Do you agree with the decision to illegalise sexting?

The current state government is looking to shake things up in Victoria by making a lot of changes and high on that list of changes is apparently banning sexting. Most people are probably aware the art of sexting has significantly increased over the past four years specifically among Generation Y with new statistics and surveys from Universities showing sexting has quadrupled and people under the age of twenty contribute the most to the growing trend. Sexting is described by young people as a new way of courting and it’s not uncommon for them to send naked pictures of themselves to another person before they are in a committed relationship with them or met them. Like most things sexting doesn’t come without consequences though and there is no guarantee the images won’t end up in the hands of other people and even on the internet for everybody to see as evident of the recent celebrity hacking.

There have been a number of very recent cases here in Australia where sexually explicit images have been sent to people without the consent of the owner of the image which is one of the main reasons for the push for sexting to be banned and among those cases have been images of minors (under the age of 18) being sent to adults and people using the images as a form of blackmail to force members of the opposite sex into having sex with them or paying them a lot of money. Consent or no consent, it is seen as a form of child pornography under Victorian laws for a person over the age of 18 to have or to send sexually explicit images of a person under the age of 18 and is an offence that leads to jail time as seen last year with a case where a 16 year old girl was sending images of herself to a 22 year old man and the 22 year old man ended up being sentenced to 10 years in jail after her parents found out.

Under new Victorian laws that were passed on the 2nd of November 2014 it is now also an offence to send sexually explicit sext messages of an adult (18 and over) to others if they do not agree with that image’s distribution and the penalty for this offence is two years jail time. These laws were passed in the Parliament of Victoria without question and the next set of laws which are strongly being pushed for by many people in positions of power if passed could now see adults who choose to take sexually explicit images of themselves and distribute them over mobile charged with an offence which will lead to 2 years jail time.

What are your thoughts on these laws? My Wife and I have never done sexting and I don’t even text and people who know me know to ring me and talk to me or come over because I am not willing to waste my time playing with tiny buttons but I don’t have a problem with people who choose to do it and I think there are more important things the Victorian government should be focusing on such as alcohol related violence which at an all-time high.

How would they enforce such a law?

I agree , there is no way to enforce such a law.

I do think maybe kids in school should have take a class on how to be safe when choosing to send out such pictures. Parents should also be proactive..

It is appalling that in the world shaken by terrorism state and province governments make issues out of non-issues.

I take, alcohol-related violence is REAL violence - broken bones and bloodied noses and all?

It's sad that this has to be done. It's very sad that younger people see nothing wrong with it.

Could there be some kind of app that detours all photos and texts to parents also?
I understand the right to privacy, but there could be key words and phrases that just look like asterisks......like ****....

This makes me so sad.

This is just the natural progression of society ...

Every generation becomes more open and apt to try "new things"

I feel this falls upon the parents to ensure that they discuss with there children how to be safe, its not just the bird and the bees talk anymore.

I had the talk with my Daughter when she was 13 when I handed over her first phone. I am pretty certain that at some point she sent out a pic or 2 of herself in some form or fashion. She was a smart girl with great self esteem, I really wasn't worried.

No it should not be made illegal. Imposing this sort of control on people is absolutely obscene.

Most young people aren't stupid, they're aware of the risks and if they decide to send naked pictures - which i consider to be different to 'sexting' - they have to accept what might happen as a result. What we should be encouraging is skepticism - of people's intentions, integrity etc. Revenge porn is going to be made a criminal offence anyway (at least over here i believe), so there will be greater control over images and videos that don't necessarily have the consent of all parties involved. That criminal liability will most likely extend it's reach in the future and websites will play a greater part in warning their members of potential prosecution etc.

It's important to remember that sex means different things to different generations - i would say mine is not generally phased by it. I mean it's in our tv shows, our music, it simply doesn't have the shock value you might expect. That's not to say our behaviour isn't influenced accordingly or that we're invulnerable. But like other generations, this is a challenge that belongs to us. We are the ones that should be influencing the law and making known what's important to us - it's when you go to the source that you get a true picture of what's really happening, and what's going to be most effective in tackling it.

I am just hoping that the web will soon be inundated with such images so that nobody would be perturbed or pay any attention. That would undo the motivation for revenge porn without criminalizing it - when people become so used to such images that they would be nothing but boring to them, there would be no shock value in what is called revenge porn now anyway. Without shock value, the revenge porn would no longer be a weapon of blackmail in the hands of vindictive and pathetic exes.

"a case where a 16 year old girl was sending images of herself to a 22 year old man and the 22 year old man ended up being sentenced to 10 years in jail after her parents found out."

The fact that this would happen in a country is enough to justify a revolution. 10 years in jail to me is like a death sentence. And it is for something which probably shouldn't even be a crime! Can you imagine if that 22 year old was your son or brother? Anyone who would defend this kind of draconian barbaric justice system is certainly a sick person in my opinion.

I respectfully disagree.

Why was this adult talking to this child anyway? Could he not control the direction of the conversation? (even if it DID begin innocently)....If he could not, then he should have blocked her phone number.

It IS his fault and now he's paying for it. So yes, it should be a crime where minors are concerned.

A 16 year old is hardly a "child". Teens do this all the time, why does it make a difference if the guy is 17 or 22? Do you really think the 16 year old was harmed?

And even if it is a crime, 10 years??? That sentence is wayyyyyyyyyyy too harsh for something like this. If a person is given that sentence at 22, their youth is effectively taken away from them. If I am ever given a sentence like that, I would rather die. Anyone who can justify that has a serious lack of compassion for thie fellow human being. If it was your son or brother you would change your mind in a heartbeat.

Also, if it was a 22 year old girl and a 16 year old guy, nobody would say the girl deserves this kind of sentence.

Sometimes harsh sentences are there for a purpose to make a statement....you don't like the sentence then don't do the crime....& if it was a 22 year old girl & a 16 year old guy....YES, the girl deserves the same sentence.

Just because the capability to do something that is wrong is available it doesn't mean that it's right or acceptable......& plastering the stuff all over the internet is exactly what porn has done.....forcing society to see the crap just to desensitize them is not appropriate either.....there are some things that are morally wrong whether we have the capability to do it easily or not.

Parents NEED to be more responsible for what their kids are doing on their phones....& IMO....if my child were doing any of that....there would be NO PHONE whether EVERYONE IS DOING IT or not.....that isn't what makes things right or wrong.

GEEZE, doesn't anyone think about anything other than sex these days????

Personally I feel that it's sad that it's come to that point where they feel the need to make laws against it.....parents seem to take no responsibility for their kids any longer & that is really where the problem begins...probably because the parents themselves are doing it

Can I ask if you have children?

Are you aware of the law?

And, FYI...No I would not change my mind in a heartbeat if it was my son or brother. Please do not speak for me.

No, I don't have children, but I can see what you're getting at. If I had a 16 year old, I would not want them sending explicit pictures of themselves to other people. This would apply whether it's to a 22 year old or a fellow 16 year old. However, I would certainly not want to see the person they are sexting sentenced to 10 years in prison for such a thing. Not that the law should be determined by parental instincts. If most parents had it their way, 25 year old guys would be going to prison for sexting 21 year old girls.

Yes I am aware of the law, why else would I be discussing it?

I find it difficult to fathom that any mother would want her 22 son sentenced to 10 years for sexting with a 16 year old girl. Maybe some crazy religious fanatics are like that, but normal loving families, I doubt it. Again, I don't have children, but I as I put myself in the shoes of the parents of that 22 year old guy, I don't see how they can sit by and accept it. If it were me, I would never forgive whoever was involved in his sentencing, and I would do anything I can to set him free.

Punishments need to fit the crime. Do you really think the damage done to the 16 year old is the same as the damage done to the 22 year old who has to stay in prison till he is 32? How about the damage done to his family?

And no, I do no not believe that most people ACTUALLY think that a girl would deserve the same sentence. Most people just say they do for the sake of not being sexist. The prevalent attitude in our society is that young women, even in their 20s, are fragile and that when they have sexual experiences, it is the guy exploiting them. If most parents had it their way, ANY guy sexting their daughter would go to prison, even if he was the same age as her and even if she was over 18.

Don't believe me? Think about this. When a 30 year old guy gets involved sexually with a 22 year old girl, the guy is labeled as a predator and the 22 year old girl is labeled as "just a kid". Really? Weren't we just talking about how the 22 year old guy is "the adult" and this is why he should be punished for sexting a 16 year old? Double standard much?

Please don't twist my words. You don't know me or my family, and this is fast becoming a personal attack on me.

I will not discuss it with you further.

Sorry if it came off as a personal attack, but it wasn't referring to you.

Ironically, I was just on yahoo answers and came across a 22 year old girl who says she prefers 16-20 year old guys. She looks attractive in her pictures and her answer got a thumbs up. I can say with complete certainty that people do not have the same hostile towards this as they do towards a 22 year old guy and a 16 year old girl or even a 30 year old guy and a 22 year old girl. Really, I think it has nothing to do with 16 year olds being too young, and that it is just part of a general disdain for men who get involved with younger women. If there was a law saying it was illegal for men over 30 to have sex with women under 25, most people would stand behind it 100%.

This is shakey ground really...you can't control who sends what from their phone to who regardless of the age of any of the parties involved for starters....second, it is the duty of the government to protect its citizens from foreign invaders and to control crime within its borders. Its not the role of the government to control out personal lives,,,they should stop telling people what to do.

By working with the Federal Government.

Under the new Anti-Terrorism laws that were introduced by the Abbott Government earlier this year the federal government and federal police now reserve the rights to not only spy on what people are doing on the internet on desktops, laptops, IPADS, Mobile phones etc they can also store up to three years of our data which means everyone in Australia will be investigated at some point in time and if sexting becomes illegal and a person has been doing it they will be caught. The punishment for it will only be two years jail time maximum from what I have heard which could possibly mean you will get a fine or sentenced to doing community service for a while depending on how serious the offense or in a case like this how graphic the photos are. The Abbott Government’s new Anti-Terrorism laws are already in force and while they were seen by some people as an invasion of privacy they were still passed.

My Wife and I didn’t vote for Tony Abbott or the Liberal Party at the last election because we believe they are a bunch of morons to put it plainly but we both support their Anti-Terrorism laws because if they help the federal police track down terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks from occurring (which they claim they have) giving them full access to our online history was worth it. We are already being watched when we go online by corporations that use spyware to build profiles on us based on things we look at online and try to advertise products they want us to buy and I trust the government more than I trust any corporation with our data. I don’t support banning sexting in Victoria though but the problem is there seems to be a lot of high up people here that do and it is the same people that stop gay and lesbian marriages from becoming legalised and the people in other states are the same.

I agree with you that parents need to talk to children more about sexting but I personally don’t think children should even have mobile phones. Maybe I am just getting old but back when I was in school I didn’t have a mobile phone and my Wife didn’t either – in fact nobody did and when we wanted to talk to our friends we would go to their houses and talk to them. Nowadays you see kids as young as seven years old with mobile phones that live on them and there are people that so addicted to using them they act like it is the end of the world if they break down. I am personally glad that I grew up in the pre-texting/pre-social networking era and I prefer the way it was before. My Step Daughter does not have a mobile phone and my Wife doesn’t think any of our kids should have one until they are at least 16 or 17.

What I mean by ‘alcohol related violence’ is the string of king hits (coward’s punches) that have been happening in and outside of clubs and pubs in Australia over the past few years and there appears to have been up to 90 victims now and more than half of them lost their lives. This was one of the main reasons new laws were introduced in New South Wales last year by the state Liberal government but when people only get sentenced to four years for murder because they use being drunk as an excuse the laws are a joke and the system is truly ****ed. I know a number of people that have been victims of alcohol related violence – two of which are no longer with us and my brother in law was randomly attacked when he was walking passed a pub one night by five men for no reason only a few months ago and is lucky to be alive.

Sexting is the least of our worries. Australia's most notorious pedophile was just given parole yesterday and will walk free next week even though he has said he will do it again and I expect to see a repeat of the Jill Meagher case in which a rapist was given parole after raping and murdering a number of women and went on to do it again just like he told everybody in prison.

I was going to leave this but you reminded me.

Yahoo Answers? Are you seriously going to use that site as a source? Let me tell you something I know about Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers is a site full of warped little brats with multiple accounts that just use the site to rant and rave about their pitiful problems all day and attack and bully people that disagree with their opinions. I was a paid moderator on a Country Music Channel’s forum for up to four years and I had to deal with some ****ing crazy obsessive fans on there and I can spot people with multiple accounts by their writing and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there are only ten real people on that site and especially on sections like Gender Studies. Don’t take anything they write on that site seriously because it is likely to be ******** and the girl you were talking to could have been a bloke using a picture of a woman he found on Google Images for all you know.

That is not to say there aren’t people that have that view but if you are going to use a site to back up a claim try looking at a more reliable site for information. I seem to remember hearing Elliott Rodger was a member of Yahoo Answers along with his ‘YMCA.’ friends which isn’t that surprising because on first observation my Wife called some members psychopaths that have no mental grasp of reality and a very unhealthy and distorted perspective of the real world. Judging by the level of hatred most of the male members on Gender Studies demonstrate on their posts for people I agree and I think a jail cell might be looking good for them in the future.

LOL, ironically I have been on the Gender Studies section on YA a lot, and yeah your description is pretty spot on. I didn't know that Elliot Rodger used to go on there, that's actually not surprising. The male posters on there are all out to present this view of the world where women control the dating scene and that if you are a man you're screwed unless you look like Brad Pitt. And a lot of the female posters are pretty extreme as well. It's just a bad place. Back when I used to get on there I had a much more negative view of things and was much more depressed.

But with that said, I have a pretty good eye for these things and can tell when someone is trolling and when they are real. The 22 year old girl I am talking about was definitely real. And it's really not surprising at all, I was just using her as an example. The point I was making is that women aren't stigmatized like men are for having those preferences. And when you look at my question on here about 45 year old women dating 20 year old guys and compare the results of the poll to the one about the 45 year old guys and 20 year old girl, you will see that there is truth to this.

If someone wants to do something as dumb as this why stop them? We should stop protecting people from themselves. Maybe common sense would catch on.

Yeah. If you are depressed you should definitely avoid Gender Studies.

A lot of the members that post frequently on there are very bitter and consumed with hate and they use the section as a place to vent their frustrations with the world and try to convert other people to their way of thinking to cover up their shortcomings. I am actually surprised it wasn’t closed down by the Admin because Rodger was very vocal about his bitterness towards women and what he wanted to do to them during the time he was a member along with his hatred of his brother who he claimed ‘owed him’ on numerous posts but when members started talking about him and posting links to his old posts they were ignored by Yahoo and deleted. How Rodger was not deleted and reported to the Authorities years ago is beyond me and I personally think Yahoo, You Tube and other sites he was on should have been held accountable to an extent for not taking action towards him and others like him.

Elliott Rodger was a bitter psychopathic dickhead and I don’t usually talk ill about the dead but when ill-informed people who call themselves journalists blame Asperger’s Syndrome and other disabilities for his actions it tends to annoy me because it wasn’t his disabilities that made him go on a rampage and kill people and not everyone with Asperger’s is a psychopath. If they actually took the time to do some ‘investigating’ they would find the reason why Elliott Rodger did what he did is not hard to find and his actions were inspired by the groups (or cults, if you will) he was a member of. Groups such as MGTOW are full of very bitter and hateful men like Elliott that despise women and any men that has a girlfriend or a wife and they live in this pretend world where every member of the female gender is evil and out to destroy their lives and if you have seen some of their ******** it is sad and pathetic.

I remember seeing a number of male members on Gender Studies that were a part of this group and some of them would just posts about their bad experiences with women and how they believed “All women were gold digging sluts and lesbians that used men” but others like Elliott Rodger, Axel and a member called God were far more extreme and would ask questions about raping and killing women which would turn into turn into fights with other members and I remember Elliott quite well because he would post the same **** over and over again and you could go on Monday and see one and then go back on Friday and he would still be asking with some minor changes. Elliott Rodger posted under the name ‘Rodger’ and he had an avatar of a red blimp in the air that was later changed to a cartoon picture of his favourite serial killer’s face which he called a hero to men in the details of his profile.

Tell me you are not Ricky Southwell as in the “Bad Azz Homie that eats McDonalds food” and spent a large part of 2012 asking the same damn questions about feminists? I always suspected him of being a bed humper but I never thought he would actually write he didn’t need women anymore because he could hump his bed and nobody would be able to stop him. That had to be the funniest thing I saw on that site.