Teenager commits suicide after 'sexting' a nude photo to her boyfriend made her life a misery
2:59 AM
Jessica Logan hanged herself after nude pictures were sent around her school. Her mother Cynthia (right) spoke movingly on American TV about her tragic loss
Talking to leading academics, I had already found out that our children are watching a great deal of porn online - some of it hard-core - and that its long-term effects could be damaging. I had also discovered that they are watching it at a very early age, sometimes as young as eight, as the internet beams it into their bedrooms.
Even taking into account the obvious fact that teenagers are prone to exaggeration, it became alarmingly clear to me that most of these teenagers were not exaggerating their involvement with pornography.
'Everyone makes porn - more people than you would expect,' an articulate sixth-former told me matter-of-factly, before describing how her 17-year-old friend had photographed herself.
'Over the holidays, I went to a party with people from my old school and one of the girls was on her bed with nothing on. She had loads and loads of makeup on, so you could see that she'd thought about it.'
This girl had used her mobile phone to capture her provocative poses and sent them on afterwards, sometimes unsolicited, to boys - a disturbing trend that has been dubbed 'sexting'.
'I'm not sure exactly who she sent the photos to, but one of the boys at this school now has it.'
I asked how usual it was for girls to pose provocatively, or even pornographically.
'Oh, it's really common,' she told me brightly. 'Most people who have got a social networking account will have a provocative picture.'
Provocative, I learned from talking to teenagers and looking at their pages, means scantily clad or semi-naked (usually in underwear), sometimes posing sexually, and always pouting suggestively.
'And there's nudity,' the girl continued. 'And it's not normally the sluttier girls who do this - it's more likely to be the shy type of girl who wants to be popular.
'They're the ones who will get easily swayed by boys, because boys want to see them naked, and they think that if they show them themselves naked...'
Several girls told me they were often pestered to send explicit photos of themselves to boys.
'I said no to that,' one confided. 'But I know girls who give in really easily.'
