Protections for teens on Snapchat have been slow coming and lacking features of other social media competitors.¹

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

Last week Snap Inc., Snapchat’s parent company, released a group of new features targeting 13-17 year olds on the platform. These new features are designed to create a “more age-appropriate viewing experience.”²

But what draws teens, drug dealers³, and those looking to sexually exploit teens to Snapchat?

The Myth of Security on Snapchat

Snapchat’s primary appeal is its perceived security.

Disappearing messages and images, combined with the gamification of “snap streaks,” makes the platform appealing to teens.

The former is also what draws people with untoward intent to Snapchat. The promise of being able to disappear.

The Anatomy of a Snap

Users can send texts, images from their camera roll, and images/videos taken with the app, known as snaps, within a conversation.

Unless texts, images, or snaps are saved to the chat, they disappear after viewing, or within 24 hours. Further, snaps can be set to disappear immediately after viewing, with the ability to view them a second time, or to be retained if the receiver saves the snap.

However, users can retain messages by saving them to the chat, taking a screenshot, or saving them to camera roll. The last two options will send a notification so the sender knows what’s happening with the content.

On the other hand, if a user uses a third-party application, not the built-in screenshot method, to record the screen, no notification will be sent. I bring this up to reinforce the fact that things that happen online can last forever.

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See the latest research on criminality related to social media:

• Social Anxiety and Loneliness in Online Solicitation Offenders

See more articles related to social media

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What are the New Features Protecting Teens on Snapchat?

• Safer Contact
  • In-App Warnings
    • A warning pops up if a teen adds someone who isn’t in their phone’s contacts and they don’t share enough mutuals with.
  • Stronger Friending Protections
    • Higher number of mutual friends before Snapchat recommends someone. As well as requiring a higher number of mutuals before allowing a friend request to happen.
• New Strike System for Accounts Promoting Age-Inappropriate Content
  • Content promoted by media organizations, verified creators, and random users is vetted to ensure age appropriateness. Violations result in content, then accounts being removed.
• Education About Common Online Risks
  • Informational productions created in conjunction with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) about:
    • Catfishing
    • Financial sextortion
    • Taking and sharing explicit images
    • And more

Accessible via parents.snapchat.com, a handy family center walks parents through the process of setting up an account for themselves and their children with both text and videos.

However, the protections offered are predicated on parents setting up a child’s account. If your child created an account without your knowledge, you’re out of luck.

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If you’re unfamiliar with sextortion, check out Dr. Jen’s article How to Protect Your Child from Sextortion.

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How do Other Social Media Apps Protect Teens?

YouTube and TikTok are the most used apps by teens. Occupying spots three and four are Instagram and Snapchat.⁴

I’ll quickly eliminate YouTube and TikTok. Because the former doesn’t have messaging, and the latter has limited messaging capabilities.

Instagram allows users to send text, pictures, and videos and has taken extra steps in utilizing AI to:

• Identify problematic accounts⁵
• Blur images that may contain “sensitive media”⁶

Both of these technologies are available to Snapchat, but aren’t utilized.

Protecting teens on Snapchat, particularly young girls, from unsolicited explicit images should be paramount.

“…adolescents often underestimate risks and perceive greater potential benefits from risky behavior.”

Smith, Chein, and Steinberg, 2014

Protecting Teens on Snapchat is Secondary to Profits

There is a fundamental disconnect between management and reality about how Snapchat is used. Beyond understanding its usage, particularly teens on Snapchat, executives don’t understand how users get their apps. When called before congress, Snap’s executives weren’t able to answer why their app is rated differently between devices and app stores.⁷

Furthermore, the measures designed to save teens from themselves are invasive. The in-app warnings require teens share their contact list with Snapchat. While this is an opt-in feature, it is still an invasion of privacy.

Matters that concern privacy should always be opt-in, especially for teens.

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Learn why it’s important for everyone, especially teens, to be able to control their online experiences. Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it?

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Using AI for Fun and Profit

An artificial intelligence was released earlier this year, called “My AI.” It was marked for wide-release to all Snapchat accounts on February 27.

A journalist at the Washington Post created an account posing as a thirteen year old. The artificial intelligence engaged in discussions about sexual relationships and alcohol with that user.

Contrary to their guidelines, My AI wasn’t adjusted for age-appropriateness. Consequently, teens on Snapchat are now being exposed to explicit talk from peers, older people, and machines.

Again, Snap Inc seems more interested in “moving fast and breaking things” to capitalize on tech buzz than ensuring the safety of teens on Snapchat.

Separating Moral Panic from Reality to Protect Your Teens on Snapchat

Even though I’m not a fan of the business model of monetizing users against their will, I do believe that Snapchat can be a valuable outlet for teens.

Teens need to feel a sense of security and privacy to talk to their friends. They also need to be included in the now-integral to life social media experience.

But this doesn’t change the fact that teenagers are prone to taking risks without considering consequences.⁸ Fostering healthy emotional development starts at home.

Creating an open environment to discuss concerns and experiences starts long before your child asks for Snapchat. Put in the work as a parent, build mutual trust.

After you’ve formed that foundation, it’s much easier to give them freedom to explore safely.

And with your oversight.

TL/DR

• Snapchat needs to do more to protect teens and be a better steward of social media.
• Parents need to create an environment that fosters mutual trust.
• Teens need to feel free to explore and secure enough to ask for advice.
• Parents can visit parents.snapchat.com for more information about how Snapchat is helping them to protect their children.

References

1. Snap’s Dangerous New AI Risks Exposing Children to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse EndSexualExploitation.org ↩︎
2. Introducing New Safeguards to Protect our Community values.snap.com ↩︎
3. When one pill kills NBCNews.com ↩︎
4. Teens and social media: Key findings from Pew Research Center surveys PewResearch.org ↩︎
5. What’s Being Done to Protect Teens on Instagram and Messenger? DrJensRecoveryReadings.com ↩︎
6. Updates to the Sensitive Content Control about.instagram.com ↩︎
7. YouTube and Snapchat were asked to defend their apps’ age ratings in Senate hearing TechCrunch.com ↩︎
8. The Current Landscape of Adolescent Risk Behavior National Library of Medicine www.NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov ↩︎

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses? Then you should stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Then you should consult with a professional.

The post New Efforts to Protect Teens on Snapchat first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, will be using automated systems and giving parents more visibilityto protect teens on their platforms.

How Does Meta Currently Protect Teens?

Prior to these latest changes, Meta already did the following:

• Messages to teens from adults over 19 are blocked, unless the teen follows the adult
• Teens receive safety notices when messaged by adults who have previously exhibited suspicious behavior
• “Take a Break”
  • Suggests taking a break after scrolling for a ‘certain amount of time’
  • Daily Limit, allowing users to set a maximum amount of time in the app
• Quiet Mode: limits notifications and messages when enabled

---

See the latest research on criminality related to social media:

• Social Anxiety and Loneliness in Online Solicitation Offenders

See more articles related to social media

---

What are the new features?

The following features, available in the US, UK, and Canada to start, rolled out on June 27, 2023.

Invites for DM

Adults must now send an invite to connect via direct message. Only one invite is allowed to be sent per day, limiting the reach of potential abuse on the platforms. This limit is lifted if the teen follows the adult sending the message.

Text Only

All new message requests will be text only. No photos, videos, voice messages, or calls will be accepted until the invite is approved. While not perfect, it will limit abuse.

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Learn why it’s important for everyone, especially teens, to be able to control their online experiences. Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it?

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Managing Time to Protect Teens

Meta has finally acknowledging that outside influences aren’t the only way their platforms can harm teens.

When a ‘Take a Break’ message comes up, it will recommend teens set a reminder to stop scrolling. During focus testing, “more than 90% of teens keep these reminders on.”

‘Take a Break’ will also expand to include Facebook. Facebook’s explicit limit will be 20 minutes. Unlike Instagram’s vague, ‘a certain amount of time.’

Meta is exploring a nudge that will suggest teens close the app if they’re scrolling Reels at night.

Quiet mode will be expanding globally in coming weeks.

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If you’re unfamiliar with sextortion, check out Dr. Jen’s article How to Protect Your Child from Sextortion.

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Additional Parental Supervision to Protect Teens

Meta is giving parents a bigger window into their teens’ activities online.

When a teen blocks someone, Instagram will suggest the teen allows their parents to supervise their account.

Parents with access will now be able to see mutuals of both followers and those following their teens.

Meta has also expanded options for notifications from Parental Supervision on Instagram.

Conclusion

All of these tools are a good start, but it can’t replace having an actual conversation with your child.

Don’t let a billion dollar company be the medium you use to communicate with your children. Sit them down and talk to them about the realities of an always-connected world.

Link to Meta’s Post on these updates.

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses?

Stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

The post What’s Being Done to Protect Teens on Instagram and Messenger? first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

As I sit to write this, I’m experiencing something I never anticipated in my professional life. I just wrote the phrase “Dick Pic Culture” in the headline.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

Beyond just my blog, I can’t believe I’ll be writing about a study from a respected, peer reviewed scientific journal with the words Dick Pic in the title.

When I started working with problematic sexual behavior nearly 20 years ago, I did not foresee this. Yet here I am, writing, again, about research involving young women being sent pictures of men’s penises. And just how often those pictures are sent without consent.

Enough Shock. Now the Study.

I recently came across this study, published in 2021, by researchers in the United Kingdom. It addressed the experiences of teenage girls being sent “dick pics” and it was done in a rather creative way.

The study examined a number of situations. The first was the unwanted receiving of the pictures from older men on Snapchat. Then they asked the girls (aged 11 to 18) about their experiences receiving these images from their same aged peers.

In the United Kingdom where the study took place, sending a picture of your genitalia to someone under the age of 18 is a sexual offense.

A 2018 survey in the UK of women aged 18 to 24 found that 47% of those women had received an unsolicited image of a man’s penis.

46% of those women received the image from an adult man before they were 18 years old. Therefore, nearly half of the women in that study were a victim of a criminal offense.

For this study, the authors ran focus group discussions combined with an arts-based method of social media post drawing to provide a space for the girls to share their experiences. The researchers worked with 144 girls between the ages of 11 and 18 who were all in school.

Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

The Results

76% of the girls in the study had received a dick pic and, for the most part, these images were not requested.

However, despite these images being unwanted, the girls did not usually report the sender either to the social medial platform or their school. They stated that it was easier to block or ignore the sender than to report them.

Additionally, 70% of the girls had been asked to send nude images of themselves. The standard manner in which this is done is by sending an unsolicited dick pic in an attempt to solicit a trade of nude images.

The researchers refer to this as a transactional dick pic. Images sent by peers are often sent to be transactional.

How Does Dick Pic Culture Reflect on the Victim?

The study’s respondents reported stigmatization if it becomes public knowledge that they received a dick pic. There is an assumption that the girl would have sent an image in return, even if they didn’t. If the trade is refused, she may be subject to the anger of the sender. Or the sender might outright lie about getting a nude image in return.

When someone that the girls thought was a friend sends an unsolicited image, the respondents reported their reaction goes from feeling disgusted, to feeling awkward around the friend to the process being normalized.

Many reported that it was more “of a big deal” when they received a dick pic from someone they thought of as a friend.

When the sender was a friend, it brought up trust issues in the friendship and awkwardness when they would see the sender as they could not unsee the images.

The authors of the study do point out that not all girls are bothered by the receiving of unsolicited sexual images. Some girls have come to associate being sent these images as a sign of desirability.

Struggling with excessive sexual thoughts, urges, or activities that are causing you distress? Take the free, online Sexual Symptom Assessment Scale (SSAS) and get a link to share with your therapist.

What do the Authors Think About Dick Pic Culture?

The authors conclude that apps such as Snapchat have been integral in the increase in prevalence of unsolicited penis pictures.

In talking to the girls, they also found that they did not consider receiving these images a form of sexual harassment and, because of this, they more often than not, did not report the senders either to the app platform or to school officials.

In their conclusions, the authors suggest adopting the concept of online sexual harassment and image based sexual harassment. Doing so will help everyone involved better understand what happens when image sharing becomes a nonconsensual practice. Whether that be an unsolicited dick pic or the nonconsensual re-sharing of a consensually shared image.

A Perspective for the US

In the US, we tend to only take the sending of unsolicited sexual images seriously if the recipient of the images is a minor. This is a criminal offense.

When the recipient of the images is an adult, there appears to be little legal recourse.

This brings to mind an article recently published by the Canadian Lawyer Magazine, where Michael Spratt argues that the unsolicited dick pic should be criminalized, but with care.

Reference: Ringrose, J, Regehr, K. & Whitehead, S. (2021). Teen Girls’ Experiences Negotiating the Ubiquitous Dick Pic: Sexual Double Standards and the Normalization of Image Based Sexual Harassment. Sex Roles, 85, 558-576.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Consult with a professional.

The post Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it? first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

Content blockers can impact the digital lives that kids lead.

They live on their phones: Discord, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, BeReal, and TikTok; incidentally the latter has surpassed YouTube for total viewing hours per month. 

And, as parents, you know the promise of good content on the internet, but there’s a lot of content out there that is not meant for children.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

The Accidental Problem

It is not uncommon for children to be exposed to online pornography as young as 8 years old. This early exposure is often accidental. 

If you put a content blocker on your child’s device, it is best to talk to them about it and why you are doing it.

Do you believe you have an online pornography addiction? Take the free Cyber Pornography Addiction Test (CYPAT) and have the results to speak with your therapist.

Since most parents don’t talk to their kids about online pornography, kids don’t usually feel comfortable coming to mom or dad with what they saw online. 

Newer research suggests that this early online pornography exposure is correlated with future problematic sexual behavior.

What Content Blockers do parents use?

Many choose to enable parental controls on phones or in apps directly to try to limit the type of content their children can either accidentally or intentionally access. 

Many apps now have internal parental controls as do most phones and tablets. In addition, there are entire marketplaces full of services and apps that you can purchase to block content on your device. These apps range from locking things down nearly completely to simply alerting someone that a certain type of content has been accessed. 

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If you’re unfamiliar with sextortion, check out Dr. Jen’s article How to Protect Your Child from Sextortion.

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Beyond Technology

If you plan to put a content blocker on your child’s device, it is best to talk to them about it and why you are doing it. These conversations and limitations need to be had and reassessed as your child ages; some of the guards can be lowered in an age-appropriate manner. 

These conversations are more important than any technology, because you have no control over what your child is watching on their friend’s tablet or phone. Maybe they can’t access pornography on their phone but their friends might be able to, and kids frequently share what they see.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Then you should consult with a professional.

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses?

Stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

The post Content Blockers on my Children’s Devices? first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

There are many ways to block pornography; from narrow, focused methods to broad, restrictive methods.

In this installment of the Blocking Porn series, I’m going to give you an overview of the ways to block porn and discuss how to select a method.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

Categories of Blocking Control

1. Safe Search
2. DNS
3. Operating System Parental Controls
4. Software Solutions

What solution is right for you?

Block Pornography with Safe Search

This one is probably the narrowest and some may say the least effective, but it’s still helpful. Turning on safe search on search engines. All major search engines have a safe search feature that will automatically block results that have pornography, drugs, and/or hate speech.

Pros

• Simple
• Focused

Cons

• Only stops results from coming up in search
• Must be set up on each search engine

More about Safe Search here.

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses?

Stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

Block Pornography with DNS

DNS, or Domain Name System, solutions can cast a wide net for blocking pornography and other harmful materials on your entire network, though the setup can be a little daunting for those who aren’t particularly tech savvy.

Pros

• Network wide solution
• Very configurable, depending on solution
• Can be free, with enough technical know-how

Cons

• Only works when the devices are accessing the internet from your own connection
• Can be very complex to set up
• Costs could balloon as more devices are added to service

Blocking Pornography with Operating System Parental Controls

Most operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Apple iOS, Android, ChromeOS) come with some sort of parental controls built in. These can be very effective and cast a wide net.

Pros

• Can watch what’s happening in browser and what apps are being run
• Once it’s setup it’s usually good to go
• Flexible and configurable

Cons

• Can be time consuming to setup
• Fiddly – May require setting up multiple accounts (parent/child accounts, etc.) or complex permissions

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If you’re unfamiliar with sextortion, check out Dr. Jen’s article How to Protect Your Child from Sextortion.

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Software Solutions

These will, generally, be paid solutions that will allow very fine control over permissions and access. Many of these options will allow you to restrict not just web content, but what apps can be used or installed on a machine.

Pros

• Reliable and difficult to circumvent
• Very fine-grain control

Cons

• Usually, a subscription model
• Often times specific to a single device

An intermediate software solution would be a browser, either modified to block pornography or dedicated strictly for the task. There’s more information in this post.

Do you believe you have an online pornography addiction? Take the free Cyber Pornography Addiction Test (CYPAT) and have the results to speak with your therapist.

What solution is right for you?

There are a lot of factors that go into choosing the right access control solution:

• Who are you trying to protect from pornography or other offensive materials?
• Is it for you or someone else?
• What’s your budget?
• What’s your level of technical expertise?
• What discussions or thoughts brought you to the decision to block pornography?

Typically, the best answer, is a mixture of a couple of the four categories above. In future installments of the series, we’ll dive into each category a bit deeper and provide some links for helpful resources and how to have discussions about restricting access.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Then you should consult with a professional.

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

The post 4 Ways to Block Pornography first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

Why might you block porn?

1. You might want to block porn if you’re a parent of young children.
2. Pornography is a drain on time, money, and computers.
3. You or loved one has a compulsive desire to view pornography.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

You’re a Parent of Young Children

Give Your Kids a Chance to be Kids and Block Porn

We all know kids will get into things they shouldn’t, it’s part of growing up.

With no guidance it’s very easy for them to fall down the rabbit hole.

But with the right mindset, frequent, open discussions with them, and some technological barriers you can help your child navigate the pitfalls of adolescence, defining their own sexuality, AND the internet.

Pornography is a Drain on Time, Money, and Computers

Pornography has always been a pervasive presence on the internet. From the early days of newsgroups through the modern “work-from-home revolution” that OnlyFans has brought, it can be tough to escape.

Blocking pornography for yourself and/or your loved ones can have a lot of benefits:

• Simply put you’ll utilize your time better if you don’t lose time being tempted by and indulging in an idle pass time.
• You won’t be tempted to spend money on memberships to pornography sites.
• You’ll avoid the hassle of potentially infecting your computer with malware.

There are lots of other reasons to avoid viewing pornography too. Risk of divorce. Desensitization. Erectile Dysfunction. Just to name a few.

Do you believe you have an online pornography addiction? Then take this free Cyber Pornography Addiction Test (CYPAT) and have the results to speak with your therapist.

You Might Want to Block Porn if You or a Loved One Has a Compulsion

This one can be difficult, whether it’s you or a loved one.

If you recognize you have an addiction to online pornography it can be difficult to curb the behavior on your own. We’ll have some suggestions in future installments for handling this particular situation whether you’re truly alone in handling the compulsive behavior or whether you just need some tips in asking your significant other, partner, or parent for help.

If you know a loved one is compulsively viewing pornography it can be a difficult and frustrating conversation to have but having some technical solutions in hand will be helpful.

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses?

Stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

Pornography Induced Erectile Dysfunction

I know, I mentioned Erectile Dysfunction above, but it’s important enough that I felt I should mention it again. This is a subheading that could definitely be it’s own reason for curbing your mature material intake. Consuming too much erotica can have severe effects on your brain and the way your body responds to stimulus; I’m not the expert though, so I’ll let Dr. Jen explain the details of Pornography Induced Erectile Dysfunction (PIED).

Conclusion

There’s lots of reasons to want to block pornography, these are the most common in our experience, but, what reasons do you have for wanting to block pornography? Let us know in a comment below!

In future installments in the series, we’ll cover:

• The technology to block pornography.
• What IS pornography?
• How to discuss viewing pornography with your spouse/partner/significant other.
• How to bring up discussions with parents or guardians if you’re a teen needing help with pornography habits.
• And more!

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Consult with a professional.

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

Are you looking for more reputable data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

The post 3 Reasons You Might Want to Block Porn first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

The #MeToo movement has brought long overdue attention to the experiences of women who have been victims of sexual abuse and harassment. 

If you look behind the sensational headlines, the movement has sparked a much-needed conversation about consent. 

I have previously written about how we teach consent in our practice in a blog on the topic. 

#MeToo, combined with some recent research published in the Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal, can help us shed some light on how young women navigate sexuality and consent in the digital realm.

The Study

Dr. Sara Thomas’ recently published research study looked at how young women handled pressure to send them a nude or semi-nude photograph from a peer. 

The study analyzed stories from teenagers about their experiences of digital drama. She then identified three main dilemmas that young women experience in relation to sexual photographs:

• Interpersonal negotiations
• Consequences
• Self-concept

The study found that the biggest concern was the possibility of the image being spread without consent.

She then identified six different categories of behavior for how women were induced to send nude photographs:

• Desire
• Personal gain
• Asked
• Relational scripts
• Bombardment
• Coercion

One of the first dilemmas faced by a young woman is the decision of whether to send a photograph.

The Results

The study found that 2/3 of young women reported that they engaged in this ongoing struggle to decide if they should send a picture, to whom and when. 

When a woman decided to send a nude photograph, the motivations ranged from it being consensual to giving in to pressure or threats from the person asking for the picture.

The young women in this study knew that if they chose to send a nude picture there could be consequences. 

These consequences ranged from the picture being seen by people they did not want to see (mass distribution) to social ostracism, rumor spreading, legal consequences, emotional distress and getting in trouble with parents. 

The study found that the biggest concern was the possibility of the image being spread without consent.

Why do young women send nude or sexual photographs? 

In this study, only 8% of the young women sent the photograph because they wanted to. 

If they didn’t want to send the image, why did they?

Compliance

Findings show that many young women were sending nude images because they wanted to please the person asking for the image or because they wanted to avoid negative consequences from the young men that were asking for the images.

One of the troubling findings from the study was the tacit nature of the compliance by the young girls. The young women justified the compliance by saying that they liked the young man who was asking for the image.

“..compliance was frequently accompanied by an assertion they liked the young man who requested them.  These stories did not express coercion by the asker, but they also did not express a desire to send them. Rather the decision to send was a compliant ‘so I did’ to a male-initiated request for a photograph.”

Coercion

The majority of the women in the study experienced some form of coercion. 

The level of this coercion ranged from milder “If you loved me” statements from the young man requesting the image to more intense forms coercion. 

When a woman was unsure of sending an image, they reported feeling guilty that their partner questioned their love by not sending a nude image.

Many of the women had experiences of coercion that were more intense. The study found that some young men pressured, threatened, got angry or cut off contact with the young woman in order to try to obtain nude images. 

Some women also experienced threats of blackmail in the form of demands for more images. The blackmail threat was often that the images would be mass distributed. Those who experienced these situations didn’t feel like they had any options and that they had to send the images.

Can Young Women Refuse?

The answer to this is yes. 

In the study about 30% of the women refused to send a sexual image. 

As adults, we need to create an environment where our children feel safe to come to us with their challenging dilemmas and we need to react calmly and lovingly.

Of those 30%, 79% of those women faced consequences for not sending images. Partners would get angry. Relationships would end. 

Based on the consequences, several of the young women reported they ended up sending images to the young man who requested them. Only 12 women in this study refused to send nude images and did not experience any negative consequences for holding their boundary.

What does this study show us?

25 of 314 young women engaged in sexting with a partner because they truly wanted to, and the experiences were devoid of compliance or coercion. 

This means that most of these young women engaged in sexting that was truly without consent.  Their behavior was induced by compliance or coercion.

We, as parents, teachers, educators, need to do a better job at many things:

1. We need to teach all young people the true meaning of consent. 
2. We need to empower young women to say “no” to coercion and to feel strong enough to not feel the need to comply to an unwanted request. 
3. We need to give young women access to resources to help them make decisions about their sexuality.

The young women in this study did not seek adult help but turned to peers for advice. They often cited fearing an adults’ response as why they didn’t talk to parents or another adult in their life. 

As adults, we need to create an environment where our children feel safe to come to us with their challenging dilemmas and we need to react calmly and lovingly.

Reference: Thomas, Sara.  (2017) “What do I do?”: Young Women’s Reported Dilemmas with Nude Photographs. Sexuality Research and Social Policy.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Then you should consult with a professional.

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

The post What Young Women’s Experiences with Sexting can tell us about Compliance, Coercion and Consent first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

If we choose to face reality, we know that teen sexting has become a normative part of adolescent culture.  Of course, not all adolescents are doing it, but many are sexting.  What we learned from the years of the “JUST SAY NO” campaign and more years of research is that preaching abstinence just doesn’t work.  If we want to protect children from the darker side of sexting, we need to educate and inform them about the practice, so they can make their own, hopefully well thought out, decisions.

What are the tenants of Safe Sexting?

1. You are responsible for your own safety.
2. Know the risk
3. Know how to protect yourself

You are responsible for your own safety

 The digital world can be a risky place.  Aware parents will have talked to their children about online sexual activity and perhaps filtered or monitored devices such as phones or laptops.  However, no filter or monitor can truly protect a child from the risks of online sexual behavior.  Ultimately, your child is responsible for his or her own behavior online.  What they do or do not post, text, snap, etc.  is their own responsibility.

To help your child be more proactive about their online safety, here are some things to think about and talk to them about.  Before you send a picture or post, stop and count to ten.  Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I really want to send this picture or video?
2. Do I feel pressured to take or send this image?
3. Do I trust that the person I send this to will never share this image without my consent?

It is very true that many children, particularly girls, feel a great deal of pressure to participate in taking and sending sexual images.  There are also online predators who will groom, intimidate or threaten a young person to convince them to take pictures.  In these instances, there is no consent.  Coercion is never consent.

If your child chooses to engage in consensual sexting with a peer, they should truly want to take the image without feeling any pressure to do so.  They should also trust that, no matter what, the person they send the image to will not share the image.   If all of these parameters are met, then the sexting is consensual and if your child takes and sends an image, they are assuming responsibility for their actions.

Know the Risk

 Even in the case of consensual teen sexting there is a lot of risk.  In order to engage in safe sexting, the person doing it (adult or minor) needs to know the risk involved with the behavior.  So what are the risks?

Sexting as a minor may be illegal.  Every state has a different law regarding minors producing and sending illicit or sexual images.  The punishments for the behavior also vary from state to state.  In some cases, a child can be the producer and distributor of child pornography as well as the victim of the same crime.  Some states have decriminalized consensual sexting between two minors.  Know the law in your state and share that with your child.

Another risk is that someone you do not want to see your image may see your sexual image.  This is non-consensual sexting.  You may have sent a sexual image to someone with whom you are in a relationship.  This may have been consensual at the time.  Then, something goes wrong in the relationship, and you are not together.  Revenge porn is a real thing.  If the person you were dating changes their feelings or gets mad, they have an image that they can send out to every other person in high school or post to a revenge pornography site.  Anytime you send a sexual image there is always a risk that someone you do not want to see it will see it.  It is also possible that many, many people may see the image.

Protect Yourself

 In this arena of uncertainty, where something can go viral in the blink of an eye, how do you protect yourself?  Here are some guidelines to help your child protect themselves.

If you choose to consensually share a sexual image with someone, only send an image or video that you would not mind someone else seeing.  Are you ok with just anyone seeing you nude or engaged in a sexual act with someone?  If you are not okay with that, and choose to send an image, perhaps send a picture in a bathing suit or underwear.  I don’t want this to be read as advocating for teens sexting but for those who choose to do so, to send an image that the sender would not mind any and all to see.

If you choose to send a sexual image, only send an image to someone you trust.  Sending an image is a great act of trust as you lose control of that image the moment it is sent.  You need to truly and completely trust that the person you send it to won’t someday get mad at you and send it to all of his or her friends or post it online without your consent.

How do you know who you can trust?  To answer this, I will borrow from Brene Brown’s concept Anatomy of Trust otherwise known as BRAVING.  This can be applied to you or another.

• Boundaries – The person you may send this image to always respects your  boundaries
• Accountability – The person you may send this image to always owns their mistakes,  apologizes and makes amends
• Integrity –   The person you may send this image to always acts with integrity, does what is right instead of what is easy or fun.
• Reliability –  The person you may send this image to is reliable.  They always mean what they say and say what they do.
• Vault-  The person you may send an image to NEVER shares things that are not his or hers to share.  They don’t gossip and they keep confidences.
• Non-Judgment- The person you may send this to will not judge you.
• Generosity-   The person you may send this image to will assume the most generous thoughts about your actions and intentions.

If the person you are thinking about sending a sexual image to does not meet the core pieces of the anatomy of trust, you may wish to rethink sending him or her a sexual image.

To conclude, I would like to reiterate that my intention here is not to encourage or glamorize the practice of sexting among adolescents.  My point is to be realistic.  If teens are going to engage in sexting we need to empower them with accurate information and guidance about how to do so safely.  Talking to your child about Safe Sexting arms them with information to make their own informed decisions.

For more information on how to talk to your child please see my book, The New Age of Sex Education: how to talk to your teen about cybersex and pornography in the digital age.

For more information on Dr. Weeks, Please see our website www.sexualaddictiontreatmentservices.com

The post Three Things to Teach your Child About Safe Sexting first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

I am writing to you today from the annual conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). 

Each year, in addition to traditional talks, there are poster presentations. Today, Marion Desfachelles, a Ph.D. student at the University of Montreal, presented a poster on her research on girls and sexting.

Background on Canadian Laws

Canada’s laws regarding teenage sexting are different from the US.

In Canada, sexting is divided into two categories, Primary and Secondary. 

1. Primary sexting is defined as sending or receiving sexually explicit content in a private context.
2. Secondary sexting is defined as distributing the image or video to the public.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled this year that to establish an intimate photo exception to the juvenile pornography laws. This exception allows “two youths, who engage in lawful sexual activity, to consensually record their own lawful sexual activity as long as that recording is made or possessed for their personal use.”

In the US, two minors in this situation would face criminal penalties.

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Desfachelles’ Research

As most of the research on secondary sexting is focused on boys, Ms. Desfachelles wanted to look at how girls engage in primary or secondary sexting. To do this, she looked at the arrest records of 27 girls who were arrested or suspected to be involved in cases of juvenile pornography.

What did the study find? 

Girls are sometimes the primary sexter and the secondary victim, meaning a girl may have taken an image for a partner but it was then distributed outside the context of that relationship. Girls also distributed sexual imagery to others. 

An interesting finding was that the girls did acknowledge that sending these images would be hurtful to the victims, but the girls thought that the victims of the secondary sexting were responsible for the situation.

The study found three main motivations for secondary sexting:

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Learn more about Primary Prevention and its benefits in these articles:

• How to do Primary Prevention and More
• Help for Minor Attraction
• Research: CSAM on the Dark Web
• You Are Not a Monster: Review of a Long Dark Shadow
• Search: Primary Prevention on Dr. Jen’s Recovery Readings

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• The most common motivation was that of revenge or hurt.
• The other two motivations seen were goodwill and fun, meaning peer pressure. 

Boys continue to be most frequently the originators of the secondary sexting, but girls sometimes start the process and definitely participate in the secondary sexting.

We know that there is significant emotional damage to the victim of secondary sexting. 

Prevention campaigns often focus on not sexting at all. 

The author suggests that, as sexting is becoming a more normative behavior for teens, the prevention efforts be moved to focus on prevention of secondary sexting.

What can you do as a parent?

Help teens understand that they should keep something that was sent in the context of a relationship private. 

Teach teens about consent and that consent also applies to distribution of images sent with the expectation of privacy.

As always, parents should be talking to their children about sexting. 

We also need to expand our discussions about how, if their child does engage in sexting, they can do so in a safe and respectful manner and to understand the risks involved in sending an explicit image to another person.

This post contains affiliate links. The author or blog owner may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.

For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Then you should consult with a professional.

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

The post Girls and Sexting first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

Join me this Friday for a free one hour webinar hosted by The Center for Healthy Sex at 12:00 pm (PT) to talk about the effects of cybersex and sexting on children.

Click here to see the event details  http://centerforhealthysex.com/sex-therapy-resources/upcoming-events/

You can also check out my book on the topic:  The New Age of Sex Education:  How to Talk to your Teen about Cybersex and Pornography in the Digital Age.  

The post Sex Ed by Porn: Free Webinar Friday first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.