

They Know What Boys Want - jamesbressi
http://nymag.com/news/features/70977/

======
ErrantX
I realise the horror that some might get from reading this - but I don't
entirely understand it.

What I see reported there appear to be smart teen girls with much more worldly
knowledge/thinking than you'd imagine. These are not girls doing silly
dangerous things online, they are girls lighting a few matches and dropping
them before being burned.

We all did it, maybe not on the internet (and, yes, that introduces a new
element of risk we need to take care of), but we did it.

Their analysis of the guys they know is absolutely spot on and very mature.
They _understand_ ; give credit for that :)

The second half of the article is of more concern; and the real problem is
simply part of a wider problem in society. It has been exacerbated recently by
the internet - but it is not a new issue, and no one has really successfully
addressed it yet. Just let the whole mess to get slowly worse.

The article also mentions _Skins_ ; almost as if it is part of the problem. I
have no idea if they show the UK version of Skins in the US (or if it is a
remake) but the original is, IMO, one of the better attempts to make these
issues of sexuality accessible to teens. A lot of people watch a bit and see
sexual largess and drugs, but if you really watch there is an important
message there about taking experiments too far :)

------
protomyth
The whole environment of high school has been broken for many years. We are
seeing technology collide with societies gradual raising of the age of
adulthood combined with a school system designed to create factory workers for
Ford.

I'm not that old, when I was in high school ND allowed people to get a
driver's license at 14. Now we have calls to raise the age to 16 or even 18. I
have heard the argument "Well, 14 isn't as mature as it used to be". That is
crap, and I can see the day when 21 isn't even old enough to be out on your
own.

It isn't the technology, bullying, or sexting that is the core problem. It is
the environment when society is trying very hard to repress biology and
thousand of years of development. It isn't working and is causing serious
problems.

------
corin_
It seems like NYMag knows what men want too, was there any need for them to
have a picture of a model pretending to be youger than she really is on each
page?

Was there going to be anyone reading the content thinking "so you've described
this pose, but without seeing the 14 year old in question I can't really judge
how bad it was"?

Or... was it just a nice excuse to give readers the snapshots they so badly
desire.

------
jamesbressi
A disturbing piece for HN parents about the coming of age for children.

Even though you know the Internet and technology has all progressed since we
were kids, it is still disturbing nonetheless.

The hacking solution to help our youth is unlikely to come from 0's and 1's,
but a hacker that could figure out how to address this--with 0's and 1's or
otherwise--would be rewarded with more than gold and silver, they would be a
hero.

It would be too much for a single person to figure out or a team for that
matter. We could easily say that the solution is parenting, but I believe in
many cases that isn't enough.

Our current social dynamic because of the Internet and technology combined is
changing everything from bullying to coming of age to social skills and the
problems have been coming to a head for years but only recently receiving so
much of the spotlight, leaving it anyones guess what the future repercussions
could be.

~~~
lhnz
I don't consider this a problem.

The internet has changed our social dynamic, sure. It's given people
anonymity, it's enabled them to be either exceptionally private or to
effectively broadcast themselves (and sometimes they lose control over this,
if they are not careful: a problem definitely heightened by the internet).
It's removed entry barriers to conversation and enabled people to connect to
others a lot easier. In my mind this has just meant that the value of (online)
communication has decreased.

This might have a few effects. I know it makes people feel safer about
exploring their sexuality (instead of having to find somebody they trust, they
can instead experiment relatively safely with nobody watching them and just
cut off the other person if they've had enough.) I guess this makes people act
more cloak and dagger about the people they talk to, but that's surely just
how life is when you're young and at school? Maybe people will trust each
other less now. This isn't bad; it'll just make those real trust-based
relationships that you find so much more meaningful. And, of course,
pornography can make us a little more sexually violent but assuming we're not
raping people is that really such a bad thing...

I think as long as it doesn't all become a game and people learn to love each
other it'll all be okay.

~~~
Unseelie
How is the fact that our children (ok, my young siblings) are coming up in a
world where bullying happens in a field vastly different from the playground
not a problem?

I certainly can't pass on my experience of how to deal with cyber bullies, I
don't have any(oh, but flamewars I understand), and I suspect that the entire
newest generation is going to have to invent those protocols themselves.
That's horribly unfortunate. When children kill themselves because of it,
that's horrifying.

~~~
lhnz
Bullying isn't solved on the playground. At least online the perpetrators
document their aggression. Not that I believe that will solve anything,
thought it might be fun to name-and-shame them.

Also, on the playground a bully will enjoy power by oppressing others in full
view of their classmates. Authority and fear go hand in hand. Anonymity and
the internet might make it easier to bully others but it also removes the pay-
off. Somebody that bullies others online is wasting their time. If you do it,
it's not a stretch for somebody else to point out that you're a bit of a
'loser'.

It's sad if children kill themselves because of this though. I've heard awful
stories of people pretending to be a girlfriend/boyfriend, gaining trust and
then humiliating the other person. You would have to be a little naive to fall
for that but I don't think that's a lesson anybody should ever have to learn.
However, I think that's an exception, kids will learn to not trust so easily
in the virtual environment and to carefully control their virtual image.

~~~
Unseelie
This is something of a case in point for my argument that we really don't know
how to deal with it..its brand new, and works on different dynamics than
playground bullying.

The methods of cyber-bullying I've encountered doesn't involve a lone 'loser'
barraging someone, but entire groups of quickly organized cliques continually
harassing people.

And to be clear, they're not limited to terminal based Internet connections
anymore, or even the Internet. A phone number is just as good as a chat
account, and much less secure.

~~~
pyre
Cliques of children harassing other children! What a new and amazing
discovery! This is unprecedented! </sarcasm>

------
JonnieCache
I've never been more thankful for the 2-3kb/s upstream bandwidth of my
childhood. No way we were swapping naked photos of each other.

~~~
igrekel
I guess digital cameras or webcams were not that available either. I am sure
than having to take the picture, having it developed at the camera store and
then scanning gave more time to think twice. Plus had a much less "private"
feel.

------
eggbrain
Perhaps I shouldn't be reading HN at work, but that was way more NSFW than I
thought it would be.

------
calebhicks
I'm 24, and my wife is pregnant with our first.

Reading this article blew my mind. I grew up with AIM, ICQ, MSN Chat,
whatever. I had a cameraphone when I was 17. I didn't see any of this, though.

I'm not sure whether I'm more scared to have a girl that has to live in a
world like this, or to have a boy who may be like the guys in that story. I
hate both outcomes.

I know many will argue that pornography isn't a big deal, or that the internet
hasn't changed much. But as a parent who doesn't want to raise a daughter in
that kind of environment, or a son who encourages it, what can I do? What
would you do?

Is homeschooling the answer? I don't think so. I am very interested in seeing
my kids develop socially in ways that they just can't do at home. Living in a
small town? I think that's worse, because there's nothing else to do besides
sex, get drunk, and do drugs. Shutting off the internet in the home? Seems
unrealistic, but it is necessary?

I know, what I'm saying probably makes me look insane to many of you. But for
those who are dealing with this with their kids now, what are you seeing? What
should a future-parent strive to do?

------
sagarun
Please edit this post and mark it as NSFW.

------
dpritchett
The printer-friendly link looks almost exactly like a default Readability
view: <http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/70977/>

I wonder if Arc90 is working with them or if they just took the good idea and
reused it?

------
Mz
I never know what to say about stuff like this. My kids are 21 and 23 and have
been online for years. They have never had issues with nude photos, bullying,
and so on. It does not have to be some huge issue. It can be, but it doesn't
have to be.

I will note that my kids were homeschooled and the bullying described in the
article apparently revolved around this girl's real life social circle from
school -- someone she went on an actual date with who spread rumors as a form
of vengeance when she didn't put out. On homeschooling lists, there is fairly
often discussion about how schools have a "lord of the flies" social dynamic.
From my perspective, the incident in question is rooted in that issue, not in
the internet per se.

I will also note that the photos in the article, which are described as re-
creations of actual photos found online, all show what look to me like very
upscale bedrooms that are a cluttered disaster. The settings suggest to me a
home where the parents value material things overly much and try to "dote" on
their kids by showering them with money and things in place of time and
attention. I never had the kind of matching decor and such shown in the
photos. But I did grow up with a garden out back, home-cooked meals, and
parents helping me with my homework. And my bedroom never looked like the
cluttered disaster depicted consistently throughout the photos. My room got
cleaned and picked up.

My sons and I laugh at the idea of them being able to get away with some of
the stunts we hear about or get into trouble without me knowing. First of all,
I was there so much that I would have known what they were up to -- they
couldn't have disappeared for hours on end without an explanation and no one
noticing. And second of all, I didn't have rebellious teens because there was
nothing to rebel against. I think that's an important detail.

~~~
pyre

      > I didn't have rebellious teens because there was nothing to rebel against.
    

I'm curious about this statement. Does that mean that when your child become a
teen you placed no restrictions on them, and let them have a free reign?

~~~
waqf
It's not "free reign" but "free rein":
<http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/reign.html>

~~~
pyre
Hmmm. I always thought that 'free reign' made sense in that it was like self-
governance with no restrictions.

~~~
Mz
I always kind of felt like the two were interchangeable. :-D But then I
pronounced "facade" as "fake-aid" for years and years. My mind seems to like
to blend and overlap two concepts like that.

