The "Social Psychology" of Sexting

Here's another news article about the "problem" of sexting, framed in the context of hackers stealing people's nude selfies from "the cloud". It almost sounds like it wants to confront the "problem" from the right perspective, but gets bogged down with trying to replace warning people not to sext with understanding the social psychology that makes people want to sext (i.e., because they think everyone else is doing it). But it, like everyone else, comes from the wrong direction of believing that people engaging in sexting is a problem in the first place, and not simply a benign aspect of human behavior.

"One group says something like, 'Enough, children. Want to stop nude photos from getting hacked? Keep your clothes on in selfies and the problem will go away by itself.'"

Clearly, there is a problem with hacking going on here. But focusing on the sexting seems an awful lot like blaming the victim. Don't want your photos hacked? Stop taking them. Then there'll be nothing to hack. (Except, there will still be other things to hack, like your credit card numbers).

"Those on the other side of the debate insist we must not blame the victim and instead should demand better privacy protections for iCloud and other digital storage accounts."

This gets closer to the real issue - the hacking. Why the whole issue of sexting is even brought up I don't know.

"Why, then, do people keep taking naked digital pictures of themselves and store them in places that could be hacked?"

Um, because it's human nature? Because the threat of getting hacked isn't strong enough to quell mankind's most singularly powerful impulse - to relate sexually with other humans? What I can't understand is why so many people are so surprised that there's so much demand for seeing other people's naked pictures. If it weren't such a taboo to be seen naked by other people (who are not your intimate partners or relatives), there would be more naked pictures out there, and the demand wouldn't be quite so stretched as to resort to stealing naked pictures from the people who'd still prefer to keep them private.

But regardless, the bottom line is that, aside from a little embarrassment, if somebody steals your naked selfies, it's seriously not a big deal. Blackmail only works if you're ashamed of what you did. And people (read: employers) will have less grounds to discriminate against those whose naked pictures "get out" when all of us have naked pictures out there. So, from that perspective, these naked selfie "hacks" are kind of a good thing. They're just laying out on the table what we all try so hard to deny - that we have naked bodies under our clothes, and that we think sharing them with others can be exciting. It's time to fess up, people. Start being honest with yourself.