A radically different world
by: William H. Perkins, Jr. - Apr 14, 2009
It seemed like a sophisticated adult game, and what teenager doesn’t yearn for a taste of adulthood? So it was that Jessie Logan of Cincinnati undressed, took nude photos of herself with her high-tech cell phone, and texted the photos to her boyfriend. After all, haven’t a lot of modern teens’ role models—Hollywood starlets and pop music celebrities—done the same thing?
When Jessie’s romantic relationship with the boy ended, however, he got revenge by texting Jessie’s nude photos to their friends, who texted the photos to their friends, who texted the photos to their friends…
We all know what a cruel place high school can be, and we all know what happened next. Suddenly, Jessie was no longer living a dream existence in the world of her perverse Hollywood role models. “When she would come to school, she would always hear, ‘Oh, that’s the girl who sent the picture. She’s just a whore,’” Jessie’s friend, Lauren Taylor, told NBC News.
“She was being attacked and tortured,” said her mother, Cynthia Logan.
So it was that teenager Jessie Logan of Cincinnati hung herself in her closet over the shame and humiliation of her introduction to “sexting”—using a cell phone camera to transmit intimate photos of oneself to trusted others. Only, those trusted others like Jessie’s boyfriend often turn out not to be so trustworthy.
The young victims are left with a lifetime of ridicule and regret. With the advent of the Internet and cell phone ages the photos, like a bag of feathers emptied into the wind, can never be retrieved. In a culture like ours that long ago shed any respect of human life, young people can easily see suicide as the best way out of their predicament.
No mention is made in the news reports of what (if anything) has happened to the ex-boyfriend, but after a wave of such incidents law enforcement officials have taken drastic steps to get the epidemic under control. They have begun to charge the minors who produce or possess such materials with a variety of child pornography offenses. In the matter of just the last couple of weeks, at least two dozen minors have been arrested for what surely seems to them to be a harmless adult pastime.
That may seem harsh, but officials don’t want another Jessie Logan to be victimized.
Jessie’s mother said she knew something was amiss but was not aware of the enormity of the situation in Jessie’s mind. She could have spoken for many parents.
“I only had snapshots, bits and pieces, until the very last semester of school,” Logan told Matt Lauer on the NBC Today Show.
As much as we would like for it not to be so, our children are growing up in a radically different world than did most of us. Today’s culture quickly leads them into dark places from which there is no return. That may not be much different from the way we grew up, but there are a lot more of those dark places today, and getting there is a lot easier.
Even something as simple and utilitarian as a cell phone has been twisted into a way to ruin young people’s lives—and that’s just the beginning. A quick scan of Internet sites like MySpace and Facebook will reveal troubling, if not illegal, information and activities.
The popular video posting site, YouTube, contains thousands of videos of young people using endless foul language, wearing inappropriate attire (or very little attire), and engaging in inappropriate and suggestive conduct. While operations like YouTube are constantly policing their sites, they are not very good watchdogs and apparently have some mighty strange ideas of right and wrong.
Lastly, we adults are obviously not setting a very good example. That’s not even debatable. When young people see their Hollywood role models—virtually all of them adults—acting out inappropriately, they get the idea that it’s permissible to act like that.
As parents, youth Sunday School teachers, and Christian role models ourselves, we must get through to our young people that the ways of the world are not the ways of God. We must do that first by cleaning up our own acts and displaying an appropriate Christian lifestyle for all to see. Secondly, we must warn our young people of the sophisticated snares that Satan has set for them and how to avoid his traps. Lastly, we must endeavor to change the culture.
For all three steps, prayer would be a good place to start. Then, let’s engage our young people before it’s too late for some of them.
This article is reprinted from the April 2, 2009, issue of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
Further Learning
Learn more about: Family, Children, Sexual Purity, Pornography