Why are we suddenly hearing about the New York Magazine editor who says she engaged in "sexting" with RFK Jr.?

I've been reading reports in various newspapers, and I'm going to select the one in the London Times to link to and quote: "Reporter put on leave after admitting personal relationship with RFK Jr/Olivia Nuzzi allegedly exchanged sexual messages with Robert F Kennedy Jr while covering his campaign."

The magazine said a review of Nuzzi’s work had found no evidence of bias but described the relationship as a “violation of our readers’ trust” and its own standards. “Had the magazine been aware of this relationship, she would not have continued to cover the presidential campaign,” it added.

Although Nuzzi did not identify the other person in the relationship, it has been widely reported that it was Kennedy....

It's a "relationship"? I'm only seeing that there were text messages and that they were "sexual." What are we talking about? Photos of naked body parts? Written invitations to have sex? Prompts to masturbate? Sexual words, such as saying that someone can go fuck himself? I don't know what we are talking about, and I suspect New York Magazine of wanting to hurt RFK Jr. and making sex-and-politics theater out of nothing.

According to the New York Post, Nuzzi had been “sexting” with Kennedy, who is married to Cheryl Hines, the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress, when Nuzzi was engaged to Ryan Lizza, the chief Washington correspondent for the Politico website. The couple called off the wedding a few weeks ago, said the newspaper.

Was Ryan Lizza involved in revealing these "sexts"? What's going on there? Here are Ryan and Olivia in happier times:

What nonsense! The photo, I mean. Who can look at that and not laugh? Can someone please tear off the veneer of middle-class respectability and tell us what the hell really happened?

"None of this is new behaviour, it has been exacerbated by technology but it is not new behaviour. Sharing consensual imagery..."

"... was the norm when I was growing up, the difference was it was a disposal camera. Whereas now it’s 'aye, alright I’ll do it,' and you click that button and you think 'I wish I hadn’t done it.'"

Said Daljeet Dagon, programme manager at Barnardo’s Scotland, quoted in "Young people sharing indecent pictures online has ‘become the norm’" (London Times).

She said "teenagers are 'pestered again and again and again' to share pictures with many believing it is '“better to get it over and done with.'"

A "disposal camera" is,  I presume, what we called a "disposable camera," that is, a type of film camera, a type associated with the 1980s and 90s. Because you needed to get the pictures developed and printed, you had time to think about whether you really wanted to share them. Regret is just not the same these days. I wonder how today's young people will live with their old mistakes years from now.

"In the last few months, six promising connections with men under 30 — all of them well-educated and seemingly polite — degenerated quickly..."

"... (before meetings that never took place), first into references to sex, then to requests for information on what I 'like,' and then to an unstoppable slew of messages about what they’d like to do to me, what they’d like me to do to them, the current status of their body parts, and then incessant voicenotes, body-part pictures and requests for pictures of me. It is inane, tiring and completely pointless. Sexting has taken the place of sex. This may be because sex itself has become such a vexed operation, even for 24-year-olds...." 

 From "Why are young men so scared of sex?/Sexting has taken the place of sex" (Spectator).

I don't get "unstoppable slew." Why not block anyone who is boring you? All I can think of is: hope.

"Anthony Weiner got 21 months of hard time."

That's The Daily News, stooping to the "hard time" joke.

The disgraced pol, crying and grabbing tissue after tissue, was sentenced Monday by Judge Denise Cote for sending sick messages to a 15-year-old.

Worth a click to see the courtroom sketch of the disgraced pol, crying, with Kleenex.

Weiner had sought probation. He argued he is sick and needs therapy, not incarceration.

"I victimized a young person who deserved better,” Weiner said in court. “I am not asking that I be trusted ... I ask you for the opportunity on probation to keep my sworn oath.”

There's something terribly wrong with that man. People need protection from him, but I feel sorry for him.

Remember — it was so long ago — the big impression he made back in 2010 when this clip came out:



There were those who adored that vigor and aggression. Watching it again now, I'm trying to imagine what it must feel like to be him. What a colossal screwup.

"When you put a hat and sunglasses on it, it kind of takes the raunchiness out of it."

"I want to raise the bar for dick pics. If you’re going to send one, at least make me laugh. Put some effort into it."

[Soraya] Doolbaz says her husband is very supportive of the idea and dick pics in general, noting that they dated long-distance for a while. Before that, she says she received enough dick pics to give her plenty of inspiration for the project: “Oh my God, when I was single, I would get a ton of them,” she says. “And my friends would get them too and we would show them to each other.”

That's from a Village Voice piece published in 2015. I found that as a result of searches inspired by discussion in the comments to yesterday's "Questionable Artwork Café," where I'd invited people to impose political analysis on a Thomas Hart Benton painting of a farm scene. Participating in the comments myself, I said:

Huge vagina symbol in foreground.

Empowering for women or insulting?

Horse is big phallic symbol, but far from adequate to that huge vagina. Also the harnessing of the horse is emphasized. Is that empowering for women?

And after I got a little pushback for seeing a vagina symbol, I added:

Freud thought a hat was a vagina symbol.

And then the fanciful notion:

That suggests that when a man is having sex with a woman, he's wearing her.

Not wearing her out. Wearing her like she's a very elaborate hat.

Robt C brought up one of my all-time favorite books:

If what Althouse says about sex and hats is true, it give a whole new meaning to Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

I said:

Suddenly, everything makes sense!

The man wasn't wrong at all. He was right and everyone else was wrong. And that's the way of the world, if we could only see things from a different point.

As Bob Dylan sang: "We always did feel the same/We just saw it from a different point of view."

Meanwhile, CWJ had said, "Well there are pussy hats after all." But those are hats for your head. To get the humor — and it's my favorite form of humor — you have to picture the ridiculous big-and-small foolery. The penis is wearing that hat. I figured somebody had already made a project out of putting little hats on penises, and I was right. The big-and-small element or humor is not present in the art project shown at The Village Voice. Soraya Doolbaz — great name! — makes penis-sized clothing, including hats, and dresses real penises up for posing in photographs. In the woman-as-hat notion that amused me, the "head" for the hat is much smaller than the head in a normal hat, but the hat is much larger than the normal hat, so you've got a very radical disproportion.

As I said in a post back in 2009, I have long been aware I am usually amused by humor about the size of things:

We were talking about the expression "postage stamp lawn," that is, a very small lawn, perhaps the size of an area rug. But what if there really were a postage stamp the size of an area rug? That would be a huge postage stamp. Ha ha. Imagine the size of the envelope you'd put it on. Okay. That to me is hilarious, and it reminded me of the joke I found so funny — decades ago — that I laughed so hard the teller of the joke got mad at me for laughing so much. I was cutting the joker's hair — I used to think I could do haircuts and acted upon that belief — and I noticed a bright red dot on the top of his head — the size of a pimple, but not a pimple — and not something he'd ever have noticed. I said, "What's this red dot on top of your head?" He said, "That's my Santa Claus hat!"

I have ever since regarded that as the funniest spontaneous remark I've ever heard, and maybe that will give you some insight into how I feel about the woman-as-hat notion that amused me so much yesterday. Or maybe you have the same taste in big-and-small jokes and you're laughing too. Click the "big and small" tag for more insight into Althouse's big-and-small fetish. In any case, I hope you like the photographs of Soraya Doolbaz.

And apologies to all of you who are thinking I waited nearly 4 hours for the 3d post of the day and this — this!! — is what I get? This post, half written, spurred a real-world conversation that took up nearly the entire interval. So that makes me think if you'll find plenty to say in the comments.

Time to talk about Anthony Weiner again.

He's pleading guilty to "a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor."

A likely result of the plea is that Mr. Weiner would end up as a registered sex offender... The charge carries a potential sentence of between zero and 10 years in prison, meaning Mr. Weiner could avoid prison...

Go to the link to see the artistically hilarious photograph of Weiner the NYT chose to illustrate its article. It's not one of Weiner's selfies, but a portrait by a NYT photographer, Damon Winter, that has Weiner looking greasy and defeated.

"So Huma is separating from her husband... but wasn't she already separated... kinda?"

That's what I said out loud when I saw the headline: "Humiliated Huma FINALLY dumps sexting Weiner: Hillary's top aide separates from her husband just hours after he sent an admirer a photo of his crotch while their four-year-old son slept beside him."

And let me elevate my own comment from my earlier post this morning:

They're a fascinating mystery. She's so closed and he's so open. Why are they together? Why were they ever together? Why are they still together? Are they together now for the child? Would that explain the exposure of the child in a sexual context? What do I have to do to unlock myself from this locked off lady?

ADDED: Meade just said: "If this was really about crossing a line with a child, that child would never have appeared in the movie."

Weiner's wiener is back in the news.

It's just another phallic Monday:

While his wife, Huma Abedin, travels the country campaigning for Hillary Clinton, the disgraced ex-congressman has been sexting with a busty brunette out West — and even sent her a lurid crotch shot with his toddler son in the picture, The Post has learned....

Weiner was clearly aroused by his conversation with the 40-something divorcee when he abruptly changed the subject.

“Someone just climbed into my bed,” Weiner wrote.

“Really?” she responded.

Weiner then hit “send” on the cringe-inducing image, which shows a bulge in his white, Jockey-brand boxer briefs and his son cuddled up to his left, wrapped in a light-green blanket.

“You do realize you can see you[r] Weiner in that pic??” the woman wrote.

Moments after forwarding the photo, Weiner freaked out over the possibility he had accidentally posted it publicly — just as he did during the infamous episode that forced him to resign from Congress in 2011.

“Ooooooh . . . I was scared. For half a second I thought I posted something. Stop looking at my crotch,” Weiner wrote back....

Carlos is into the danger. Have a little empathy. You know I do. It's his sexual orientation. And it's safe sex. Except the part where you humiliate your wife, whose name I'd put right next to the word "humiliate" if a thousand writers hadn't already done that juxtaposition. It's not a new humiliation, just another iteration of the old humiliation.

Karl Marx wrote that history repeats itself, "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

But this is Anthony Weiner's third time.

The first got him bullied out of Congress by who knows exactly which forces within the Democratic Party — Hillobaschumer? Tragic!

The second was when he was running for major of NYC, the comical repeat documented in the movie "Weiner," which we were just watching the other day. Yes, truly: farce. 

And now, again. Once more, with feeling. Once more, with the child in the picture. Once more, with open discussion of the excitement he gets from risking fucking his wife again. Fucking — I mean that metaphorically.

I'd say the third time is the modern psychological novel — inviting us to explore the complications of a modern marriage.

UPDATE: I put up a new post about Huma finally separating from Anthony: here.

"Weiner."

The documentary about Anthony Weiner is available now. We watched it last night. I think it's a bit overpraised. Check out the blurbs:



But we enjoyed it quite a bit. The filmmakers did well with the material they had, which was the implosion of Weiner's mayoral campaign. It was interesting to be a fly on the wall for some painful moments for Anthony Weiner, but you're not really a fly on the wall. As Weiner himself says to the filmmaker at one point: Why is the fly talking? 

Oh... that sounds wrong. The fly. Seems like the fly on his trousers! Poor Weiner! He means the documentarians are supposed to be a fly on the wall but they nevertheless prompted him sometimes, obviously trying to get better material. You'd like to know what he's thinking.

And as for those scenes with Huma Abedin, she clearly doesn't want to reveal her thoughts. She rarely says anything. She's just appearing as the long-suffering wife, but you know very well that she's got plenty to say when the cameras aren't around. At one key point, we see the camera shut down because she needs to have an argument with him.

There's no getting to the real Huma. I mean, we paused it many times and speculated about what she must be thinking and the nature of their relationship. Does she love him? He seems to be heavily infused with testosterone — is that working out well for her on some level? Were they always just a fake couple, put together for show and for the acquisition of political power?

You can't tell from the movie. Did Weiner do that sexting because it seemed like trivial fun and he probably won't get caught or was he trying to bust loose from the stifling grip of the ravenous political ambition of Huma Abedin?

Who knows?! I have an odd soft spot for Anthony Weiner. He's a human being. And she's Huma Abedin.

"Consultant Raised Cash for Hillary Clinton, Used Access to Seek Meeting for Coal Giant, Emails Reveal."

Reports The Intercept.

The "Coal Giant" is Peabody Energy.  The political consultant is Joyce Aboussie, who wrote to Huma Abedin:

“Huma, I need your help now to intervene please. We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton, who has been there now for nearly six months,” Aboussie wrote. “It should go without saying that the Peabody folks came to Dick and I because of our relationship with the Clinton’s,” she added.

Dick is Dick Gephardt, who was House Majority Leader from June 6, 1989 to January 3, 1995 and House Minority Leader from January 3, 1995 to January 3, 2003. That is, he led the Democrats in the House of Representatives during the entire Bill Clinton administration. Gephardt started a lobbying firm in January 2006, the month he left office.

Gephardt ran for President in 1988 and 2004, and he was considered a strong candidate for VP in 2004. There was even a New York Post cover saying that John Kerry had picked him:



(Kerry picked the now-disgraced John Edwards, who had better hair.)

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said:

“It should go without saying that the Peabody folks came to Dick and I because of our relationship with the Clinton’s,” she added.

Huma must have rolled her exotic eyes and thought "what kind of amateurish influence peddler so consciously violates the rules of pay to play omertà?"

I imagined her rolling her eyes over something else — the illiteracy of "to Dick and I" and "the Clinton's." In my hypothetical scenario, she's saying:

How stupid is Peabody to pay big money to a guy who can't avoid making rank grammatical errors and sending them to me? To me! It's one thing to be married to a man who impulsively sends dick pics to skanky women, but to craft to-Dick-and-I email and send it to me! Ugh!

If a 15-year-old boy masturbates, is he a pedophile?

That's a question that occurred to me, reading "Male Teen Takes Nude Photo of Himself, Charged with Making Child Porn/The kid, 15, could be placed on the sex offender registry."

"Weiner doesn't plumb its subject's psyche..."

"Weiner doesn't plumb its subject's psyche; it tells us nothing about the scandal that hasn't been revealed already (thank heaven); it may not even help the undecided understand whether they should celebrate the end of his political career or think it's a shame. But it's an invigorating chance to experience [an ordeal] from afar...."

Hollywood Reporter reviews the documentary movie Weiner — a reality-show of a movie made of clipped together footage the filmmakers got as they got follow-me-around access to Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner.

"Cop Who Sought Photos of Teen’s Erection in Sexting Case Commits Suicide Moments Before Arrest."

"Police Detective David Edward Abbott, a member of the Northern Virginia-Washington D.C. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, committed suicide Tuesday before law enforcement could arrest him on suspicion of sexually abusing minors," Hit & Run reports.

Abbott, you will recall, was the detective in the noteworthy teen sexting case from July 2014, in which the authorities sought a warrant to take the 17-year-old male suspect to the hospital, inject him with a drug that would give him an erection, photograph his genitals, and compare the photo with existing pictures of his genitals the police had confiscated from his 15-year-old girlfriend’s phone....

Abbott sued the boy's lawyer for saying "Who does this? It's just crazy." He called that defamation, in that it made him look like a pedophile. Later, he was suspected of having sexual contact with 2 adolescent boys, and when the police came to arrest him, he shot himself dead.

IN THE COMMENTS: MadisonMan points to my July 2014 post about Abbott's proposal to photograph the boy's medically induced erection and the lawyer's "Who does this?" reaction. My reaction on seeing that old post is:

Wow, I'm surprised to see that I blogged about that... and only last year. When I read [about the case] this morning, I felt I'd never heard of it and was very shocked that the police would propose to do this. (Did they ever do it?) I must have some strong repression reflexes. I really felt, this morning, that if I had ever seen this before I would have blogged it, so I didn't remember blogging it or ever seeing it, even though it makes a big, very distressing impact on me.

MadisonMan looks through the comments at the old post and singles out this, from Fernandiande:

You can see a picture of the child-abusing sex pervert here: "Master" Detective Abbott.

"At least 100 students at a high school in Cañon City traded naked pictures of themselves... part of a large sexting ring."

"The revelation has left parents outraged, administrators searching for missed clues, and the police and the district attorney’s office debating whether to file child pornography charges... against some of the participants...."

Because it is a felony to possess or distribute child pornography, the charges could be serious. But because most of the people at fault are themselves minors and, in some cases, took pictures of themselves and sent them to others, law enforcement officials are at a loss as to how to proceed. “Consenting adults can do this to their hearts’ content,” said Thom LeDoux, the district attorney, but “if the subject is under the age of 18, that’s a problem.”

There are so many questions and issues here. But let me just ask: Are we talking about anything other than nudity? If you take a picture of yourself naked, have you manufactured pornography? Maybe a little sanity could be injected into this perplexity by asking that question.

Here's something else that deserves scrutiny: The authorities are trying to divide the students into predators and victims. Students collected each other's photographs (using apps called "vaults"), "with boys and girls involved in seemingly equal numbers." But there's a focus on the football team:

Members of the high school football team, the Cañon City Tigers, were at the center of the sexting ring, [George Welsh, the superintendent of the Cañon City school system] said. On Thursday night, separate community meetings were held for parents of football players and parents of other students to address the scandal, which has shocked this quiet, semirural community of 16,000. The team was forced to forfeit its final game of the season.

Separate meetings?! Why?

Mr. Welsh, the superintendent, said in a statement that “because a large number of our high school football players were implicated in this behavior, the coaching staff and administration, after careful thought and consideration, decided that stepping on the field to play this weekend to represent the Cañon City community is just not an option.”...

I don't understand treating the football team differently. They're the "the center of the sexting ring"? It sounds like a huge group of students — female and male — were communicating, sending selfies voluntarily. It's obvious that the authorities won't accuse them all of felonies. I can't see any justification for treating the boys differently from the girls or for demonizing the football team.

I don't know what we should do about the problem of kids texting naked pictures of themselves, but it's such a widespread practice at this point that I'd lean toward educating students about why it's not a good idea. That assumes the adults really know why it's so terrible and are capable of communicating.

"Do you need vulva emoji? Or do you want to keep typing ({|})?"

"Feministing has done an article on Flirtmoji's recent release of 15 vulva emoji, realistically asymmetrical and in a variety of pleasant colors. Designer Katy McCarthy did an interview on her work on these sexually explicit emoji and the necessity of inclusivity."

So says Metafilter. The linked Feministing article is "THESE NEW VAGINA EMOJIS ARE THE BEST." So you've got Metafilter subtly prodding the feminist blog to be a tad more accurate with the genitalia terminology.

Here's the interview with McCarthy, going into the depth of why people need sexy emoji:

What’s really beautiful about sex, and emoji, is that sex is really playful and also really difficult. And at the core of good sex is good communication. So to that end, I think that whatever it takes for you to be able to communicate what you want or need, or what you don’t want and don’t need is fine... I think with sex there are things that are really hard to say and hard to ask for, and that’s such a beautiful window to be able to provide someone with language....

This takes me back to something we were talking about yesterday, the "yes means yes" movement and how it privileges those who are language oriented. 

"And who is Huma married to? One of the great sleazebags of our time, Anthony Weiner."

Said Donald Trump, who then did typing-on-a-cell-phone finger gestures while mouthing "I love you very much."

Trump noted that he "knew him before they caught him with the —" he trailed off, again mimicking typing on a phone. "And he was a bad guy then; it turns out that he was a really bad guy," he added.

“So Huma is getting classified secrets,” Trump said. “She’s married to Anthony Wiener, who’s a perv. No, he is! Do you think there’s even a five percent chance that she’s not telling Anthony Weiner … what the hell is coming across?"

The response from the Hillary campaign — not Hillary herself, some spokesguy — was: "There’s no place for patently false, personal attacks towards a staff member" and Trump "should be ashamed of himself."

What's the "patently false" part? Trump didn't call Weiner the greatest sleazebag of our time, only "one of the great sleazebags of our time." Perhaps Weiner isn't a "great sleazebag," but it's the kind of opinion that can't be called "patently false."

Is it "perv"? Does the Hillary campaign want us to contemplate whether Weiner is a "perv"? What exactly does "perv" mean and does that apply to Weiner?

"Do you think there’s even a five percent chance that she’s not telling Anthony Weiner?" is a question. There's a way to argue that you can't immunize yourself from the accusation of slander by putting your assertions in the form of a question, but this is not a defamation lawsuit. This is political rhetoric, and the Clinton campaign is saying this is patently false. That's weak.

Is the patently false part "Huma is getting classified secrets"? But that's not a personal attack. There's no shame in probing into how Hillary handled classified material and whether the people she's trusted are trustworthy.



ADDED: Here's the video. I note that he does answer that "five percent" question: "I don't think so."

"Artist Molly Soda describes her most recent series 'Should I send this?' as 'a collection of text and images I would be too scared to show you.'"

"Anyone who's tried to woo a lover via the Internet knows what she's referring to. The net artist uncovered an assortment of selfies and sexts she'd accumulated over the years that, for one reason or another, she was too afraid to actually send. Until now.... Most of the negative opinions lodged against Soda either condemned the piece as narcissistic, pretentious and juvenile, or straight-up slut-shamed her.... Whether or not you're a fan of the artwork itself, there does seem to be some archaic expectations of privacy and propriety in the air that cause a project like this to provoke such seething reactions. And while women can be critical of each other and their work, spewing hate on each other's work and dubbing it 'not feminist' is probably, well, not very feminist..."

From a Huffington Post article titled "Feminist Artist Leaks Her Own Nudes, Internet Responds Like Meatheads (NSFW)."

"Indiana Democratic lawmaker forced to apologize for sexting with the same woman who was at the center of Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal."

Link.

Details here:

According to Fox411, [Justin] Moed sent graphic sexual texts to [Sydney] Leathers using the Twitter handle "Bitch Boy." The sexting relationship started when Moed responded to Leathers' Twitter post in February in which she said she was looking for a "new, legitimate #findom slave. Must actually be willing to spend money or you are useless to me."...

"I’m a little speechless," [Leathers] said. "I Googled him and found out he’s a lawmaker. Apparently only politicians can pick up on my pheromones.... Is he displaying poor judgment by sexting me of all people? Obviously... But should sexual situations define politicians? They are human, after all."

"It’s not that I mind seeing breasts everywhere; after all, I have two of my own that I quite like."

"But it’s disheartening that breasts are often considered more interesting than the women they’re attached to – as if we’re an afterthought compared to our body parts. But now a bevy of women, in a matter of days, have taken back the tit. We’re reclaiming the rack, whether you like or not.... You don’t like it? Tough titties."

Writes Jessica Valenti in a Guardian column titled "Topless Keira Knightley is not alone: 2014 is the year women reclaimed our boobs."

For a prescient Althouse post — pinpointing 2006 as the year of "boob" reclamation — see "Let's take a closer look at those breasts."

(I put "boob" in quotes because that is not my style of slang. Nor is "tits," for that matter. I never use any word other than "breasts" (unless I'm quoting someone else).)

ADDED: 2 more things:

1. A "bevy of women"? I don't think I've ever seen the word "bevy" used outside of the trite phrase "bevy of beauties," where it seems old-fashioned and insufficiently attentive to the personhood of women but at least alliterates.

2. Why is it "disheartening that breasts are often considered more interesting than the women they’re attached to"? Lots of women aren't very interesting, whereas breasts have a base level of interestingness. If you're someone who believes you are regarded as less interesting than your breasts, become more interesting. I don't see how calling more attention to your breasts — in some sort of out-and-proud move like baring them in a magazine — is supposed to boost the relative interestingness of the aspects of you that are not your breasts. Do you imagine there's something especially feisty and feminist about posing with naked breasts that somehow transcends all those women in the past who thought they were baring their breasts in an exciting new way? I've heard this self-deception for at least 40 years. I'm sure Hugh Hefner has whispered it to bevies of beauties.

"Within an hour, the deputies realized just how common the sharing of nude pictures was at the school."

"'The boys kept telling us, "It’s nothing unusual. It happens all the time,"' Lowe recalls. Every time someone they were interviewing mentioned another kid who might have naked pictures on his or her phone, they had to call that kid in for an interview. After just a couple of days, the deputies had filled multiple evidence bins with phones, and they couldn’t see an end to it. Fears of a cabal got replaced by a more mundane concern: what to do with 'hundreds of damned phones. I told the deputies, "We got to draw the line somewhere or we’re going to end up talking to every teenager in the damned county!"'... Most of the girls... had sent a picture to their boyfriend, or to someone they wanted to be their boyfriend, and then he had sent it on to others. For the most part, they were embarrassed but not devastated, Lowe said. They felt betrayed, but few seemed all that surprised that their photos had been passed around. What seemed to mortify them most was having to talk about what they’d done with a 'police officer outside their age group.'... A handful of senior girls became indignant during the course of the interview. 'This is my life and my body and I can do whatever I want with it,' or, 'I don’t see any problem with it. I’m proud of my body'.... In the first couple of weeks of the investigation, Lowe’s characterization of the girls on Instagram morphed from 'victims' to 'I guess I’ll call them victims' to 'they just fell into this category where they victimized themselves.'"

From Hanna Rosin's "Why Kids Sext."