Digital Learning

Do you think I’m Sexty? Profile and Prevalence of Sexting in UK Boys

The continuing increase in sexting rates among adolescent boys within the United Kingdom has heightened the need to understand the discourse of sexting. Jon Needham reports on his major longitudinal study of the problem
Silhouette of young man sitting on floor by stairs looking at his phone
Boys report receipt of their first sext message 6-9 months earlier each school year group, with its current peak at 13 years 3 months old

Safer Internet Day

A teenagers’ nascent cognitive maturity begins to enable them to reflect on their sexuality and behaviours and is a crucial phase in the development of sexual agency. This mid-adolescent period leads to a strong relationship between the development of adolescent sexuality and the growth of sexual communication within digital platforms.

Defining Sexting

The 2020 United Kingdom Council for Child and Internet Safety (UKCIS) guidance for dealing with sexting among youth populations identifies two main categories of sext: those that fall within an ‘experimental’ definition; youth generated and circulated to another young person to further romance, fun or entertainment, and ‘aggravated’ messages created with malicious intent e.g., in exchange for money or gifts, coercion, or to hurt or damage another.

In its simplest form, ‘sexting’ is a portmanteau of the words ‘sex’ and ‘text’ and represents sending and receiving of sexual photographs, films or messages via digital media platforms and mobile communication devices.

However, a simple definition is not easily arrived at if the focus is broader than explicit content. A definition must also identify subsets against which behaviours can be mapped; sexually suggestive or explicit content, the ‘active’ sender or ‘passive’ recipient, aggravated or experimental nature, and the inclusion of explicit: text, images, links to pornographic sites, self-made films and line drawings such as the explicit anime known as ‘Yaoi’.

This complexity around definition identifies the importance of developing a consensus within 'research' in order to create a construct against which comparative studies can be made and within 'education' so that appropriate curriculum material can be developed.

Holoyda et al (2017) argue that the growth in access to internet enabled mobile devices has ‘created new avenues for individuals to communicate, develop relationships and form social networks’ and that this has fundamentally altered the way that teenagers navigate the psychosocial tasks of adolescent sexual identity and practice.

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