“Send me pictures of your d**k and call me kiddo,” is scrawled across the wall in the back room of Java Break along with my cell phone number.

I have no idea who wrote it or if I gave that person my number. Obviously, it was someone who thought it would be really funny to have random people torment me or someone who doesn’t like me very much.

Shockingly enough, there are actually people out there who would send pictures like that to random phone numbers they see written on the wall. Because they did. And they called me kiddo.

Sexting is defined as the act of transmitting sexually explicit messages or pictures through cell phone text messaging.

From what I’ve seen in articles about sexting, the general idea is that sexting is a growing trend mostly among teens who are dating or flirting.

Personally, I am not into that sort of thing.

However, 20 percent of teenagers in the United States are, according to a 2008 study by the National Campaign to

Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com. As of 2010, the United States Census Bureau estimated that there are 21.5 million teens between the age of 15 and 19 in the country. That means 4.3 million teens have sent a nude or semi-nude picture of themselves over their phones or posted it on the internet.

The numbers are even bigger if you look at how many teens have sent sexual text messages but not sexual pictures.

Thirty-nine percent of all teenagers have sent sexual text messages. That’s 8.4 million teens.

Now, think about this: 15 percent of teens who have sent sexual pictures say they sent them to people they exclusively knew online. I don’t understand the reasoning behind it.

Perhaps some of these teens didn’t want to send these pictures at first. Fifty-one percent of girls cite pressure from a boy as their reason for sending a sexually explicit picture. Only 18 percent of boys cite pressure from a girl as their reason for sending such a picture.

Peer pressure is one of the reasons teens send these pictures, but it’s not the only one. Forty percent of teenage girls say they sent a sexual picture or message as a joke. A joke! How is something like that a joke?

If both participants are underage, there may be no legal consequences. If one is over the age of 18, though, then he or she should worry. Sexting can be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor. If it is charged as a misdemeanor, consequences can be hundreds of dollars in fines and up to one year in prison. If it is charged as a felony, fines can be $500 to $1,000 dollars and a minimum of one year in prison. Probably more. And you will probably be registered as a sex offender.

Even though I don’t know who sent me the sexually explicit pictures, I could easily find out because I had their phone numbers. I potentially could have pressed charges for sexual harassment. Some people probably would have.

The fact is, the number of teen sexters is growing and it will likely continue to grow. The best advice is cliché: think before you send or post something. Just because a picture or message is deleted does not mean it’s gone.