‘I guess girls can be more emotional’: Exploring the complexities of sextual consent with young people

Sexting

While the definition of sexting varies in the literature, Ringrose et al. (2012) use the term broadly and inclusively to encompass sexually explicit texts and images, and explore how they are taken and shared in peer-networked activity. Sexting is underpinned by a set of understandings around consent and privacy (Hasinoff and Shepherd, 2014). Young people report sexting for various reasons including flirting, exploring their sexuality and their sexual identities or as joke or a bonding ritual (van Oosten et al., 2017). Research shows that only a small minority of teens make and/or distribute sexting images, and of those most do not report significant distress or harm (Salter et al., 2013). Most who do send images do so consensually (Döring, 2014), and many young people do not consider sexting to be wrong. However, there are concerns around pressure, coercion and non-consensual distribution of images, which can be distressing, and potentially harmful (Setty, 2018). For some young people, sexting is considered a ‘gift’ (Lee and Crofts, 2015), dependant on the actions of the person who receives the ‘gift’, or proof of love (van Oosten et al., 2017) given through fear of losing a relationship (Cooper et al., 2016). In both cases, the trust of the original sender is undermined. Many young women feeling pressured to consent to producing sexual images and young men must negotiate competitive masculinity. Manifestations of competitive masculinity include pressure to receive an image of someone else (usually female) and forward it without their consent (Ringrose et al., 2012). Here, female’s bodies are commodified as a sort of social currency. Sending intimate images requires young women to carefully manage their desire for desirability and the risk of being labelled a slut (Ringrose et al., 2012).

Gender, sexting and consent

A clear gender imbalance and a sexual double standard persists (Mascheroni et al., 2015). The interest in and prevalence of sexting has been linked to the sexualisation of culture and in particular the sexualisation of young women. According to McNair (2002), this has led to a renegotiation of the boundary between public and private, which is intimately linked with consent. Women are viewed as being more sexualised (Hasinoff and Shepherd, 2014) yet they are required to remain private, pure and morally responsible for protecting their ‘virginal bodies’ from male sexuality (Willem et al., 2019). By privileging male sexuality, young women’s bodies and their sexual experiences are somehow the property of young men (Ringrose et al., 2012).

If an intimate image or text is shared without the sender’s consent, repercussions are almost always more harmful for the woman (Hasinoff and Shepherd, 2014). By placing responsibility of risk and harassment on the woman, the implication is that the non-consensual distribution of intimate images is a result of women’s supposedly bad choices, which diverts attention away from the people responsible for privacy violations (Hasinoff, 2014). Victim blaming narratives are entrenched and breaking of trust by young men is naturalised and accepted (Setty, 2019). Women are assumed to be aware and responsible for their choices and their social identities, and they ‘deserve’ the negative consequences that may arise (Mascheroni et al., 2015). The ‘slut’ stigma reduces women’s social status and cultural capital (Willem et al., 2019), popular misogyny becomes commonplace (Banet-Weiser, 2018), and the cultural practices that reproduce and justify the perpetration of sexual aggression and violence (Rentschler, 2014: 67) by men towards women, becomes the norm.

Rape culture is often shrouded in a tradition of silence that further harms young women (Ringrose et al., 2012). Instead of careful consideration of the power relations that underpin rape culture, initiatives focus on ‘empowering’ young women and gendered double standards are transferred towards media literacy (Gill, 2012). A prioritisation of media literacy as remedy for young women to be confident and knowing (and hetero-sexy) places additional onus on women to be responsible, self-governing individuals (Gill, 2012). Yet, the heteronormative and misogynistic circumstances in which they live remain unchanged.

Navigating consent: Gendered norms and practices

While sexting is a relatively recent practice, the young people who participated in this research were creating their own norms and practices around the sharing of intimate images, colloquially called nudes. A set of informal norms and expectations around consent and privacy were evident in each of the schools visited. Nudes were usually sent to boys for their pleasure. Discussions of young women’s desire were largely absent from these discussions. The majority of the young people involved in this study felt that sharing nudes in the context of a relationship was okay, but they emphasised the potential for the images to be shared non-consensually after the ending of a relationship or friendship. The participants made clear distinctions between positive and negative experiences, which were closely linked to whether consent was given to create and share the images. The term ‘consent’ was rarely used by the young people in this study; ‘asking permission’ was more common. They most often viewed consent as abstract and passive, more aligned with permission seeking and granting. Consent was more closely associated to sending an image rather than receiving one. Consent was most often communicated non-verbally and implicitly. For the participants, consent was not an abstract one-off event that happened in a vacuum, requests for intimate images usually came after a period of flirting, and on occasion the requestor would send (usually) his image in the hope of receiving on in return

Things like he does things like says really nice things so compliments you or your things. It’s like you owe him something. I mean you’re not in the moment to think about the things that could happen. It’s not that you don’t have respect for yourself; it’s that sometimes you don’t think about that moment. You only think about that time you guys are talking. [female]

If an image was shared non-consensually, the community in which young people lived was important than how many people saw the image.

Researcher: would it be worse if you sent me an image and I shared it with everyone around this table but no more or you sent me an image; I didn’t share it but it was hacked and 100 people saw it in America? [mixed sex group]

Biological explanations were often used by both male and female participants to justify boys’ actions regarding intimate images. Males, as people, were considered as oversexualised, ‘it is what society says is normal, but it’s boys are oversexualised; girls are I guess under’ yet girl’s bodies were discussed in more sexual terms than boys, ‘big boobs’, ‘thigh gaps’ and ‘thick-thin’.

Young men were described as the ‘dominant sex’, some young women felt they were unable to ‘control when they get a boner and things like that and so in that sense maybe that gives them an excuse’ and variations of the phrase ‘boys will be boys. That’s just them. That’s who they are’, was used regularly. Nudes from boys usually contained a photo of a penis. Male participants felt this was a safer way to share intimate images. Some of the male participants commented

It’s as simple as this, and just have like one rule that I stick by; you just don’t put your face in it! No-one really knows who you are! Just don’t put your face in it, but chicks always put their face in it and it’s no wonder everyone knows, because you’ve literally put yourself in the spotlight. [male]

In addition to the pressure on young women to send images, there was pressure on young men to share them with their friends. In doing so, the girl’s images become social currency.

Pressured; highly pressured. I think peer pressure is an incredibly strong thing; especially when it comes to human emotion, sex and stuff. Yeah, under a lot of pressure. [female]

Normative masculinity and gendered harm

Breaches in consent were consistently considered to be more harmful for the girl. Reported breaches ranged from intimate images being forwarded to friends or What’s App groups, being uploaded to the internet and in one case, of one young woman’s intimate images was shared without consent, copied several hundred times and attached to the back of chairs in a school hall before assembly. This resulted in her being bullied, moving schools and suffering emotional harm. For others, harms included humiliation, distress and anxiety, being bullied or ostracised from friendship groups, being targeted for sexual harassment and being punished by their school and parents.

It would feel a bit like rape but not rape at the same time; it’s like mental rape I guess. [female]

Digital literacy

While many female groups recognised that there was gendered imbalance to how consent was conceptualised, they alluded to boys not understanding or appreciating this due to a lack ‘of personal experience’ about the pressure to give consent and the impact of consent being breached.

Regarding the importance of gender when thinking about consent, young women felt they received targeted talks about consent which ignored the role of boys. The following is from an all-female group interview

Researcher: do you think gender is important when we think about consent?

Negotiating gendered consent

A set of informal norms and expectations around consent and privacy were evident in each of the schools visited. The process of consenting is a complex and nuanced endeavour, yet, for many young people consent merely involved asking permission or agreeing to a request. Trust was an important aspect for respecting the privacy of the sender and this was often related to whether or not the sender and receiver were in a relationship, prioritising relationships over sex and sexual activity (Clarke et al., 2018), and thus upholding the socially produced public/private binary (Clarke, 2018). The young people acknowledged that consent to send an intimate image didn’t happen in isolation, usually it was after a period of flirting and on occasion the requestor would send their image in the hope of receiving on in return. Most participants agreed that a gender imbalance existed, with young women being viewed as innocent but at risk of being tainted through young men’s desire (Mascheroni et al., 2015; Ravn et al., 2021). While the potential for young women to be victimised was regularly discussed, there was little discussion around the place for women’s pleasure or desire in consenting to send or receive intimate images. These norms were rigid and difficult to challenge.

Scholarship consistently highlights the complexity of both men’s and women’s understanding of sexual activity (e.g., Allen, 2003), yet the conceptualisation of men as sexually aggressive and women as sexually passive, eventually ‘submitting’ to men, has been influential (Jackson, 1984). Normative behaviour expectations for ‘men’ and ‘women’ as binary categories, where ‘dominant’ men held power over women were accepted and reproduced. Boys requested intimate images more often than girls. They were more likely to share these images more than girls. Gendered differences between sexual activity are often considered to be determined biologically, despite the critical interviews of feminism and queer theory (Hasinoff, 2015: 50). The young people who participated in this research often justified boys’ actions, both requesting and non-consensually sharing images, as biological and out of their control. These culturally pervasive assumptions about gender influenced how the young participants understood sextual consent – boys versus girls, often simplistically and without nuance or impact of power relations.

Intimate images were almost always categorised differently. Female images were nudes, usually requested, male images were dick pics, often unsolicited. Girls were expected to include their faces in the images, as it was requested by the person who wanted the image. These images then became embodied and of greater harm if shared non-consensually later on. Dick pics maintained an emotional disconnection (Mascheroni et al., 2015) and an element of deniability. Most of the dick picks received were unsolicited and so a request was not made for a specific type of image, for example, including the boy’s face. Women’s images were often viewed as gifts, relationship bonds or as proof of love, whereas unsolicited dick pics were understood as mainly confirming the sender’s masculinity through online territory marking. A product of young men's privilege and entitlement over their female counterparts (Waling and Pym, 2019), unsolicited dick pics became a gendered power exercise. This facilitated the production of gender through the young people’s bodies. Rather than gender being passively inscribed on the intimate images, the nature and reception of the images produced social realities in which young women’s images held more ‘value’ than young men’s by including more of the sender’s sexualised body and indeed their identity. This framing naturalises and legitimates the unequal treatment of young women who have their images shared – their images are deemed more desirable (Ravn et al., 2021) and more vulnerable to being shared. Even though some boys are criticising and shaming girls for creating images, this unequal treatment creates an exchange value (Mascheroni et al., 2015) and young women’s images become social currency within the school setting.

(Re)producing gendered harm

Longstanding idealised notions of masculinity are centred on toughness and emotional disconnection (Mascheroni et al., 2015), whereas femininity is conceptualised around purity. This creates a situation in which some young women are pressured by young men to create and send nudes. These images usually contained the girl’s face and body, at the request of the boy. Young men are required to remain emotionally disconnected and some are expected to share their ‘prize’ with their peers. By reproducing long-standing gendered double standards around sexuality and body display, scenarios are developed whereby young men are expected to be interested in pictures of young women’s bodies and pressure to create intimate images is almost accepted (Dobson, 2015). In doing so, a situation is created whereby consent is expected, and while withdrawal is possible in theory, it is much harder in practice.

Sharing images without consent was undoubtedly more harmful for the young women. Female victims were subjected to bullying, slut shaming, reputational damage, loss of social status and cultural capital. Men have been encouraged to be sexually liberated, yet women have consistently received a negative response for what is perceived to be ‘excessive’ or ‘overt’ sexual activity. Young women are considered to be ‘good’ and ‘bad’ according to their (sexting) behaviour (Willem et al., 2019). Good girls remain innocent while ‘bad girls’ are held responsible for not having been able to protect their bodies from boy’s sexual desires. Responsibility for the risk associated with non-consensual sharing was firmly placed on the sender. Some young women felt that having a flattering photo shared was less damaging as it reduced the likelihood of being bullied should the image be shared, suggesting some felt there was an almost inevitable likelihood to having the image shared, even though the majority of images are not shared non-consensually. Women continue to be held responsible for their sexual choices (including ‘bad decisions’, see Fine and McClelland, 2006). These societal understandings sit within a framework of ‘think desire’, that is racist, hetero-normative public policies (Fine and McClelland, 2006) which influence young women’s views of their bodies, others’ views as well as the resources which they can access.

Sexting is a practice through which young people were negotiating their sexual identities. Risk and harm narratives dominated discussions around sending nudes, yet overarching gender inequalities were taken-for-granted even though they uphold the blaming of young female victims. In sexualising both male and female bodies, discourses around masculinity were mediated and femininity were policed (Setty, 2019). Based on a system of reward and shame, young women were pressured to perform more highly sexualised femininities as well as managing of punitive associated risks (Ravn et al., 2021). If an image is shared without consent, young women’s sexual agency that is the problem (Banet-Weiser, 2018). This reproduces narratives of young women’s responsibility for harassment, while breaking of trust by young men is naturalised (Setty, 2019). This misogyny is accepted through sentiments that ‘boys will be boys’ when they commit sexual violence (Banet-Weiser, 2018).

The vast majority of young participants felt that blame for an image being shared non-consensually should to some degree rest with the creator, especially if they were a girl as they should have ‘known the risks’. Being labelled ‘stupid’, ‘dumb’ or a ‘slut’ is one of a myriad of ways through which girls’ subordination to boys is reproduced. Victim blaming allows those who forward the images without consent, to avoid blame, shame and resultant consequences. Instead, the victim is doubly impacted. Victim blaming, usually around a girl’s reputation, was enacted by both girls and boys and reduced the victim’s social status and cultural capital (Willem et al., 2019). Victim blaming was routine and compounded by self-victim blaming.

Digital literacy or social reproduction: Learning to be a girl

Neoliberal ideals place the management of well-being on the individuals. This individualised sense of risk translates into the apportion of blame, and victim-blaming (Ravn et al., 2021). If an image was shared non-consensually, the overall perception was that it was more harmful if it was seen by the offline community, such as friends, teachers, parents and siblings. This was considered to be more damaging than having an image uploaded and shared in a different jurisdiction, even if it was for sexual purposes and a greater number of people saw it. This is related to notions of shame and having made bad decisions. Shame included both the viewing of the intimate image as well as having private trust publicly violated. Similarly, having made a bad decision referred to both sending the image as well as trusting the receiver. This speaks to the importance of reputation, status and capital. Yet, for many of the young participants, unsafe sexting was deemed to be due to a lack of digital literacy – or online risk management – rather than the structural context in which images are shared.

Gill (2012) has provided valuable insights around the status of ‘media literacy’ in debates about ‘sexualization’. She questions the efficacy of media/digital literacy as it shifts the responsibility onto young people to think critically and deconstruct media, while misunderstanding the complexity of young people’s relations to media and omits the importance of other kinds of affective responses including shame and desire (p.737). A focus on digital literacy alone denies scope for conversations around gender, power and culture, or how young people from different socio-cultural backgrounds navigate these relations (Willem et al., 2019). Digital literacy provides an easy answer – an individualistic focus on something tangible, rather than a collective focus on culture. In doing so, it places further responsibility on young people, particularly young women, to be digitally literate, to be desired, to be pure, and to protect themselves. This is at the expense of creating better conditions for young women to make sexual choices – both on and offline - with which they are happy (Gill, 2012: 743).

By reproducing long-standing gendered double standards around sexuality and body display, scenarios are developed whereby young men are expected to be interested in pictures of young women’s bodies and pressure to create intimate images is almost accepted (Dobson, 2015). In doing so, an environment is created whereby consent is expected, and while withdrawal is possible in theory, it is much harder in practice. By doing so we do not allow for conversations around issues such the length of consent for an image and the importance of honouring consent. This brings to issues to the fore – coercion is not consent, and receiving an image does not mean the receiver owns the image. This is particularly relevant for young people who are forwarding and collecting these images. When consent is breached, we often look to problematising the (usually young woman) who created and sent the image, rather than the breach of trust from the distributer (Lee and Crofts, 2015). In viewing both acts as equally wrong, we have delegitimised the victim’s experience and allowed space for further digital harassment to follow (Dobson, 2015). Some of the young people’s discussions brought to mind the dangerous adage ‘it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission’. Such a mindset, compounded by some young men’s desire for status, and potential for female nudes to become viable social currency creates a dynamic where victims’ rights and wellbeing are ignored or downgraded in relation to popularity. By affording young women agency in sexting and by including a range of experiences, positive as well as victimisation, we can begin to address current gendered power imbalances regarding intimate images. In positioning women as demure, passive ‘pre-victims’ we delegitimise the desire to be desired. To repair this situation, the gendered double standard must be dismantled at all levels. There needs to be space for young women engage in meaningful dialogue around how they experience their sexualities, the legitimacy of wanting to be desired and the gendered-powered-culture in which they live. If we legitimised this desire, there is potential for a decrease in peer harassment if consent is breached (Dobson, 2016) and a space to deconstruct notions of blame and shame. Only then can we fully understand the possibilities and limitations of their sexuality (Rice and Watson, 2016) and sexual activity both on and offline.