By: NY Times
August 22, 2022
Puberty hit C early — in the fourth grade — and hard: acne, breasts, attention, humiliation. C found refuge in the internet.
Every night, often well past midnight, C lay in bed with an iPod Touch they received from their grandparents as a 10th birthday gift. (C, who is being identified by their first initial for privacy reasons, is gender nonbinary and takes the pronoun “they.”) On the new device, C made friends on social media and uploaded selfies. Viewers posted compliments on a photo of C standing in an orchard, holding an apple and “looking like a full adult,” C said.
Less welcome were the comments from men who sent pictures of their genitals and asked C for nude images and for sex. “I had no idea what was happening,” C, who is now 22 and lives in Salt Lake City, said. “What do you do when someone’s just, like, sending you gross stuff in your inbox? Nothing. Just ignore it.”