Sexting among singles in the USA: prevalence of sending, receiving, and sharing sexual messages and images

Abstract

The transmission of sexual images and messages via mobile phone or other electronic media (sexting) has been associated with a variety of mostly negative social and behavioural consequences. Research on sexting has focussed on youth, with limited data across demographics and with little known about the sharing of private sexual images and messages with third parties. The present study examines sexting attitudes and behaviours, including sending, receiving, and sharing of sexual messages and images, across gender, age, and sexual orientation. A total of 5805 single adults were included in the study (2830 women; 2975 men), ranging in age from 21 to 75+ years. Overall, 21% of participants reported sending and 28% reported receiving sexually explicit text messages; both sending and receiving 'sexts' was most common among younger respondents. Although 73.2% of participants reported discomfort with unauthorised sharing of sexts beyond the intended recipient, of those who had received sext images, 22.9% reported sharing them with others (on average with 3.17 friends). Participants also reported concern about the potential consequences of sexting on their social lives, careers, and psychosocial wellbeing. Views on the impact of sexting on reputation suggest a contemporary struggle to reconcile digital eroticism with real-world consequences. These findings suggest a need for future research into negotiations of sexting motivations, risks, and rewards.

Predicting the Willingness to Engage in Non-Consensual Forwarding of Sexts: The Role of Pornography and Instrumental Notions of Sex

“…The authors explained this age difference as the result of the particular outcome variable in this study resonating more with the higher sexual experience among adults (Peter & Valkenburg, 2011). Although equal prevalence rates of NFCS have been found among adolescents (e.g., 24%, Wood et al, 2015) and adults (e.g., 23%, Garcia et al, 2016), a negative correlation between age and NCFS has been found among a sample of adolescents and emerging adults , which suggests adolescents engage in NCFS more frequently than emerging adults.…”

“…Studies have shown that between 3 and 24% of adolescents (e.g., Fleschler Peskin et al, 2013;Mitchell, Finkelhor, Jones, & Wolak, 2012;Strassberg, Rullo, & Mackaronis, 2014;Wood, Barter, Stanley, Aghtaie, & Larkins, 2015), and about 23% of adults (Garcia et al, 2016) have ever engaged in NCFS. This suggests that the large majority of young people still refrain from engaging in such behavior, although social desirability bias may affect these numbers.…”

Demystifying sexting: Adolescent sexting and its associations with parenting styles and sense of parental social control in Israel

“…When it comes to sexting, the research literature is inconclusive regarding the effects of the gender variable. Some studies report finding no gender differences (Hudson & Fetro, 2015;Lenhart, 2009;Madigan et al, 2018), whereas others report that girls engage in sexting more than do boys (Mitchell et al, 2012;Reyns et al, 2014), and still others suggest that boys are more likely to sext than girls (Delevi & Weisskirch, 2013;Garcia et al, 2016;Klettke et al, 2018). A systematic search of databases (Klettke et al, 2014) showed that although findings relating to gender are somewhat mixed, there is some evidence that females may be more likely to send sexts than males and, accordingly, males may be more likely to receive them.…”

Sexting and mental health: A study of Indian and Australian young adults

“…In relation to gender differences amongst adults, two studies indicated that females were more likely to send a sext, noting that being female increased the odds of sending a nude or semi-nude picture or video by over five times (Reyns, Henson, & Fisher, 2014;Strohmaier, Murphy, & DeMatteo, 2014). In contrast, two studies found that males were more likely to participate in sexting behaviours (Delevi & Weisskirch, 2013;Garcia et al, 2016), while two studies found no gender differences in the participation of sexting behaviours (Burke Winkelman, Vail Smith, Brinkley, & Knox, 2014;Hudson & Fetro, 2015). These findings are similar to those of Klettke et al (2014), whose review also indicated mixed results.…”