, 30% of girls reported having received an "explicit" image, while 50% of boys did. (The difference between the numbers of self-reported senders and receivers had to do with forwarding, according to the researchers.)
Most students left a question that sought to ascertain their awareness of the illegality of this kind of sexting blank. In other words, the students did not understand that what they were doing was illegal.
How has the influence of pornography created such an ungated torrent of sexually explicit images that invades lives like Todd's? And why, in a consumer culture in which you can buy anything, is it so difficult to place real filters against such intrusions?
As a free-speech advocate, I believe that adults should have access to any material they want. As a parent, and a community member, I think people should be able to protect their homes from imagery – much of it violent – that is, I feel, a form of child abuse when adult society inflicts it upon children. Porn is one such example of imagery that has come to be a powerfully negative influence on youth culture.
The ownership of the porn industry is, oddly, cloaked in mystery (though we know that Goldman Sachs recently got out of the lucrative prostitution listings business). It is also hard to establish the actual money involved: estimates for the value of the porn industry range from $10bn a year to $13bn (for the US market alone). Neither of these figures is as striking as the 2009 United Nations estimate of the value of the porn industry worldwide: $100bn, with child porn accounting for $20bn.
Why is ownership and revenue data in this huge industry so opaque? Authors Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray of Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry argue that "porn money" has bought up research departments in universities, and contributed to governmental lobbying efforts. If true, that would certainly help to explain the absence of any practical controls that would keep the industry freely available in a strongly filtered adults-only space.
This free market inundation of explicit imagery is certainly affecting teens. Guidance counselors in Manhattan schools, as well as schools in the US midwest, have expressed their concerns with me that online images, "sexting" and homemade erotic videos are all increasingly used to torment and isolate kids – especially by "slut-shaming" girls and young women.
Caught in an impossible double bind, teenaged girls are encouraged by the ubiquity of porn's influence to post suggestive, racy pictures of themselves on their Facebook pages or via other social media, and even engage – as Amanda Todd did – in more direct, self-revealing behavior online that is then captured forever. In a vacuum of any responsible adult conversation about privacy, dealing with porn imagery and chat rooms, or appropriate sexual behavior, these girls are left to the mercy of an industry setting the bar for their interactions. That then becomes the behavioral norm for both sexes in youth culture.
The outcome? This dangerous proliferation of teenagers using technology to paint scarlet letters on girls that are practically impossible to delete from cyberspace. How many Amanda Todds will there be before we act on this problem?
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The trouble with so many people like you, Naomi, is that you want to have your moral cake and eat it.
Secondly, to answer that question depends on what the author has in mind in order - perhaps restrictions on porn, but what restrictions and would that actually address the the core problem of the sexual exploitation of children? There are certainly plenty of topical examples around at the moment of how long the sexual exploitation of children has been going in for.
Also (as the article doesn't say) and I'm not familiar with what age children are in 7th grade was the 30-year old man in question charged for possessing child pornography? Or am I missing something
All agreed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Peraino
If you want to live life get offline.
I live in a European country in which a sizeable number of women, young and old alike take off their bikini tops when they are enjoying the beach, lake or park in public, on a sunny day, with their friends or family.
Ah, I've the first step to acceptance in acknowledging it and on the road to recovery :-)
I must confess to laughing hysterically at the latter, and it wasn't even that funny. Have we all become completely desensitised?
I convinced many girls to send me pictures of themselves or go on webcam when I was in my teens; some were girls I was dating, some were girls I'd met online, all were surprisingly compliant.
I actually think a lot of it comes down to a lack of self worth rooted in the unrealistic body images that are expected to aspire too - taking their clothes off, getting complemented, pleasing a boy, it raises confidence and self esteem in girls who have little.
Incidentally, there is a reasonable amount of research about the ownership & financing of porn around for anyone who cares to do a tiny level of investigating.
I sometimes wonder if Naomi Wolf is in fact a fiendishly clever anti-feminist fifth-columnist whose true aim is to make the rest of us look stupid.
And while it might be better if more sexting teens were aware that what they were doing was technically illegal (and the law certainly seems appropriate for adults trying to obtain such pictures), it hardly seems like the best thing to emphasise: it would be ridiculous (if, sadly, not unheard of) to threaten two 15-year-olds sending each other racy pictures with a child pornography prosecution. Far better to educate young people more generally on internet behaviour, with plenty of reminders that once something's in digital form it's trivial to copy and distribute, and can have long-lasting effects.
Jack to do with porn, though.
The pressure that caused her to take her own life was, in part, applied by the prudishness of American society. It's clear, the guy who published her photo is scum. However, here in Europe lots of women and girls routinely go topless on the beach. No big deal. They're comfortable with their bodies. If somebody photographs them, and publishes the photos, he's also scum.
The women would not be traumatised. People looking at the photos would judge the publisher MUCH more harshly than the victim. That's one thing you can thank the paparazzi for. And that's real liberation for women!
America needs to follow suit, and stop, prudishly, blaming the porn industry for your society's ills. (Europe's got porn too, you know)
I experienced misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic bullying, and later politically-based bullying/bashings, throughout my school years. I am glad I didn't kill myself. But the bullying left me wanting to die, and along with later bashings, has left me with severe complex ptsd.
Victim-blaming is beyond sick.
I hope you're doing all right. We need more support, solidarity, and healing among survivors.
I'm very disturbed and sorry to hear of the abuse you too have suffered, and I hope you're coming through it and coming to terms with the impact it has had on your life. We will face down the bullies - all of us together - no question about that.
I do think, though,that the real story here is how technology has let loose a terrifying amount of new weapons for bullies to abuse and has also allowed them to remain hidden far more easily. I'm not sure how much the broader phenomenon is really a gender issue, let alone traceable to porn.
As I've posted elsewhere, we had a similar case here in NZ (though without the tragic ending), in which, as well as the school bullying, the parents of the 16 year old girl threw her out of the house. There's something wrong with our societies, all right, but I think it's mostly at the puritanical rather than the porny end.
And yet again the sad story of a girl bullied to death and the article completely ignores that several of her so called friends and ex-bf were part of the gang of online and offline bullied who continued the bullying till her death. And Amy claims to have been physically attacked by the girlfriend of her exboyfriend who used her. So where is reference to the bullies involved including the female bullies? The female predators are conveniently ignored.
Lets hope yet again that the death of a teenage girl is being used for another man hating article in the guardian while deliberately missing the point of the part played by the male and female bullies and predators involved..
Some people need to start playing catch up.
The fact that teens now have technology, literally in their hands, that allows them to send take a photograph and instantly send it to someone else, or publish it for all to see, will of course result in some of them taking more "risque" pics.
This is the equivalent of flashing your boobs behind the bike shed only today you can do it from home and flash them to total strangers, and rather unfortunately dirty old bastards.
Yes, something should be done, but blaming porn is an absolutely ridiculous leap to make.
Then actual complain about the porn industry making money as if its a bad thing and people accept that.
THe fact is feminism has become puritancial about sex in the exact same way Christians were the only difference is they still try to jump through idealogical hoops to convince themselves they are liberal....
This article shows 3 girls killing themselves for this reason between canada and America, we had had a few gay guys do the same when they were exposed. On tean suicides what percentage is this? What percentage of bullying suicides is this?
Obviously this behaviour is wrong, I'd like to see the blackmailing bully go to jail for a long time but linking 3 deaths with the whole porn industry and saying will somebody think of the children is Whitehouse territory.
Amanda's story is utterly chilling, it should make a great deal of people who were not there to help her very ashamed.In the days of digital video cameras, screen shots on Skype, plenty of women must have concerns about what images could actually be out there.
Teenagers are not passive victims who are groomed into a sexual awareness, their own hormones determine that they are obsessed with the subject however much latter day puritans would like to pretend otherwise.
Teenagers are not children but they are not yet adults, that's what the word "teenager" means.
Rather than indulging Adult Puritan Fantasies about the sold called "child" status of fourteen year olds we would be far better living in the Real World.
Teenagers are highly sexualised beings, the role of adults is to help them embrace their sexuality in a responsible and safe way.
Bullying and abusive of power infects every aspect of our society and is especially a problem for young people because they are vulnerable and not yet fully formed adults.
Bullying and abuse of power are the problems, not sexuality or the Internet.
You can say technology facilitates it, but the behaviour's not new, and there's no real proof that porn "causes" any of it outside feminist ideology. I'm also amazed at the behaviour of the stalker. OK, if you're a predatory paedophile, you go after kids, but admitting it on your Facebook page? He must really enjoy social exile, extensive flaming and being the go-to guy for the local police whenever anything similar crops up.
Of course they only do it because their parents do it.
Having lived in four countries, and now in Canada (not far from Vancouver), I can say that my experience of West Coast Canadian women is that they are the cattiest and most spiteful bullies, who seem to view the public takedown as a legitimate form of peer control. My experience is with adults. I can't imagine what it's like to be teenager here.
We have to start off from the fact that teenagers are highly sexualised beings.
As I said the role of adults is to help them embrace their sexuality in a safe and responsible way.
The problem is not sexuality or the Internet, it is bullying and the abuse of power. I was badly bullied as a teenager and permanently affected, but the bullying had nothing at all to do with my sexuality.
Our society is infected with bullying and the abuse of power. Teenage grooming is just one manifestation of this. It is of course convenient to hang the problem on sexuality because many adults are Puritans who feel threatened by teenage sexuality. It is convenient for them to label all teenagers as "vulnerable children".
Teenagers are not children but they are not adults, they are making the difficult and often painful transition from one to the other.
Denying their sexuality does not help.
But does anyone ever think about the levels to which we are sinking? Obviously little.
Weird seeing this article alongside the one on ex-porn performer Sasha Grey yesterday. Could a debate between Wolf and Grey be set up?
if you look into Amanda's story, it is really one of complete waste, fed by the cruelty of pretty much all her peers.
She actually did nothing to be ashamed of, she was just caught by a vicious predator on camera, who the internet system allowed her to hound and to degrade her not just at one school but at many.
The issue here is bullying and the unwillingness of massive online forums to remove personal content on request. Facebook cannot and should not justify naked pictures of a minor in a personal profile, when they censor Femen.
None of that of course helps the victims
My point still stands for the US, but I don't know how valid it is for Canada.
There isn't really much we can do about it though, without intruding into people's legitimate freedom. I think it is a matter of sex education, if we teach children about safe sex, contraception etc then we should also teach them of the dangers of making home made porn images when there is no copyright.