To obtain national estimates of youth involved in sexting in the past year (the transmission via cell phone, the Internet, and other electronic media of sexual images), as well as provide details of the youth involved and the nature of the sexual images.
The study was based on a cross-sectional national telephone survey of 1560 youth Internet users, ages 10 through 17.
Estimates varied considerably depending on the nature of the images or videos and the role of the youth involved. Two and one-half percent of youth had appeared in or created nude or nearly nude pictures or videos. However, this percentage is reduced to 1.0% when the definition is restricted to only include images that were sexually explicit (ie, showed naked breasts, genitals, or bottoms). Of the youth who participated in the survey, 7.1% said they had received nude or nearly nude images of others; 5.9% of youth reported receiving sexually explicit images. Few youth distributed these images.
Because policy debates on youth sexting behavior focus on concerns about the production and possession of illegal child pornography, it is important to have research that collects details about the nature of the sexual images rather than using ambiguous screening questions without follow-ups. The rate of youth exposure to sexting highlights a need to provide them with information about legal consequences of sexting and advice about what to do if they receive a sexting image. However, the data suggest that appearing in, creating, or receiving sexual images is far from being a normative behavior for youth.
Comments
Is sexting "sexually explicit"?
This article is a welcome antidote to much nonsense promulgated in the wider world about sexting, much of it coming from police, DAs, politicians, and journalists.
There's a problem, however, that I see spreading. Although the article characterizes "sexually explicit" in a way that teens themselves may, they will have gotten it from suspect sources with dubious agendas, in a society where oversimplification and manipulation reach their nadir by often delimiting the visually "sexual" as an obsessive few square inches of body parts.
Are "breasts," presumably female, a euphemism for areolas or nipples? Regardless, in opposition to many media implications, neither the law nor other important discourses, such as the arts, consider "sexually explicit" solely in terms of certain visible body parts.
In the explanation on page 7, "sexually explicit" is unfortunately reinforced as a kind of easily grasped end point or worst case, and is stated as automatically criminal. That is manifestly not so the way it is used in the article. Yet some media outlets are already taking this up in reporting on the article by saying that any image showing breasts, genitals, or bottoms (!) is automatically bad, child pornography, or both.
The breakdown in Table 3 is more helpful in addressing this question but unfortunately isn't used beyond that.
In an article published today (2011 Dec. 08), I made the point that whatever may be visible (implying from whatever angle, distance, lighting, context, etc.), nudity is not automatically pornography and is not automatically even sexually explicit, because it does not imply sexual purpose or activity.
The problem in terminology helps to point out things that need to be said and done to put this subject into reasonable perspective. Unfortunately, the country shows no signs of "getting it" in the foreseeable future.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared