Flash forward a bit: your in chipotle picking up a burrito because your still a free man-- you've done nothing wrong,all yo did was press send, when BAM! the police bust in, put you in handcuffs and let you and everyone in the restaurant know that are being arrested for--you guessed it--child pornography. Picture the look of horror on your face as parents at a table look at you in disgusted while hurrying away from you because your one jury verdict away from hard time in the slammer.
Of course you have to go to trial and your parents probably can't afford the reincarnation of Johnnie Cochran so you get stuck with a run of the mill, reasonably priced lawyer. But such a shame because your fancy Kansas City lawyer can not defend you against the piles of damning evidence the DA has against your perverted trashcan of a life. They pull up all the text messages you forwarded and of course, the coup de grace: your twitter account where you've been openly soliciting nude pictures of underage girls. No one is reasonably doubting anything and your sentenced to 15 years in prison as outlined by the US Federal Government (http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/citizensguide/citizensguide_porn.html).
Let's move forward some more: 4 years into your 15 year sentence you're sitting in the laundry room of the prison you now call home because helping around can reduce your time in prison. As you fold the underwear of the man who beat you up last week you think about what you've done to deserve this and then it hits you! You posted naked pictures of underage girls! That's why everyone calls you a "chester" and even the murderers look down on you! How could you forget silly? As you put the last of the orange jump suits in the hamper you think about how every decent human being from your former high school is doing because frankly, they don't live in a 6 by 6 cinder-block cell. Wow...your life is worse than the cafeteria food you eat every single day.
That story was very dramatic, like season 1 of Grey's Anatomy dramatic, but I needed to get my point across: posting and sending nudes is like putting yourself into the prison draft. Within my school there is a culture that sharing private nude pictures is perfectly acceptable, in fact a surprising amount of the student body does it for sport! It's like Pokemon cards, whoever can collect the most ones wins. This has bothered me for a long time but after seeing a twitter account dedicated to soliciting and distributing nudes of high school girls in my town.
Personally, I don't have time to focus on boys: the last time I tried that I got a B in geometry so I've essentially written-off any type of serious relationship (queue Ally Simpson's "That's Why I'm Single"); however, not everyone is me. They don't choose "grades over baes" and I can't force them to, but I can stand up for what is wrong: manipulating someone into sending you private pictures that you then share is wrong. A lot of girls get sucked into the nude train wreck that can hurt their reputation and down the road effect their eligibility for jobs. A lot of times people tend the blame the victim in situations like this: "why did she send the pictures in the first place?"In theory this is true but realistically what we have is a teenage girl, infatuated with a boy who promises her love and affection in exchange for a few pictures. And being a teenage girl she'll probably oblige. Following with the rules of the misogynistic cesspool that we live in the boy will think to himself "this is my property now and I will do with it what I please" and then send it to everyone he knows: another card in the deck.
This attitude that so many boys have is disgusting; the idea that they potentially hold someone's future in their hands and be so senseless is crazy. And the way others react to this is just as bad :the slut-shaming, the finger pointing, the "she should've known better"'s all while the student body continues to praise the violator...until it's them. The best thing we can all do is refrain from sending nudes period, but let's be real that probably won't happen so let's instead shame the person who spreads them around because vulgarity is worse than naivety until there is a common idea that sending nudes outside of the consent of the owner isn't funny.
I think tonight seeing everyone I know stand up against that obscene and illegal twitter account showed me that it's possible to shame the distributor: to make them know that actions of that nature will not be accepted in our school but it needs to become commonplace. And some will ask why this doesn't happen with all social media accounts posting lewd images and I don't have an answer but I think tonight was a step in the right direction. I am satisfied with gradual change, it's acceptable and realistic but not ideal, but the world isn't perfect and I get that. What I don't understand is why it's so hard to stop treating people like objects. I refuse be in a situation where blatant disrespect of the female body is so prevalent and I don't have the ability to move any time soon, so I guess I'll have to change the attitudes and the atmosphere of the people in my town--even if it's gradual, at least it's happening.
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