Sexting within young adults’ dating and romantic relationships
Introduction
From ‘swiping’ on Tinder and ‘tapping’ on Grindr, becoming ‘Facebook Official’ to stalking your ex-partner on Instagram, digital media have transformed how we initiate, maintain, and terminate our intimate relationships [1,2]. The characteristics of digital communication, such as invisibility, anonymity, the lack of non-verbal cues and the asynchronous nature of online communication, allow individuals to disclose information to their partners that they would otherwise not immediately share in offline settings (i.e., the online disinhibition effect) [3••]. One of the prime examples of the ‘online disinhibition effect’ is cybersex, the use of the Internet for sexually gratifying activities [4,5].
Over the past decade, research on the role of digital media in modern dating and romantic relationships has steadily grown. In this brief review, we will focus on the use of digital media to engage in sexting among (young) adults. Sexting is a more recent form of sexual communication that is used within casual and romantic relationships.
Section snippets
Sexting and its complicated definition
Sexting can be broadly defined as “the sharing of personal, sexually suggestive text messages, or nude or nearly nude photographs or videos via electronic devices” [6••; P.1]. Sexting has not been conceptualized uniformly across studies. Some studies use a broad definition, while others focus on specific types of content such as text messages or self-made sexually explicit images. The disagreement among scholars on how to define sexting makes it hard to accurately assess its prevalence and
Motivations for sexting
A majority of sexting research has focused on investigating the motivations for why individuals engage in sexting [12]. A sexting image may carry different meanings, depending on the context in which it is shared [13••]. In the early stages of dating and romantic relationships, sexting messages can be exchanged within the context of (online) dating as a means to flirt or to express sexual interest [6••,9,14]. The willingness to send a sext to a dating app match is associated with a lower
Sexting and experiences of abuse
Young adults, and especially young adult women, also report they often experience pressure to engage in sexting [9]. The pressure can be subtle by making women feel obligated or by repeated asking [20,27]. Women often feel they have to respond to the images to preserve their relationship or to avoid an argument with their partner [9,19,20,28]. That sexting may sometimes occur under pressure or in amore coercive relationship is also echoed by studies who found associations between sexting and
Sexting and psychosocial correlates
Another line of research focuses on the associations between sexting and several health outcomes. It will come as no surprise that sexting sometimes leads to physical sex [32], as it is often a built-up to sexual contact. Sexting is also associated with risky sexual behaviors (e.g., sex without protection, or substance use before having sex) [33•,34, 35, 36]. Sexting has also been associated with alcohol consumption [10,30,34,35,37, 38, 39].
One of the few exploratory studies on unsolicited
Can sexting improve romantic and sexual relationships?
Given that sexting often occurs within the context of a romantic relationship, several studies have looked into the question of whether sexting can improve romantic relationships. Among adults, these studies have found mixed results. Some studies have found a positive relationship between sexting and relationship satisfaction [48], while others have found no associations between sexting with a romantic partner and sexual satisfaction or relationship satisfaction [15,49]. Another study found an
Conclusions, outlook and future research
The aim of this short review was to provide an overview of recent sexting research, with a focus on young and emerging adults. Research on sexting started around 2009 [51]. While significant progress has been made over the past decade, the field of research on online sexual communication, and specifically sexting, is still emerging [51]. We see several challenges for future research in the area of sexting among (young) adults.
First, while a majority of sexting research has focused on examining
Funding source
The work of Dr Joris Van Ouytsel is supported by the Research Foundation Flanders (12J8719N) and the Research Fund of the University of Antwerp (BOF — Klein Project FFB200066). The writing of the report and the decision to submit the article for publication were the sole responsibility of the authors and were in no way influenced by the funding institutions.
Financial disclosure
The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose
Conflict of interest statement
Nothing declared.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:
• of special interest
•• of outstanding interest
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Joris Van Ouytsel: Conceptualization, Investigation, Project administration, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Narissra M Punyanunt-Carter: Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Michel Walrave: Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Koen Ponnet: Supervision, Writing - review & editing.
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2023, Telematics and InformaticsSexting behaviour among adolescents: Do friendship quality and social competence matter?
2023, Computers in Human BehaviorPhysically distant, virtually close: Adolescents’ sexting behaviors during a strict lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic
2022, Computers in Human BehaviorCitation Excerpt :Results showed that 40.9% of the adolescents engaged in at least one of the four types of sexting during this exceptional context. Presumably, social distancing stimulated sexting behaviors in adolescents as in Belgium in normal contexts, studies point to prevalence rates of 6.3% among early adolescents (12–15 years old) (Van Ouytsel et al., 2020) and 15% among late adolescents (15–18 years old) (Van Ouytsel et al., 2014). Such presumptions need to be interpreted with caution, as the current study did not examine adolescents’ sexting frequencies before and after a strict lockdown period and, therefore, could not test a possible evolution via the implementation of latent growth modeling.
The prevalence, context and perceptions of sexting among non-heterosexual men from various generations in Belgium
2022, Computers in Human BehaviorCitation Excerpt :Sexting, the sending of self-made sexually explicit images, is a contemporary form of sexual communication (Van Ouytsel, Punyanunt-Carter, Walrave, & Ponnet, 2020).
Online daters’ sexually explicit media consumption and imagined interactions
2022, Computers in Human BehaviorCitation Excerpt :Moreover, men are more likely to sext with casual sex partners than committed partners (Drouin et al., 2017). Although individuals in both serious and less committed relationships have been found to engage in sexting behaviors as well as pornography use (e.g., Carroll et al., 2017; Van Ouytsel et al., 2020), less attention is given to the role relationship preferences or desired relationship type may play in these sexualized media practices, particularly in zero-history relationships or in absence of offline meeting. Increasingly, more individuals are able to find and keep their relationships online.