‘Sexting’ is typically referred to as sending a nude photo through a phone. There is nothing new about sharing a nude photo with a beloved. You just used to have to go to a seedy photography shop to get your film developed, or use a Polaroid and hand it over. The chances of lots of people seeing the photo were low. Remember needing to spring for double prints? Now, within seconds, thousands of people can see your nude photo depending on which app or website it gets uploaded to. Stats on the prevalence of sexting among teens are unclear, because studies range between 9%-60% (1, 2) of teens reporting that they have ever shared a nude image of themselves. So it’s difficult to tell how common sexting actually is. In order for us to address sexting in a realistic way with teens, we must first understand the sexual culture they live in that normalizes sexting.
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Do you know what your kids are doing online? Have no fear! Keeping your kids safe online is a lot harder than you think. That’s right. It’s not easy. There is a lot to consider. Should you let them pave their own way? Eventually. Does monitoring replace parenting? No. Is your kid going to try to disable any software you install? Yes. But it’s still your responsibility to not only keep your kids safe online, but to teach them how to keep themselves safe when they’ve shown they can handle the responsibility of having 24-hour access to the web.
Here are 8 steps to get you started: 
Currently, the world is a buzz again over accusations from multiple women who were allegedly sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby. I am not going to go into whether or not you should or shouldn't believe that Bill Cosby is guilty of these crimes. That is not my job. However, part of my job is to educate people on the psychology of experiencing abuse or assault, perpetrating abuse or assault, and the culture in which sustains the cycle of abuse and assault. As a culture, we do not want to go there. But I’m going to (sort of) go there now.
Every time there is a big media story about sexual abuse or assault everyone gets wound up. However, these are not isolated events of violence. These are publicized events of violence. These atrocious acts occur every day to people we probably know. What’s worse, because we are used to huge media outbreaks of sex scandals, we're only aware of events that are publicized. This leads us to perceive this problem as being much smaller than it actually is. 
Welcome to part 1 of my 3 part series on assessing and addressing pornography use with kids. It won’t be easy when you do, but you’ll be glad you did. Part 1 is about preparing yourself. It’s important for you to be an approachable parent, if you want your children to really keep you in-the-know about what they are up to in any area of their lives. Preparing to be approachable about porn can be difficult to say the least. You can start here with 5 ways to prepare yourself to talk about porn:
Before one of my workshops, a mom once told me, “I’m not worried about porn, I check under my son’s mattress all the time, and nothing is ever there.” Suffice it to say, she had a lot to learn. Long gone are the days of finding a Playboy in your brother’s closet or a “dirty movie” in mom or dad’s sock drawer, or sneakily changing the channel to “Skinimax” for 5 minutes at a time, hoping no one comes downstairs to see what you’re up to. Now, kids have access to hundreds of thousands of hours of free porn, and not just “regular porn”, but the kind of stuff that would have taken someone months and lots of $$$$$ to track down prior to the internet.
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About this Blog:I'm here to help us discuss sexuality, gender, and media by integrating information from academic and mainstream sources. I hope this resource produces more sexually competent people who raise sexually competent kids. 
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