Last month, I was invited to participate in a podcast called “A Sickness of Silence,” part of an ongoing series of roundtable discussions involving survivors of child abuse and various experts on the topic. One of the participants in the roundtable, Michael Skinner, has been kind enough to read my blog and recently sent me…
In August, International Data Corporation (IDC) predicted that 1.44 billion smartphones would be shipped in 2015, a 10.4% increase over the preceding year. It is a safe bet that a hefty percentage of those smartphones will be tucked under a Christmas tree a week from now. Thousands upon thousands of teens (and even younger children)…
The annual conference of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) is being held in Washington, DC this week, and as usual, it is has been an energizing and thought-provoking experience. FOSI Founder and CEO Steven Balkam and his staff do a terrific job of putting together a compelling slate of presentations on some of the…
In an all-too-rare victory for common sense over prurience, a Utah middle school teacher was recently informed that she will not be fired for her slightly risqué Instagram photo gallery. Mindi Jensen, who teaches at the North Sanpete Middle School in Moroni, Utah, used the pseudonym “minscakes” to post photos of herself working out, posing…
The dubious prosecution of two teenagers in North Carolina for sharing explicit photos with each other in the context of a romantic relationship continues to attract attention from media outlets around the world, most of whom (or at least the article commenters) take advantage of the story to deride the U.S. for its lingering prurience…
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While sitting in Chicago O’Hare Airport the other day, I got a call from Joanna Walters, a New York-based reporter for London’s “The Guardian” newspaper. [@JoannaWalters13] (h/t to Dr. Jeff Temple for the referral). She was looking for background information on U.S. laws regarding sexting by children, as part of a story about the criminal…
Laws prohibiting the possession, production, and distribution of child pornography are of surprisingly recent origin in the United States. It was not until 1982 that the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that sexually explicit images of persons under the age of 18 are not entitled to legal protection under the First Amendment. See New…
Burlesque — or at least the tassled-and-g-stringed version that arose in America — hit its peak of popularity in the early 20th century, before a combination of Prohibition and adult movie theaters largely wiped it out. Over the last twenty years or so, however, there has been a growing revival of the art form that…
