«THERE SHOULD BE COURSE ON FIRST GRADE ON LOVE»

Reporter Alex Morris bravely embeds with a group of teenage girls and finds that they are flaunting sexy photos of themselves on Facebook and relishing the response it gets out of boys. A sampling of comments: "VERY SEXY... . I LIKEY" and "OMG OMG OMG OMG CAN WE PLEASE GET MARRIED!!!" (Ah, the poetry of youth.) As Morris puts it, this is "the secondhand sexual validation Facebook allows," and it's just one way that girls today are feeling out their "sexual potential online." One of the article's subjects takes delight not only in the responses her photos garner from the masses but also her boyfriend's jealous reaction to all the fawning. Naturally, there is also jealousy and competition between girls: Morris writes that one of her teen subjects feels betrayed when a female friend sends around a topless photo of herself "because she knows that the stakes have been raised, that she'll now have to do more to draw the male gaze her way."

-Salon
Dec 31 2011