Boy am I glad I had my fun before cellphones were ubiquitous. As a girl attending a Catholic school, we were told to behave ourselves because God would be watching. As time went on, I figured God was more likely to be looking at the crisis in the Middle East than peering into the dark corners of a pub to see who I was pashing, but if the nuns had told us that everything we said and did could be recorded at any time and shared to the world, I would have been a lot more circumspect.
Most young adults engage in risky behaviour before they settle down under the yoke of mortgage, marriage and children but it's best if those days stay locked in the memory banks - you can gild memories; erase others; shape them as you wish. If you had video footage of the fun you had, it might not look like such fun in the cold light of day.
With the arrival of smartphones, we have to accept everything we do and say is in the public domain - and if what you do or say is interesting or appalling enough, it will go global. Forget about Big Brother watching us - it's the citizenry who've become spies and it's your mates who'll dob you in.
Warriors player Konrad Hurrell and Shortland Street actress Teuila Blakely became the centre of just such a social media firestorm when a video shot on a cellphone showing them engaging in a sexual act went viral. Blakely wasn't immediately identifiable as the woman in the video - for obvious reasons - but she 'fessed up when she was asked. What was she thinking? In fact, what on earth is anyone thinking filming themselves during sex? What do you do with the tapes - sit around together afterwards and review the action over a cup of tea?
Maybe some febrile young women think a leaked sex tape will catapult them to the same level of stardom as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian - both of whose "careers", for want of a better word, were launched on the back of, well, their backs.
