It starts off innocently – just a "cute" cell phone photo to the boyfriend or girlfriend – and ends up in the criminal justice system with evidence spread across the internet for the rest of your life. Before you send that photo, ask yourself: "Do I want my grandmother to see this?" "Do I want my children to see this in 20 years?" Do I want my prospective employer to see this?" Here is why you need to think about it.

It’s CHILD PORNOGRAPHY! Visual material (like a cell phone photo) showing someone under the age of 18 and revealing the genitals, the anus, or any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola may be child pornography. And if it depicts any actual sexual conduct, you can bet it’s child porn.

If you make it, you’re guilty. If the person you send it to keeps it, that person is guilty. And the dozen friends it gets forwarded to, they’re all guilty. And when it gets on the internet (and it’s WHEN, not IF) it’s there forever.

OK, so let’s just say the photo is provocative but not bad enough to be child pornography. It still gets spread among friends, and enemies, and ends up on the internet. Once on the internet such photos get downloaded, forwarded, saved, re-posted and are always there. Ever hear of the Wayback Machine? Go to www.archive.org/web/web.php where it is described as "browse through over 150 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago." That’s where YOUR photo lives after you think you got it deleted from MySpace or Facebook; and that’s where your grandmother or your child or your "almost" employer can see it forever. And if someone is really mad at you – that’s where they find it too.

It’s not worth it. Friends don’t let friends Sextext.