“Having a naked picture of your significant other on your cellphone is an advertisement that you’re sexually active to a degree that gives you status. It’s an electronic hickey.”
RICK PETERS, a prosecuting attorney for Thurston County, Wash., discussing sexual texting by teenagers in his jurisdiction. To get more background, here is the news item from the NYT.
Please also read this additional story in the NYT.
Let us now cut to India and my city of residence Pune. Before I proceed further, please read this story in our local edition of the Times of India.
In the local case, the perverts are all from rural areas surrounding Pune. Most of them would have sold their agricultural lands for the relentless expansion of Pune, or would be from rural landless labour background. They would usually be making a daily wage through some manual labour or be auto-rickshaw drivers. They are under educated, come from traditional backgrounds where women are kept indoors and when they see an urban modern girl with a man, they go berserk. Not that such a background justifies their behaviour, but this is to give a picture of part of our changing society and norms and the kind of problems that the so called progress creates.
In all the three cases that I have posted here, the common thread is the very rapidly changing world around us and the relentless use of modern communication gadgets to create unprecedented behaviour patterns with disastrous results. The hand held small mobile phone with so many other applications now available has now become a potent weapon in the hands of unscrupulous elements of society. I see children forever talking on mobile phones and taking photographs of each other, all over the place. Some of them carry hand sets that are obviously top of the line smart phone models, that I cannot afford to purchase.
There is however an upside to these crimes, if we can call it that. The same technology enables the law to apprehend the perpetrators quickly! BUT, after the event and trauma experienced by children, yes the same children who flaunt their hand sets.
What are we doing to our children?