Sexting driven by peer pressure

Both young men and women experience peer pressure to share sexual images via the new phenomenon of ‘sexting’, preliminary findings from a University of Melbourne study has found.

'Sexting' is the practice of sending and receiving sexual images on a mobile phone.

The study is one of the first academic investigations into 'sexting' from a young person’s perspective in Australia. The findings were presented to the 2011 Australasian Sexual Health Conference in Canberra.

Ms Shelley Walker from the Primary Care Research Unit in the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne said the study not only highlighted the pressure young people experienced to engage in sexting, it also revealed the importance of their voice in understanding and developing responses to prevent and deal with the problem.

"The phenomenon has become a focus of much media reporting; however research regarding the issue is in its infancy, and the voice of young people is missing from this discussion and debate," she said.

The qualitative study involved individual interviews with 33 young people (15 male and 18 female) aged 15 – 20 years.

According to Wikipedia, “Sexting” is, “The Act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones.” Well I suppose we should be thankful that at least, so far, this is seen as an ACT not an ART. Apparently it was the British newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph that first defined sexting in an article, back in 2005. However, neither the Cambridge nor the Oxford English Dictionaries have recognized this as a true word yet! However, for those of you that think sexting is just between mobile phones; the faster growing form of sexting is facebook sexting!

Preliminary findings revealed young people believed a highly sexualized media culture bombarded young people with sexualized images and created pressure to engage in sexting.

Young people discussed the pressure boys place on each other to have girls’ photos on their phones and computers. They said if boys refrained from engaging in the activity they were labeled 'gay' or could be ostracized from the peer group.?

That picture's not as private as you think

* 22% of teen girls and 20% of teen boys have sent nude or semi-nude photos of themselves over the Internet or their phones.
* 22% of teens admit that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive.
* 38% of teens say exchanging sexy content makes dating or hooking up with others more likely.
* 29% of teens believe those exchanging sexy content are “expected” to date or hook up.
(All of the above are from CosmoGirl and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2009.)