Do you really want to hit send?

At the time, she thought there was no harm in sending the photo. They had been together for a while and they were happy. But months later they broke up and that image came back to haunt her.

As an underclassmen, senior Julia Smith* fell victim to a type of harassment and bullying that has skyrocketed in the last few years. The sexting photo that was meant for only her boyfriend suddenly went from private to public.

“It’s hard when you first hear it. You just kinda go blank, like ‘Is this really happening? I really trusted this person’,” Smith said. “So I went back to that person and cussed him out, you know, used a few choice words. It was kind of devastating that people had seen me in the kind of way that I didn’t intend for them to see me in. A lot of people started thinking of me differently.”

About one in five teens have sent or posted nude or semi-nude photos of videos of themselves, according to the Cox Communications Teen Online & Wireless Safety Survey.

Smith had trusted her boyfriend with the intimate photo of her. But after their breakup, he sent out the photo in anger to multiple friends. They in turn, posted, tweeted and distributed her photo to more people.

Once the photo was out, she quickly realized it was never going away, it would forever be out there in the media. Loyal friends stood by her when things got rough and a boy in one of her core classes got ahold of the photo and started spreading it around as well.

“It just gets passed around like a sickness, once one person has it everybody can see it,” Smith said. “It’s not something that you should take lightly. It’s something that is very serious and has some major consequences.”

For Smith, the end of the messages was a relief. She didn’t have to have her parents, police or any adults involved. Despite this, Smith has to live with the consequence of knowing that people have seen her in a personal, explicit way.

“I was lucky and it just sorta dissipated without anyone having to go to the police or to tell my parents,” Smith said. “People make huge mistakes that can impact them for the rest of their lives.”

Although Smith didn’t involve the police, she knew the legal implications if she had reported the incident.

Legally speaking

Before Senate Bill 407 passed, minors engaged in sexting were charged with promotion or possession of child pornography, which if convicted, was a felony offense and required registering as a sex offender. SB 407, which passed in 2011, allows for lesser charges and penalties for minors that still discourage the practice of sexting.

Now, minors sexting are charged with a misdemeanor. A first-time offender who has a picture or video of a minor engaged in sexual conduct is charged with a Class C misdemeanor, which incurs a fine up to $500.

It increases to a Class B misdemeanor if the pictures are promoted with the intent to harass, torment, embarrass or offend someone. Promotion includes giving, transmitting, distributing or exhibiting visual material. A Class B misdemeanor includes a fine up to $2,000, 180 days in jail or both.

SB 407, however, did not change the rules for adults in possession of a minor’s pictures or videos in any sexual way. For anyone 18 and older, the charge remains child pornography.

“I always tell people it’s better just to not to. I understand if you’re dating and you want to share those kind of images with your significant other, but it’s better if you don’t,” School Resource Officer Ben Girdler said. “Especially if that person is underage, no matter how in love you think you are there is no telling if that’ll get spread or if someone will get ahold of that phone and they’ll spread it. It does get out and then it doesn’t go away.”

Just go away

Senior Adam Jacobs* is hoping the picture he sent to a girl goes away. Jacob was talking with a girl two years older from a different school, when he got an electronic surprise.

“We got connected on Facebook,” Jacobs said. “At first, it was just chatting, but when she first sent a picture it was really graphic and out of nowhere.”

After the girl sent her picture, she asked for a picture of him in return. Jacobs reluctantly sent an intimate picture, his feeling of obligation outweighing his discomfort.

“At that point, I felt awkward because I had never sent a picture like that before,” Jacobs said. “At that moment I felt like it would only be fair to send one back even though I was really scared of it.”

Jacobs asked the girl to delete the photo and never sent another image to her or anyone else. To this day, he can only hope she deleted the image.

“I would never do it again under any circumstances because it is the most awkward, unappealing thing I have ever done,” Jacobs said.

Sophomore Stacy McDonald* wasn’t as lucky as Jacobs. Her pictures were leaked out to her ex-boyfriend’s friends after a fight.

“In my case, I showed my face in the pictures that got sent out. If you feel the need to send it, don’t ever show your face,” sophomore Stacy McDonald* said. “It just makes it worse and people actually know for sure that it’s you. I don’t think anyone should do it, even if you’re thinking about it, don’t.”

Sexting can have long-term emotional and social consequences, according to the Sexting Prevention Education Program of Texas. Victims can feel embarrassment and humiliation, loneliness, fear and betrayal.

“I guess he just got really mad and he sent the pictures to all his friends and then his friends sent them to all of their contacts,” McDonald said. “And then, I dunno, I guess it just kinda went from there.”

Like Smith, McDonald chose to not involve her parents or the police. Aside from not being able to talk to her ex or his friends, McDonald has pretty much moved on with her life. But the looks she received and the whispered remarks were almost too much.

“His friends gave me looks, not dirty looks, but more like checking me kind of looks,” McDonald said. “It would bother me because every time I stood up in class or went to do something he would watch me and it would make me feel extremely uncomfortable.”

The Sexting Prevention Educational Program for Texas is dedicated to preventing sexting by minors because of its potential legal, social, emotional, educational and career impact. For Smith, Jacobs and McDonalds, that impact has already happened. All three say they regret their involvement in sexting. Smith urges people to think twice before hitting send.

“Before, I thought it can lead to bad things. It’s like drinking and smoking, you know, you think I’m never gonna get caught or it’s never gonna happen to me or texting and driving, oh it’ll never happen to me, but it does. You make that one dumb mistake to send that one picture and you’re done,” Smith said. “Now my view is that I still think it’s incredibly dumb and I’d never try it again, but you know I feel that sexting…if you’re sending pictures, it’s just god awful because those things can get out.

“Words are a bit different, they’re not you in a state that you don’t want people to see you in, so words are just things you can say because they can change, or they can be taken in different forms, and you can think differently one day. I’m not saying sexting is okay, I’m saying that if you feel some desire deep down within you that you have to, send words and not pictures.”

*Names have been changed