King's College London

Sexting – the creating and exchanging of sexual texts, photos and videos – has become part of many people’s sexual and romantic lives. In an age where interpersonal relations often take place through digital technology, particularly since the pandemic, understanding sexting can help us better understand intimacy.

Discussions around this topic inevitably involve concerns about sexual consent, and violation of it. One frequent concern is the risk of intimate image abuse, where private sexual images are shared without the consent of the person depicted. Another is the risk of receiving unsolicited or non-consensual “dick pics”.

These violations can and do affect people of any gender identity. But research suggests that both types of violation particularly affect girls and women, who are more likely to be victims of the non-consensual further sharing of intimate images and to receive unsolicited dick pics. Girls are also more likely than boys to report feeling pressured into sending nudes or other sexual content.

In my research, I have explored how men and women experience and navigate consent when sexting in heterosexual relationships.

I have found that consent is central to the sexting practices of both women and men, but that they approach it differently. Overall, the women I spoke to were most concerned about the risk of having their consent violated. The men, on the other hand, were more worried about the risk of accidentally violating the consent of the person they were sexting with.

Women’s experiences

Between June 2016 and February 2017, I interviewed 44 women about their use of digital media and technology in their romantic and sexual relations. A core part of this involved discussion about their experiences of sexting. Our conversations focused especially on their experiences of sexting with men, and on their notions of intimacy, risk and trust.

My participants primarily saw mitigating the risk of intimate image abuse as an individual responsibility. In other words, these women saw themselves as responsible for ensuring that their consent was not violated by a sexting partner.

They reflected on the importance of women taking charge to protect themselves. For example, by not placing their trust in the “wrong” kind of person when sexting. Many employed tactics to reduce risk, from not showing their face in an image, to establishing close connections with the friends and family of their sexting partner.

As one participant in her mid-20s explained: “I do try to meet their family and friends beforehand, just so, if anything does happen, I can kind of go and tell his mum.”

Just as the women focused on their individual responsibility for reducing risk, they also understood men as individually responsible for the sexism of sending unsolicited dick pics. Overall, they saw it as an issue of some men behaving badly, rather than part of a broader, systemic issue. This view differs from that of scholars in this area, who have linked non-consensual dick pics to wider misogyny and social issues like rape culture.

Men’s experiences

The 15 interviews I conducted with men took place between May 2022 and May 2023, five years after the interviews with women. During these intervening years, the #MeToo movement gained global reach. This movement raised awareness about the widespread, social and structural issues that lead to sexual consent violations and abuse of power in sexual relations.

This research, the findings of which will be published in a forthcoming book chapter, coincided with what many have recognised as a backlash to #MeToo. This backlash (in politics, entertainment and wider society) has manifested in, for example, the advance of the manosphere and crackdowns on sexual and reproductive rights.

Only one participant mentioned #MeToo specifically, noting its role in putting sexual consent on the agenda. However, it was clear that the rapidly changing and tumultuous social and political landscape regarding sexual consent informed the mens’ experiences.

One participant in his late thirties stressed how an interest in consent was what made him want to participate in an interview. He said: “I’ve grown up through a period where … understanding about consent has changed a lot. Men of my age … I just think we’re very ill prepared for the expectations of modern society.”

My women participants had been most concerned to protect themselves from having their consent violated. But the men appeared to be most worried about the possibility that they might violate a woman’s consent by not having ensured sexual consent when sexting.

Some participants struggled with managing what they understood as conflicting messages regarding women’s expectations of men when sexting. For some, it meant avoiding sexting they saw as “risky”. For others, it meant continuously establishing consent by checking in with a partner.

Moving forward

Overall, my interviews revealed that both men and women take consent seriously, and are eager to prevent its violation.

This is something I explored further in workshops with other researchers, relevant charities and stakeholders. Our discussions, summarised in the Consent in Digital Sexual Cultures report, stress the importance of creating room (for young men especially) to explore ideas around consent without worrying about social repercussions.

Charities like Beyond Equality and Fumble are already creating spaces for such discussions in their meetings with young people at school, in the university and online. We also need to see more of these discussions taking place in the home, at government level and through collaboration with tech companies.

Navigating consent in sexual relationships has long been a fraught task for many. Digital technology has created new opportunities for sexual interaction, but also for the violation of consent. We need spaces for dialogue, to help us figure out – together – what good sexual consent practice is and should look like, for everyone involved.