Nudity in Mail Art - "Sexting"

[Talking Bird]

According to a recent survey, 20% of teenagers and 33% of young adults (age 20-26) have electronically sent or posted online nude or semi-nude photos or videos of themselves, mostly sent to a boyfriend or girlfriend.

The survey also shows that many of the images are passed on to others: 25% of teenage girls, 33% of teenage boys, 37% of young women, and 47% of young men say they've seen nude or semi-nude images of people they know which were originally sent to someone else.

I just learned about this trend, in an article in the Feb 23 Newsweek, which says the practice is called "sexting," a play on the term "texting," since the images are usually sent by mobile telephone in the same way as text messages.

That raised a couple of questions, which I hope others can help answer:

1. Does IUOMA include electronically based mail-art? I think it must, since a lot of art is exchanged electronically here at the web site, and there's often mention of e-mailing art to someone or of an e-mail option in a mail-art call.

2. Is this trend limited to electronic media, or is there a snail-mail-art equivalent of sexting? Given the higher rates of sexting in the older group surveyed, I assume all those numbers must be close to 100% for people in my age group. But no one has ever sent me a copy of a nude image of his girlfriend. Is that because I don't have a mobile phone?

Any other information you can provide about sexting would be welcome. I'm always the last to find out about anything new.

[Oleg A. Kisel]

And in what a problem? You wish to receive a photo of the naked girl?

[Reid Wood]

Too many blogs and websites to keep up with. I'm just reading this now (July 11).

1. I think the key element is networking, which this site and others certainly fulfill.

2. There have been times over my many years in mail art when I received nude images, some of which might have been girlfriends of the sender. :)

On a more serious note regarding sexting, many states here in the USA try to charge the sender of the image with a felony, resulting in jail time and the label of sexually oriented offender, potentially for the rest of their life.