Porn: What's the Harm? Page #6

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"for rougher sex or for a girl

to be very flexible, etc."

Um, a 16-year old girl said that,

"Boys think that all girls

"will behave like the girls in porn

"and that quite a lot of the

extreme stuff is totally normal."

For me, one of the most worrying

things about all this

is that sexual images have become

so normal, that many young people

don't see a problem with

creating and sharing their own.

The trouble starts

when explicit photographs

or videos taken on phones

are passed around or posted

on social media websites

like Facebook or Twitter.

Hi. Hi.

'These students are ambassadors

for a project in Manchester,

'which aims to warn school children

about the dangers of "sexting".'

People are becoming

more used to seeing, like,

indecent images of people and

therefore thinking it's OK for them

to take, you know, sort of

a half naked photo of themself.

And boys are getting

a high expectation of women

and what they think they should

be doing and should look like

and then asking for that off girls.

Yeah, and then, girls feel like they

need to live up to this standard.

That's when, you know, they may

start sending things round.

Obviously, since the emergence

of Snapchat,

things have become, like, a lot

worse, because obviously send them

and they're like, "It's only

a few seconds," but then,

you can screen shot it, you replay

it, and then it just reappears,

people will save it,

send it, Facebook, Twitter.

Like, before the end of the night,

if you send it at 7 o'clock,

8 o'clock... Yeah.

..it could be everywhere.

I mean, there's been cases

we know where, in two days,

it's travelled from another part

of the country into our area

and we've seen these images

and we've gone like,

"Oh, we used to know them,

we knew them." Oh, my word!

SOME LAUGHTER:

Why do think no-one

talks about this at school?

Adults sometimes try

to ignore it a little bit,

think that it doesn't really happen,

especially teachers who work in

schools. I mean, they're not stupid.

They see that sort of thing

going on every day.

Mmm. Bullying between people,

but I just think,

because it's a sensitive issue,

and it's quite a new issue as well,

they just kind of try to ignore it.

'But being talked about and bullied

'is not necessarily

the worst thing that can happen

'if someone under 18 sends or posts

an explicit image of themselves.

'They could be arrested and charged.

'Because what they're doing is

'classed as generating and

distributing a child abuse image.

'And anyone else who re-sends

or re-posts that image

'could also be prosecuted.'

So, what kind of trouble

can you get in

for posting a picture

of someone under 18 naked?

You could be put on

the sex offenders' register.

And what is that? For people like

paedophiles and people like that.

It stays with you your whole life,

can hinder you getting a job,

you can never work with children

your entire life.

Studies have found

that kids across the UK

are unaware of the legal

implications of sexting.

But police in Devon,

along with other forces in England,

are going into schools

to try and change that

by showing a video

and discussing the risks.

'I wanted to show him how much

I liked him. I wanted to do it.'

Thinking about that film,

do you think that any laws

were broken in that film?

I think she broke

the law by sending them,

her boyfriend broke the law by

keeping them and sending them on,

and then everyone kind of

broke the law by looking at them

and keeping them on their phones

and sending them around

and setting up a page and stuff. OK.

We've certainly found that,

since we've started

completing the presentations

in a number of schools now,

it is clear that young people

have unfortunately fallen foul

of having sent an image to another.

So we're certainly

seeing an increase.

It does appear to be

almost perceived as

a normal part of a relationship,

so, unfortunately, it does appear

to be quite an up and coming issue

that we're facing now.

I'm not going to tell you not to

share information online

because that's your

choice to do that...

'The police will normally take

a softer line the first time

'a young person is caught sexting

'or posting sexual images of

themselves or another under-18.'

The way that we would deal with

that situation is to speak to the

young person and almost treat them

as a victim because, actually,

they've made a mistake that they

didn't appreciate the consequences.

'Sophia is a 20-year-old student

from Blackpool.

'When she was 14 a boy she was

seeing persuaded her to text him

'a naked photo of herself.'

We'd been texting and it got

a bit rude and I reciprocated it

and then he asked me for, basically,

a naked image of myself.

You were 14 years old.

What was your reaction?

Well, initially I was quite

reluctant to send anything.

I played it quite coy, I was like,

"Oh, no I don't want to do that,"

I was quite shy with it.

But then because he was being

so consistent with asking,

I eventually gave in.

So what did he do with the image?

He showed his friends

initially first and they said,

"Oh, will you send me that image?"

And he was like, "Yeah, sure,

why not?" And then what happened?

They sent it on to their friends

and so forth and so forth.

I sent it him on the weekend

and then I'd say by Wednesday,

all the local schools had it.

How did you feel? I mean, everybody

has got a picture of you naked,

you're 14 years old. I felt

completely stripped of my value,

I felt like I was completely

accessible. It's like, they were...

It's like, I felt almost as though

people were having intimate

relationships with me

that I wasn't even engaged with

because they'd seen me

in that light.

Were people mean at all?

Were they cruel?

Girls were mean, girls were awful.

What happened?

In the street, they'd be like,

"Oh, that's that so-and-so,

that Sophia girl.

"She sent that naked picture."

And they called me a slag, they

called me a slut, a camera whore.

How did it play out?

I'd say for a good year and a half,

people still associated me with the

girl that did that at that school.

A year and a half?

Yeah, yeah, a year and a half later.

Oh, my God! That's insane.

Yeah, no, they did.

Why do you think

young girls still do it?

To be desired is to feel empowered,

and I think that's what

I felt when I was younger.

I thought, "This person wants me,

"therefore I'm sending out

this image,

"therefore I'm empowered as a

female because I am desired,"

when in fact it's

weakening your image.

As soon as something becomes

accessible it loses value.

If everyone's got it,

nobody wants it any more

and you feel somewhat worthless.

'Because any sexual image of

someone under 18

'counts as a child abuse image,

'once it's out there

on the internet,

'it can be taken and used in a way

'that whoever posted it

would never even think of.

'This is the Headquarters of the

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