Researchers say it is mistaken to see sexting as “simply harmful”

By Emma Young Is sexting a good thing, because it’s sexually liberating, or a bad thing, because it’s objectifying? Separate research groups have put forward both arguments. But according to a new study of college students in Hong Kong, it’s both.  It’s estimated that roughly half of US college students (on which most research in this area has been done) send nude or sexually provocative images by phone or the internet. In the new study, reported in the Journal of Sex Research, the proportion was lower (13.6 per cent), perhaps because Chinese culture has a lower level of sexual permissiveness, but sexting was still relatively common, with almost one in five men and one in ten women saying they do it.  As the authors Mario Liong at Ritsumeikan University in Japan and Grand H.L. Cheng at the Duke-National University of Singapore, point out, some researchers have argued that sexting promotes objectification – the presentation of the body as an object to be judged, generally by prevailing cultural standards. But others have argued that it empowers people sexually, as they can be in more control of their own sexuality than they might be during a physical encounter. To investigate who might be right, Liong and Cheng recruited 361 students, aged between 17 and 24, who filled in questionnaires that asked first whether they had ever sexted, and then assessed their views on so-called “body surveillance” (how often during the day they think about how they look, ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Sex Technology Source Type: blogs