Sexting Social Issues

Introduction

During the past years there has been an immense growth of new technologies that have made new possibilities for communication and social interaction. Due to this more and more people are using smartphones and the Internet to interact with each other, and are also using this for sexual interaction. Sexual interaction through a phone or the Internet, with photos or text is also known as sexting. Sexting is a relatively new phenomenon that has gotten a lot of attention since 2008, when it first appeared in the media as a concept and when it was included in a few English dictionaries (Walker, et al, 2013). Since then there have been numerous incidents covered in the media where sexting went ‘wrong’ and teenagers fell victim to non-consensual

These pieces are just a few of many pieces of text that are used to describe sexting. While reading all of the articles from LexisNexis it immediately became apparent that sexting was constructed as a problem and predominantly described in a negative manner, because it is placed within a wider discussion about sexual abuse and other issues concerning adolescent sexuality. To understand the way in which the media examine the phenomenon of sexting it is important to know that there is a difference between consensual sexting and abusive sexting. Consensual sexting is the kind of sexting where pictures or messages are voluntarily sent to another person who also agrees with receiving these messages. Abusive sexting on the other hand is when sexting is not done voluntarily, so when a person is coerced into sending something sexually explicit, when someone does not want to receive sexts or for instance when someone’s nude picture is distributed without consent. The goal of abusive sexting is often to harm and humiliate someone, while the aim of consensual sexting is pleasure and communication (Hasinoff, 2012). The Dutch sexting publications are first and foremost focused on abusive sexting, but they are not making a distinction between abusive and consensual sexting in the language they use. This can be seen in the following sentences that are a common way to describe sexting: “Sexting forms an increasing problem among Dutch youth. Boys and girls are sending more and more compromising photos to each other, with the risk that these erotic images are sent to other people as well” (Brabants Dagblad, December 29, 2014). By putting so much emphasis on the negative side of sexting, consensual sexting is almost invisible in the media. This makes it