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In Houston, Texas, thousands of students are returning to school to discover a new rule: no "sexting" -- the distribution of nude or semi-nude photographs or videos by text message.
In Houston, one of the biggest school districts in the United States, education authorities decided to adopt the new rule before some 200,000 students returned to classes after their summer vacation.
"Some principals raised the issue, so we included a provision saying sending, receiving, possessing sexually suggestive messages is forbidden," said Hans Graff, assistant general counsel at the Houston Independent School district.
"They were reporting that it was an issue and may be becoming more of a problem," he told reporters.
A recent study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found 22 percent of US teenage girls and 18 percent of teenage boys have sent messages or posted images or video online showing them nude or semi-nude.
"A student may be sending pictures to their boyfriend and they break up and he sends it to everybody," said Graff.
Aside from the disruption and trauma the practice can cause, Graff warns that the pictures potentially violate child pornography laws that ban sexually suggestive pictures of underage children.
"Any pictures of an underage child could potentially be child pornography and we are not really interested in seeing students punished criminally," he said.
"We want to put them on notice that it's just not something that really belongs in school."
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(Agencies)
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得克薩斯州休斯頓的數十萬名學生返校后會發現學校又多了一條新規定：禁止發“色情短信”。散播“色情短信”指的是通過短信發送全裸或半裸的照片或視頻。
休斯頓是美國最大的校區之一，當地主管教育的部門決定在20萬名學生結束暑假重返課堂之前采用這條新規定。
休斯頓獨立校區的總顧問助理漢斯?格拉夫說：“一些校長提出了這個問題，所以我們制訂了一條新規定，禁止發送、接收或持有具有性暗示性質的短信。”
他在接受記者采訪時說：“據校長們反映，現在（學生）發‘色情短信’是一個問題，而且可能會發展成一個大問題。”
“國家預防青少年懷孕和意外懷孕運動組織”近日開展的一項研究發現，美國有22%的未成年女孩和18%的未成年男孩曾通過手機短信或網絡發過自己的全裸或半裸照片或視頻。
格拉夫說：“有的學生可能是把這樣的照片發給了自己的男友，后來他們分手了，男友就把照片發給了所有人。”
格拉夫警告說，這種行為會造成關系破裂和心理創傷，此外，此類照片可能會違反與兒童色情制品相關的一些法律，這些法律禁止傳播帶有性暗示性質的未成年人的照片。
他說：“有關未成年兒童的任何照片都有可能會涉及兒童色情，我們很不愿意看到學生因此而受到法律的制裁。”
“我們要告知學生，這種事情不應該在學校發生。”
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英國青少年互發手機“性短信”
（英語點津陳丹妮 姍姍編輯）
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