"Sexting" A Disturbing Teenage Trend

What is "sexting" you might ask? It's the practice of sending nude or explicit pictures via text message - and teens are major offenders! Roughly 20 percent of teens admit to participating in "sexting," according to a nationwide survey by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Has pornography gone mainstream; I think the answer is clear when we have 14 and 15 year old's sending nude or sexually explicit pictures to their casual "friends with benefits". What has society become? What happened to going out for a movie or meeting at the mall? As the parent of young children this is just one of the "trends" that scares the hell out of me.

Did we skip a generation and where the the parents' of today's teens? Don't get me wrong, I realize that sex sells, its all around us and promoted nearly non stop on television. With that said I blame the parent's or lack there of. Morals, values, integrity, honesty, dignity, honor...what happened because I can most certainly guarantee "sexters" are missing most of the above.

Two major issues come to mind and like most other problems in society, we seem to get caught in this vicious cycle. So these "sexters" have multiple, casual sex partners and the end result is unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. The Center for Disease control says that one-third of girls get pregnant before the age of 20. Teenpregnancy.org, a site managed by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, states that there are "750,000 teen pregnancies annually. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended and 81 percent are to unmarried teens." Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 19 million new STD infections occur every year. And, even more alarming, is that nearly 50 percent of these new cases happen to young people between the ages of 15 and 24.

You see what I mean? So today "sexters" get STD's and pass them on to their casual partners, who then in turn pass them on and on and on. In addition, these kids are having kids. So are we heading for a generation lost? I hope not but I'm very concerned!