So how do you have a conversation with your teenage children about all the issues raised by the most recent story about a vile pornography ring?
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I'm sure many parents nationwide touched on the story at the dinner table last night. At least I hope they did. We're all too ready to blame the education system, say our schools are failing us, that the sex education they are teaching is irrelevant. Or we're blaming technology, the internet, social media. Or we're blaming society, the media, pornography for all our woes.
But it starts at home. It's our job to raise respectful children who will grow into respectful adults. And we need to have these hard conversations with them.
The first thing we all should have said is just don't bloody do it. Don't take photos in the first place, and don't share them. If only it was that simple.
All afternoon I kept asking myself what makes a teenage girl take such photos? Why are they sitting in their bedrooms, striking porn poses on their pink bedspreads? Why are they posing in their bathrooms with plush Hello Kitty toys covering their nether regions? We need to ask why our girls feel as though they need validation through some acceptance of their physical being? Ironically, after writing the story I went home to watch The Bachelor and found myself asking that exact same question. And it was sadder because these were grown-up women still seeking the same thing.
We need to tell our girls they are smart and funny and worthy of relationships which mean something. We need to tell them that sending an explicit photo of themselves to anyone is just about the most stupid thing you can do unless you trust that person enough to know they will not share it. But how do you teach trust? We all still get that one wrong occasionally.
This is not victim blaming. Women and girls are entitled to do whatever they like with their bodies. Indeed I encourage all girls to learn to love their bodies enough so they grow up into confident, sexual beings. There is power in being a woman but you need to learn to be the one in control if that power.
And as soon as you share a photo with anyone you lose that.
Which brings us to the boys. The most horrifying thing about the whole story is the predatory nature of it. It's a game. Like some perverse scavenger hunt. Boys posting pics of classmates and friends and sisters, looking for their own sad validation from their peers. Violating trust.
We need to tell our sons that they too are smart and funny and worthy of relationships. That partners will love them for who they are, not what they are. We need to teach them that it's okay to be themselves and while they might be struggling with that at the moment it will all fall into place.
The words "respectful relationships" have been rolled out a lot over the past few days by schools and the police. Talk about the education programs in schools which are doing wonders. I wonder if they are.
The best education our children can get is around the dinner table. Don't sit back and wait for the school to teach your child. That's your job. It might be the hardest conversation you'll have with them but if it means the end of such behaviour then it will be worth it.
