to feel so sorry for kids growing up in this social media era

[whitesugar]

I am devastated for that young girl at the concert in Slane. My teenagers have just told me that she is no. one trend on Twitter. One mistake by a 17 year old and it goes worldwide. I am distraught for her and fearful for her safety. Also appalled that the boy is seen as a hero and she is vilified. Sometimes I just despair.

something the Amish are really in to smart phones- no lie!

That's disappointing to hear, Feminine.

I know... something

Lots of shocking facts I could bore you with ;-)

Even if she knew, and I doubt she knew it would go viral, the idiots taking the photos still shouldn't have done it.

Oh, sorry Corinne, must have misinterpreted what you posted!

No it was my fault, wasn't clear

Corinne, one might also ask who is raising these girls? It's a girl providing sexual acts in front of an audience and, didn't I read it was a girl who took and initially shared the photo?

I really dislike the way these threads always boil down to teen-boy bashing. It's takes two to provide these ghastly situations. Or are we assuming she was forced to do what she did?

Yes, I certainly have been in compromising positions way back when (pre mobiles thank god), drunken antics, embarrassing snogs etc but I have never given a blow job in a public arena. And I have been very drunk indeed on occasion.

So I ask you, who is raising these girls?

I didn't mean to teen-boy bash, my posts were more about the absence of decent adult men in their upbringings although I admit I have called the hero a nasty name.

As for the girls, well, not everyone has a strong parent at all. Some have been brought up with addiction, poverty, subjected to abuse and casual violence and many are just victims of the porn-culture.

It's bloody horrible.

I don't think what period said is victim blaming. She is, unfortunately, the victim of her own actions.

The poor girl is coming out the worst of it due to society's warped views, but still. She did give two different lads blow jobs at the same concert. In whose world is that acceptable behaviour. Not in mine and I was certainly no angel in the not too distant past.

But I do feel terrible for her. I know the feeling of waking up and being ashamed of what I did the night before, luckily the whole world didn't witness it too.

Thing is I have heard that giving blow jobs indiscriminately is "what happens" these days My eldest is only 10 and we live in rural Ireland but I have heard of a girl doing similar to this girl on a (local) school tour and it being filmed by a fellow student.
Horrific! Bad enough that girls feel pressured (because I may be naive but I cannot imagine wanting to give consecutive bj's to different guys just to fit in) to do this but the whole filming of it and therefore immortalising that deed is the stuff of nightmares. How do you successfully teach your children to be aware that they could be filmed doing/saying whatever at any stage anywhere!

This particular media report makes me feel very and very sick.

I'm in rural Ireland too duffle and it does seem to be becoming fairly normal.

It's crazy, how did it go from snogging a few fellas in the same night and feeling bold to this?

My DD's friend aged 15 gave a boy a bj on the street outside a pub recently. My daughter went and dragged her away from him. She was completely mortified when she was told the next day what happened. I know her family well and to say they would be devastated is understatement of the year.

My daughter tells me that in school boys in her class shove their phones into the girls faces showing images of extreme porn. I am not teen boy bashing, I have a 14 year old son. Does easy access to porn somehow normalise sexual activities for young people? I am at a loss to understand.

This incident highlights that society still views women as sluts and men as studs. It's deeply depressing.

But, but, what on earth possessed her?

I think whitesugar touched on the answer to this. Boys send the girls explicit videos of (supposedly) ad-hoc pornography all the time. They huddle round in groups, watching them. They think it's really cool. The boys big up the girls who (allegedly) act out porn for real with them, and the girls who (allegedly) do it seem cooler than the ones who don't. Boys put down the girls who don't.

I'm pretty old, but I understand this. It's only a harder-core version of what happened when I was at school in 1970. Back then, it took guts to opt out of the race to the -er, bottom, and I'm sure it takes even more guts now. Girls aren't just fighting peer group pressures, but an incredible wall of media pushing sexual precocity.

So insecure girl gets tons of boy attention. Whoa, she thinks, I'm cool! She pours two litres of cider and an e down her throat, immediately followed by Skinny Boy's cock.

And then she finds out they were lying :( She's far from cool.

I couldn't agree more, it's an horrific enactment of double standards. Girls are damned if they do, damned if they don't, and boys somehow get away with it.

... the little shits

YANBU. It's scary

I do worry about this, and I work in Social Media and have already started talking to my DC about sharing and oversharing (they don't have any SM accounts yet, and won't until they are at least 13yrs old).

The problem is that it is not being taught in all schools, and it really needs to be because not all parents use SM and/or understand it.

There is no going back, we can't stop them using it. We can only give them the tools for using it sensibly. This is a great article on digital literacy

As to this young woman - I feel really sorry for her. We have all done things that we regret later. She is going to have to live with this for the rest of her life. I can only hope that the press leave her alone now.

Good link, MmeL, thank you.

But surely clicking on a link that shows a picture is similar to those taking it and spreading it. Do worry about this, the genie is out the lamp and can't see how it can be put back. My son is just 11 and I wonder what he has already seen and will see when he goes to high school soon. Feel so powerless.

Yes, but at the same time as educating your children about sensible use of social media...perhaps we could also try educating them about sexual modesty? You know, like not doing things in public that you wouldn't want photographed eg. giving or receiving oral sex.

It seems to me that the problem has extra layers, PeriodMath. What value does sexual modesty have to a generation raised on pretty extreme porn? Whose music icons describe, and act out, sex acts in public?

To you or me, sex in public might be a boundary-pushing kick (well, it was for me ) but the meaning's all different when sex appears to be happening all over the place, often with a camera crew and make-up in attendance.

It's a tricky path to negotiate. In some ways, issues like the one on this thread could be seen as an effect of change - new values clashing with the old, and girls coming off worse as usual.

I keep thinking about how 'flappers' in the Twenties were seen as disgusting by many, and not infrequently vilified. There's a conversation to be had about how each generation of women has suffered for pushing through sexual taboos - but this isn't FWR, and I'm too tired to research & organise my thoughts around it.

Taking the (very real and ongoing)double standards issue aside, the worry for teens of both genders, as Quintessential says, is that the stupid things you do as a teen (and who doesnt do something stupid/ inappropriate/reckless?) will potentially be captured on digital media forever, and can be dug out with ease if there's any public interest in you in the future, even if it doesnt bite you on the ass immediately. Back in my day (dinosaur stomps past), cameras still needed film, so at school parties no-one took cameras as photos too expensive to develop, and at Uni parties, maybe a few people had them, but they've only got hard copies of photos which have probably then been lost over the years.

Kids these days have to accept that their life is on public record. It's not how I'd choose to grow up, but it's reality and that's what I'll have to impress on them I guess.

It's kind of ironic that we've spent generations fearing increased surveillance by the state (CCTV, ID cards etc) when actually teh real fear is surveillance by one another. At least Big Brother is only interested in your political leanings and level of law abidence.