Take caution when sending nude photos to a significant other, otherwise a personal photo may become a public attraction.

Nude photos and sexting scandals have been topics in the news several times in the past couple years.

Recently, hackers gained access to Apple Inc.’s iCloud content and stole nude photos from several celebrities.

Some have had that terrifying moment, when they hand their phone to somebody to show them a picture and then quickly realize what is just a few slides to the left or right; agonizing before they yank the phone out of the other person’s hands.

Given this thought, one might wonder what is in it for anyone to take or send pictures in their birthday suit anyways?

In the moment just before a sext, for a split second one might think, what if somebody gets their hands on this or what if they stop seeing their significant other?

Nevertheless, hormones and excitement take over and they end up sending their naked photo anyway.

There is a new medium for flirting today than there was in the past.

For those in a long distance relationship, it could be argued that it is merely phone sex utilizing the technology at hand.

At the end of the day, the main motivation is that it’s an adrenaline rush, it’s fun and exciting.

The quandary is that a few seconds of fun, flirtation and excitement could really ruin a life if the photos happen to get into the wrong hands. This makes for a difficult decision.

If it makes a person happy and it is not hurting anyone around them. If the person is single and they have the confidence to make this part of their dating repertoire, by all means let them do their thing.

However, they also must be prepared to accept the consequences if things do not go as planned.

Remember, relationships do not always end well and if the love between a couple turned into bitterness, one or both of them hold the most precarious of posed photos of each other.

For those that are married, this is a high risk, low reward move.

Leave this to the young bachelors and bachelorettes. That few seconds of adrenaline and pleasure felt is no match for losing a family or career. Or worse yet, the couples that have kids, there might not be a worser feeling than having to explain that to them.

Anthony Weiner suffering in sexting martyrdom should be a forewarning to all married couples with careers.

The former New York Congressman had his life shattered because of his compulsion.

As a politician, Weiner had some great ideas and could have done so much more.

Unfortunately, he got caught one too many times and now his political career is all but finished and his marriage is in pieces.

There are some newlyweds or happily married couples out there that will read this and say, “My wife and I do it all the time and we never have any problems.”

That is great, you have an awesome marriage, congratulations. Catch up with me in a decade and see how that works out for you.

The divorce rate in America is about 50 percent and that number only increases for second and third marriages.

So leave the sexting to the single and ready to mingle crowd.

Many of the Fullerton students reading this right now will probably fall into this category. If you are going to do it, then at least take some precautions.

Be selective with whom you choose to share them with. If you are just incorporating this into your dating routine with everyone you go out with, it is pretty much almost guaranteed that things will backfire one day.

Also, be mindful of your cloud storage or where you backup your photos on your iPhone, iPads or Apple devices.

As we have all seen recently, iCloud networks are seemingly easily hacked into. Do not let your photos get backed up to or sent to an iCloud network.

Once a photo is up on the cloud, it is likely up forever. Recently some photos have been attempted to be deleted that were backed up and it took almost two days to finally get them “permenately” removed.

The glaring truth about nude photos is that the story never ends well.

Whether you are sharing them with a lover and things turn sour, you lose your phone or your computer gets hacked, sooner or later the pictures end up in the wrong hands.

As college students, we probably don’t have to worry about our lives being ruined over a nude photo being leaked.

However, the moment you have a career or a family, that nonsense should end abruptly.

Enjoy it while you can and at your own peril.