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SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah's Attorney General is blasting a York University professor's study that appears to downplay the risks of "sexting"; the trend of teens sending illicit pictures of themselves or others to each other over cell phones.
The study, presented earlier this week at a conference in Ottowa, defended "sexting" as a modern variation on "playing doctor or spin-the-bottle," Agence France Presse reported.
The professor, Peter Cumming, said a distinction has to be made between nudity and child pornography.
In numerous states, law enforcement has cracked down on the illicit cell phone pictures or sexually charged texts by going after teenagers with criminal charges. Utah has already prosecuted some cases related to the practice.
In an interview Thursday with KSL NewsRadio, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff was blunt about his thoughts on the study: "Typical ivory tower, no experience with the real world guy who thinks he has all the answers."
Shurtleff said it is a problem, citing another study that said 1 in 5 American teens has participated in "sexting." The attorney general said the danger is that a nude picture on a cell phone can be traded around and wind up in the hands of a sexual predator.
Shurtleff said "sexting" is all over the state. "We're getting reports it's happening in San Juan County, Emery County, these rural counties. You can send your nude photo from anywhere, and it's on the World Wide Web," Shurtleff said.
The Utah Attorney General's Office said it has made the dangers of "sexting" a part of its Internet safety education programs, but Shurtleff wanted to respond to the study personally.
"Bottom line is we need to educate, get the word out and respond to ‘quacks' who say it's OK," Shurtleff said.
E-mail: bwinslow@ksl.com
