Sexting has been presented as if it is a brand new problem. Actually it is one as old as the hills. Boyfriend (and it is generally this way around) pesters girlfriend to let him do something that will turn him on — or as he more generally frames it “celebrate our love”.

Let me count the ways. I want to write a dirty poem about you (John Donne ad nauseam). I want to draw you naked (Millais and his Pre-Raphaelite mates). I want to take photos of you posed as a glamour model. I want to video us having sex “so we can have our own private porn movie” (starlets of every era).

Phones are just a different way and faster way of doing what has been going on for centuries. For teenagers every love affair is for ever. Look at Romeo and Juliet, the classic teenage lovers.

In three days they were prepared to die for each other. If Romeo had said get your kit off and run through the streets of Verona and I’ll get Benvolio to paint me a mural of you, you can bet your doublet and hose that Juliet would have been stripping off in a nanosecond.

Teenagers believe in romance. They do not want to believe that love can go sour because they are the first and last to experience true love. So, in the midst of a hot relationship they agree to do things that are unwise and which may come back to haunt them.

And if you are all growed up, don’t think that this doesn’t apply to you too. Frankly adults are only marginally less trusting when in a relationship where the worm hasn’t yet turned and most of us, truth be told, have done things in the midst of passion that would embarrass us now. It is only the fact that we are not politicians or public figures that has saved us from ignominy.

So how do you protect your teenagers from themselves? A good start is to have the conversation that starts with “If someone asks you to do something that you feel uncomfortable about, don’t do it”. The problem for teenagers is that they often lack the confidence to say no, fearing that if they do so, their blossoming relationship will wither and die on the bud.

Parents wading into such topics are often subjected to the advanced sighing technique beloved of the black-clad ones. So a great technique is to use newspapers and items on the news, when you have a gaggle of them parked in your fridge, er sorry, sitting room.

Try “Have you seen this? What do you think of this?” Hopefully it will prompt some conversation between them. My son was appalled by a headline about aquarium cleaning powder being passed off as Ecstasy that I read out when he was 13. Consumer king that he is, he wouldn’t touch it thereafter.

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