This time, we are changing things up a little and giving over a WHOLE Youth Updates to the topic of sexting. Never fear though – our word of the month is still making an appearance!
We are delighted to have been able to interview Jon Needham, who works as National Director of Safeguarding for a large education and social change charity. He’s currently in the 3rd year of a PhD looking at the motivations for sexting in teenagers and the external factors that influence behaviours, alongside being a father of 3, volunteer youth-worker for 33 years and an avid fan of Korean Dramas!
This interview gives a really practical foundation from which to consider this topic and the below is an abridged version of the interview – do listen to the podcast for the full shebang!
ISSUES: SEXTING
How is sexting defined and what’s its prevalence in the UK? Is it a big deal?!
The word sexting is a combination of the words sex and texting. Initially, it just meant indecent photos but has now expanded to include written text messages, voice notes, e-mails, links to porn or self-made films, hand-drawn images, collaged images (eg. someone’s head on someone else’s body) and so forth.
Is it a big issue? In short – yes. The government commissioned a meta-analysis of different research papers in 2021 which said that 22% of teens were involved in sexting in the UK. On the other hand, research carried out by Jon in 2018/19 showed 43% of teen boys were involved in sexting in both an active and passive sense; and initial analysis shows it has gone up to 57% since then. So yes, it’s a prevalent issue in the UK.
How can sexting be perceived by young people and professionals?
From a youth-worker/schools/professionals point of view, it is often seen as a risky or deviant behaviour, which then often implies risk. However, from a teen perspective, it is probably not seen as being from a risk-taking stance but as a normal teenage behaviour and as part of normal development (and that ‘everybody is doing it’).
There is a paradigm of risk and normalcy.
Furthermore, in schools/classes the message conveyed is usually ‘it’s illegal and you can be arrested if you do it’, but then there are people in the classroom thinking “I’ve done it, I’ve not been arrested and so I’m not going to listen anymore”.
Are there risks associated with sexting?
If your standpoint and view is that sexting is a social deviance, then you’ll naturally associate it with risk. Certainly, where sexting is coerced or done with the intent to harm or to share images without consent then there is risk and harm there, and it is a criminal offense.
On the other standpoint, if it’s considered that two teens are in love, then ‘where’s the harm in that?’. In fact, some viewpoints see sexting as ‘safe sex’ as it’s often done in a bedroom and means less pregnancies, STI’s etc.
Also, some research says there may be links between sexting and poor parenting, or an association with delinquency. However, it’s the case of the chicken and egg – which comes first?
There is also little evidence that sexting will have an impact on someone’s long term career. Often, regarding sexting, people believe that it could affect being able to get a job in the future, but this is not necessarily the case when sexting has been between two consenting teens.
What is the legal position and stance taken by the Police?
Images of under 18s are illegal. Full stop, no discussion. It is often referred to as child porn, but child porn is a wrong term, as children can’t consent to porn – the actual classification is images of child abuse.
When it comes to the stance by police, it comes down to motivation. If it is two teens who are ‘in love’, they’ll judge it’s not in the best interest to prosecute and they will most likely get ‘outcome 21’ – something only police can give out that essentially means ‘you’ve done something wrong but won’t be prosecuted, there’s no punishment and no recorded crime’.
However, if you’ve done it with criminal intent (eg. coerced someone or shared an image without consent or are an adult getting child images) then it is a criminal offence and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent.
It comes down to looking at the motivation behind an image.
As youth workers how should we deal with this topic? In our youth work sessions or in response to a disclosure, for example?
When asking young people what they want to learn, they’ll often say they’re sick of learning old information that they’ve heard a hundred times – they want stuff that’s relevant and new. We need to be addressing sexting; not just romantic relationships in general but taking it a step further. Especially if it is prevalent, it needs mentioning in the work that we do.
We need to not shy away just because we feel uncomfortable. We can’t expect young people to come talk to us about something if we never mention it, but the more open we are about things then the more likely they will come to us saying ‘I have a problem, can I talk about it?’.
Secondly if we do have a disclosure, we need to consider ourselves privileged as a young person has identified us as someone they can trust, share something deep with, and feel they can talk to us about it.
We need to consider the motivation behind the sexting issue and whether the parents should be involved. Also, there are organisations like internet watch and ChildLine who can actively remove images off the internet.
Note: For more detail, listen to the podcast! This content provides a great, practical foundation when considering how we can approach this topic in relation to faith and in our groups and contexts.
Word of the month:
‘bop’
A really good song.
‘Mariah Carey’s song ‘all I want for Christmas is you’ is such a bop’
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