Sexting and Feminism

~ Laura

So, I just read Hanna Rosin’s long article in the Atlantic about sexting. The title of the article is “Why Kids Sext.” She doesn’t really tell me why they do it. She sorta says that kids don’t have time to interact in person, because they are so over scheduled. That explains late night texting and Instagramming, not so much the sexting.

And sexting doesn’t seem to be the correct word for the phenomenon that she’s describing. Sexting is mutual dirty talk using a cell phone. What she describes is girls flashing naked pictures to their boyfriends, some of whom are dirtbags who pass the photos around to friends. I don’t think that teenage boys are sending pictures of their parts to girls. That imbalance bothers me.

Also, she talks about girls sending these pictures to guys that they like and hope to date. Ugh. So much insecurity. What do these guys do? Just flip through the naked pictures of girls and pick out the best one? Ugh.

Published by Laura

9 thoughts on “Sexting and Feminism”

  1. I don’t think that teenage boys are sending pictures of their parts to girls. That imbalance bothers me.

    I’m just one man. I can’t turn the tide without help.

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  2. Ha. For what it’s worth, I’ve heard teenage girls complain about getting dick shots. High school culture varies some from region to region.

    This is what happens when kids feel good about their bodies. Bring back the universal body-shaming of our youth!

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  3. Now, isn’t that ’cause most boys don’t imagine that they will be able to attract a girl by sending them pictures of their parts? I think boys do nearly equivalently stupid things to attract girls.

    I do think, though, that part of the anti-slut-shaming/women take control of their bodies/sexuality culture has changed boy/girl interactions. As artemisia says, the “body-shaming”/chaperone/controlled interactions between boys/girls/”why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free” culture of the past demanded that girls reject sexual relationships. That demand and expectation gave them some power to avoid sexual relationships that seems to have diminished now (presuming that some girls don’t want them, and I can’t speak for anyone but myself — I certainly didn’t, when I was a teen).

    I think there are boys who now expect to flip through pictures of naked girls to pick them. Or that freshman girls will “hook up” with seniors in the chemistry lab at school (the St. Paul’s scandal, in which it’s apparently a tradition that popular senior boys will try to collect sexual encounters with freshman girls, and which became public after a 14? 15? year old freshman agreed to “hook up” thinking that meant kissing, but was then raped). Or that boys will initiate “drafts” (I think there was actually money involved) for selecting prom dates. I feel like there’s a culture of availability of girls (a change from the old days, when girls were not sexually available because of social/cultural convention) that’s shifting power balance between girls and the successful boys (with the unsuccessful boys being a by product, who see availability, but not for them).

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    1. Roughly, in the past, you had to be a rebel to engage in sexual activity (especially casual), and that would make you an outcast, at least if it was well known. Now, you’re potentially an outcast if you won’t engage in sexual activity (or sexting, or whatever the current mode of social interaction is). I don’t know when that standard arises, in a social group, but I’m pretty sure it’s there in college (i.e. college students are expected to be sexual activity). And, there’s some transition going on between middle school high school and college.

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      1. How far in the past did you have to be a rebel to have sex? Because when I started college in 1984 some of my friends were surprised that I had not had sex yet and thought I was quite a strong example of resisting high school peer pressure. I myself did not recall peer pressure either way. But I was very uncool in high school and thus no one cared what I did.

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      2. Hey, I am not the person to ask. But, I think there’s an assumption in my comment that girls want to resist the pressure, and, I think, that’s part of what complicates these discussions. If the majority of girls are equally eager, then the change I theorize is a good thing (assuming people are reasonable about protecting themselves from the physical risks).

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    2. “that’s shifting power balance between girls and the successful boys (with the unsuccessful boys being a by product, who see availability, but not for them).”

      Yes. At least judging from the sad tales of woe I see on the internet, there’s an vicious circle where the unsuccessful boys and men get more and more morose and withdrawn the more they see (or think they see) of others’ social and sexual success.

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  4. Haven’t read the Rosin article yet, but there was an interesting study of sexting recently:

    http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/133/2/e276.short

    On one hand, sexting is pretty low risk behavior, medically (excluding mental health, and social issues/interactions). One can’t catch communicable diseases or become pregnant by sexting.

    It’s been interesting reading the press about it. The study is of a “at-risk” sample of middle schoolers, but it’s often reported as representing middle-schoolers in general. Some folks point out the riskiness of the behavior, some with associations with physically riskier sexual behavior, some with the media/permanence of the behavior (as opposed to, say, flashing someone).

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