Many states, however, do not have specific laws related to minors sexting. These examples and trends are a sobering reminder that although sexting may be a spur-of-the-moment action by a teenager with no criminal intent, sexting can quickly spin completely out of the teenager’s control, and is increasingly being construed as a criminal act under the law.Īll 50 states have laws criminalizing the production, possession, and distribution of images depicting sexually explicit activities involving a minor.

The study further reported that teens were more likely to send and receive sexts with each year they age, a conclusion that “lends credence to the notion that youth sexting may be an emerging, and potentially normal, component of sexual behavior and development.” Legal Considerations The results of the study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, were revealing: more than one in four teenagers reported that they had received a sext, and 12 percent of participants in the study reported that they had forwarded a sext without consent. While stories such as these have been in the national spotlight for years, a recent study shows that teenage sexting is on the rise. In Montgomery, Ohio, an 18-year-old girl committed suicide after her ex-boyfriend circulated nude pictures of her to hundreds of other high school girls, many of whom allegedly harassed the victim at school, calling her a “slut” and “whore.” And there have been countless criminal investigations launched into “sexting rings” in states including Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and Connecticut, some focusing on students as young as 12 and 13 years old. For example, in Duxbury, Massachusetts, high school boys collected revealing or nude photos of over 50 female students into a Dropbox account. You may have observed the recent increase in news coverage of sexting incidents involving teenagers.

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