“What Should I Do?”: Young Women’s Reported Dilemmas with Nude Photographs

The Associations between Substance Use, Sexual Behavior, Deviant Behaviors and Adolescents’ Engagement in Sexting: Does Relationship Context Matter?

“…During puberty, teenagers start to view and understand their bodies in sexual ways. For some adolescents, sexting can be a part of their developmental process and their needs for sexual experimentation (Thomas 2018). Adolescent sexting is a risk behavior, as the images could be forwarded or shown to others who were never intended to be the receiver.…”

A Rights-Based Approach to Youth Sexting: Challenging Risk, Shame, and the Denial of Rights to Bodily and Sexual Expression Within Youth Digital Sexual Culture

“…Tolman et al (2015) argue that girls and young women are rarely acknowledged as sexual subjects and, while they are implored to say no, there is little option for them to engage in volitional legitimate sexual and bodily expression. Thomas (2018), in an analysis of young women's self-reported "dilemmas with nude photographs" (p. 192), found that young women experience multiple pressures to sext and tend to see themselves as "reactors" rather than "agents" (p. 203). They privileged young men's desires and wants, and tended to criticise themselves and other young women rather than young men.…”

“…While Thomas (2018) notes that some young women likely consent to sexting and do not experience it as a dilemma, there is a need here for a narrative of rights around youth sexting (Albury 2017;Dobson 2018). García-Gómez (2016) found that teenage young women can challenge the idea that sexting is a problem through constructions of agency, knowingness, and control.…”

"It Doesn't Seem Like a Big Deal": A Media Ecology Analysis of Digital Teen Sexuality and Sexting Education

“…Themes of humor on social media and meme content ebb and flow based on socio-cultural trends, and one of those themes is requesting explicit photos by spelling out in various, and often humorous ways, 'send nudes' (Maycolacerda, 2010). While it is difficult to describe the details of these viral videos and images in a way that does justice to the humorous context, it is the popularity of a video which requests nude images that reflects a greater underlying existence of the common place of asking for explicit photos (Bradford, 2018) and the corresponding pressure associated with such blatant requests (Thomas, 2017). In her content analysis of digital drama stories from 462 women (the most frequent sex to receive nude photo requests) with a median age of 15, Thomas 2017concludes that "not all young women have the tools to say 'yes' or 'no' without consequences both internal (self-doubt and self-criticism) and external (social censure, mass distributed photographs, threats, and coercion)" (p. 204).…”

“…Individuals trained in and information related to sexting education both serve as beneficial resources to equip young adults who sext, yet neither are commonplace as a means to assist adolescent technological interaction. Thus, if sexting among teens is a growing trend (Strassberg et al, 2010;Lenhart, 2009) and is conveyed as normative (Thomas, 2017), how is the surrounding ripple, which is the cultural environment, responding to such digital evolution for the new normative teenage romantic experience? The answer, unfortunately, is not one of empowerment but of panic over moral corruption and corresponding disappointing educational consequences.…”