ABSTRACT
Starting secondary school was a big deal for Zoey. Pretty, smart and sporty, she was one of her small primary school’s high achievers, so perhaps felt the transition to a large high school more than others. Keen to fi t in, her new mobile phone came in handy as she made her fi rst tentative forays into adolescent fl irtation. Just 13, she began texting a boy she had met over summer who was a year older and regarded as one of the school’s coolest kids. Then one night came an unexpected request: ‘send me a photo.’ Confused, Zoey sent back: ‘what of?’ He replied, “Take your clothes off.” She didn’t respond. But the boy did not let up and pestered her via text for several weeks – “everyone’s doing it,” “don’t be frigid” – until one night, heart thumping, she took her phone into the family bathroom, took off her clothes, aimed the phone’s camera at the mirror and took a picture of herself from the neck down. Seconds later she pressed “send” and the picture was his. She told no one but was sure the boy had shared the photo around because as she and her friends walked down to the school canteen at lunchtime they would pass the boy and his friends “and they would all sit there giving me these smirky looks.” Zoey, by this stage halfway through year seven, started to receive texts from other boys asking for a photo. “So I went through the whole process again with two other guys,” recalls Zoey, now 15. “I just wanted to make friends and be popular and I really thought if I did this they would become my friends.”
