Professor: "Sexting" is harmless

"Sexting" has been big in the news of late. In case you're not hip to the lingo, it's the practice of sending lascivious and revealing photos of oneself to someone else. Popular among teenagers, it's been roundly decried as the last step in the complete decay of the morality of the youth of today. It's even gotten at least one teenager in trouble, branding this poor guy a sex offender (plus a sentence of five years probation) when he forwarded nude shots of his girlfriend to her family after they had a fight.

He's not alone: According to one recent survey, 20 percent of teens now admit to taking part in the practice. Myriad cases similar to the above are working their way through the courts.

But sexting isn't such a bad thing, says one extremely brave professor at a Toronto University. Presenting a paper at a Humanities and Social Sciences conference (the after-parties are killer, I hear), professor Peter Cumming said the practice was largely innocuous, essentially an update on "playing doctor or spin-the-bottle."

Cumming's point is a valid one: Teens explore sexuality, and they always have and always will. The introduction of cell phones and other technologies in recent years doesn't really change anything, it just introduces a new medium in which that exploration will occur. In the future, I'm sure today's youths will bemoan a similar development occurring among their kids. As Cumming notes, legally branding two curious teens as child pornographers -- a common side-effect when sexters get busted -- for exchanging topless photos of themselves simply isn't helpful.

That said, children do need to know that risque photos can have serious consequences, and once distributed are usually impossible to delete. A game of spin-the-bottle, in comparison, rarely has consequences beyond a case of chapped lips and simple embarrassment.

Cumming also notes that sexting has at least one positive side-effect: Since they participants engage in the practice remotely instead of in physical contact, their actions are less likely to result in pregnancy or sexual transmitted diseases. Score one for technology!