The Ethics of Sending Nudes

Amy Adele Hasinoff’s case study focuses on the story of Adam Allen and how he shared explicit photos of his ex-girlfriend who was under the age of 18. Adam sent the explicit photos to his ex-girlfriend’s family, friends, and teachers because of an argument between them. After Adam’s ex-girlfriend pressed charges and sent him to court, the legal system viewed his actions as severely harmful and considered him to be a sexual predator (Hasinoff, 2017).

Most of the media who covered Allen’s story supported the young man. The media blamed the victim, turning the narrative of the story to discourage young females from creating and sharing sexual images of themselves in the first place (Hasinoff, 2017). Girls who are victims of privacy violations often face sexist victim-blaming and slut-shaming on social media or right at home. Allen’s child pornography conviction was being viewed as a mistake rather than cold hard evidence of him being a sexual predator. The media failed to place Adam’s case into a larger question regarding the sex offender registry and the appropriate responses to sexual privacy violations. Instead, they blamed the victim and made a narrative about his “unfair” prosecution.

The best option for ethics is choosing the rights approach. This approach starts from the belief that humans have a dignity based on their human nature per se or on their ability to choose freely what they do with their lives (Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, 2018). When making everyday life decisions, we must weigh the considerations that could impact our choices or actions. Making good ethical decisions is always and forever will be up to each individual in this world we live in. Everything we do, we are given a choice. In this case, Adam decided to send nudes of an underaged girl in the moment of anger and frustration. That was his choice, and now the law must label his actions into the appropriate category, which consequently was a sex predator. Adam made the ethical decision of producing child pornography and now must face these consequences.

References

Hasinoff, A. A. (2017). Sexting and privacy violations: A case study of sympathy and blame. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 11(2), 202– 217. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1037391

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. (2018). A Framework For Ethical Decision Making. Santa Clara University. Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/media/ethics-center/ethical- decision-making/A-Framework-for-Ethical-Decision-Making.pdf