The Social Repercussions

Although the legal repercussions are severe if participants are caught and prosecuted, underage sexting usually occurs without legal consequences. The social repercussions, however, almost always follow.

No students were willing to talk to the Royal Page on record, therefore the following student chose to remain anonymous.

“I’m a person who is very comfortable with my body, so it’s not like I regret [peers] seeing me or having those pictures. It’s more that I regret losing my dignity and self-respect and allowing someone who has such shallow values and such negative treatment of others to get their way,” the student said.

The student admits peer pressure was one of the factors in sending pictures.

“I didn’t do it out of the blue, obviously. Yes, guys asked, and at first I said no. But if you’re talking to them, and they are being nice, it isn’t a mean pressuring thing. It was more using niceness to make you want to do things for them,”  the student said.

Sending pictures has been called a ‘social norm’ around HHS. Students sext for numerous reasons, one being the attention received.

“For me, I just like the attention I get from those guys. I know that I don’t have to deal with being uncomfortable around them,” the student said. “But sometimes after you send pictures, you realize that the only reason a guy is being nice to you and talking to you is to get what they want out of you. Once they get what they want, it’s like they don’t care anymore about anything.”

After a picture of another student who wishes to remain anonymous had been distributed to many people, the student was shamed by her peers.

“A lot of my best friends turned on me and decided to take the side of [the person that distributed the picture], so I lost a lot of really close friends. Then [my friends] decided to go behind my back and call me a bitch. It was a huge loss of support throughout that time when I needed my friends,” the student said.

This crime of sending provocative pictures around has affected many students in a negative way.

“It’s just frustrating to have to deal with [the consequences] all the time. It’s totally a violation of privacy because you can’t walk around the halls without thinking ‘Who has seen me shirtless,’ and it’s terrible to think that,”  the student said.

Although her peers have stopped talking about it, the student still feels hurt by the situation and is constantly reminded of her actions.

“After a while it all blows over, but it still affects that one person. Everyone else moves on, but the one person never stops dealing with it and they can’t voice it with anyone,” the student said. “That’s what I’m dealing with, because everyone is over it but I’m not.”