There’s More to Sexting Than You May Think
Study shows that when it comes to sexting, it’s complicated
Someone is chatting it up with a love interest and things get spicy. In the heat of the moment, they decide to send a naked photo to make the flames of lust even hotter. The two continue sexting to keep the temperature high enough to tide them over until they can get together and see the real thing in person.
Although this is often the scenario when it comes to sexting, according to research by sociology expert Morgan Johnstonbaugh, there’s a lot more to sexting than you may think.
“Women might find sexting to be really empowering because you can create a space where you feel safe expressing your sexuality and exploring your body.”
In a survey of 1,000 college students — where participants were given 23 reasons for sexting and asked to choose as many as they wanted — Johnstonbaugh found that for women, ensuring that the man they were sexting with remained interested in them, and didn’t develop a wandering eye, was a strong motivator for their behavior. In fact, women were four times more likely to report keeping interest alive as their reason for sexting than men.
“The sexual double standard is this idea that’s perpetuated in society that men and women have different types of sexuality — that men have uncontrollable, voracious desires, whereas women are capable of making moral decisions and acting as the gatekeepers to sexual activity,” explained Johnstonbaugh. “With this idea in mind, women may feel pressured to share images with their boyfriends in order to keep them interested or to please their appetite.”
But that’s not the whole story. Johnstonbaugh found that women were also four times more likely than men to say they sent nude photos of themselves to feel empowered, and twice as likely to send them to increase their confidence. In many cases, the study respondents who gave these reasons for sending naked pictures also said they wanted to keep their sexting partner interested.
“Women might find sexting to be really empowering because you can create a space where you feel safe expressing your sexuality and exploring your body,” said Johnstonbaugh. “The fact that women are more likely to feel both empowered and disempowered — that they’re selecting both of these options when thinking about the same event — highlights the fact that women have more to gain from a potentially beneficial interaction, but they also have more to lose.”
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Source:
Motivations for sexting can be complicated, UA researcher says. EurekAlert. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/684114