Not just revenge porn: Deakin study shows why people share sexts

Men are more likely to on-send private sexual images to boost their ego, while women do it because they think it’s funny, according to a Deakin University study pinpointing the drivers of sext dissemination for the first time.

The survey of more than 500 young adults found almost one in five had shown or shared a sext with another person for whom it was not initially intended, but this was rarely under the guise of revenge.

Sexting refers to the sending or receiving of sexually explicit images via an app or mobile phone.

Of those who responded to the Deakin survey, 85 per cent said they had received a sext and 73 per cent had sent one.

Deakin School of Psychology research fellow Elizabeth Clancy said while the sending and receiving of sexts could be considered an increasingly normal part of 21st century dating behaviour, it was worrying that the number of people on-sending these images was so high.

“Sexting in and of itself is not a bad and evil thing, but when sexts are disseminated without consent that is very problematic,” Ms Clancy said.

“Our study shows that not everyone who sends and receives sexts also distributes them, but nearly one in five do.

“While the term revenge porn is commonly known, our study shows it can be misleading as there can be other form of sext distribution, particularly those that occur outside a relationship breakdown.”

To investigate the motivations behind sext distribution, the team from Deakin’s School of Psychology conducted the world’s first empirical study, examining their associations with key personality traits.

Co-author Dr Bianca Klettke said the results, recently published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour, were somewhat surprising.

“We did not find sinister motivations to be the main driver in most cases,” Dr Klettke said.

“Revenge as a motivation was endorsed by only a very small number of participants as a reason for disseminating sexts, which shows that terms like ‘revenge porn’ should not be used interchangeably for sext dissemination.

“Overall, the main reason identified was that it was just not considered to be a ‘big deal’.

“For males another major motivator in disseminating sexts was to improve their social status, while females viewed on-sending the images as a joke or something funny.”

Dr Klettke said this was despite the fact that most respondents agreed forwarding sexts could have serious negative consequences.

“This nonchalant attitude is in stark contrast to the potentially adverse effects to those who are depicted in the images and those who engage in this potentially illegal behaviour,” she said.

“People don’t think it’s a big deal but it is illegal in many states, including Victoria and South Australia.

“And we know that it can have detrimental effects on victims, ranging from lost job opportunities to being bullied online.”

Dr Klettke said the only factor that made respondents less likely to distribute sexts was if they had themselves experienced negative consequences after having sent them.

“But knowing that someone else had experienced negative consequences did not have the same effect,” she said.

“This finding has important implications for prevention and education strategies and programs, which often provide examples of negative consequences experienced by others. Our findings suggest that this would be unlikely to impact sexting or sext dissemination behaviours.

“Our study also suggests different intervention approaches be used for men and women, particularly in reference to advancing social status as a motivator for men.”

/University Public Release. View in full here.