Abstract
The electronic swapping of sexually provocative images and texts, commonly known as sexting, seems to have become part and parcel of adolescents’ social lives. In spite of both media and policy attention, questions remain about the way(s) young women navigate sexual relationships and construct their gendered identity discursively by endorsing/challenging social and behavioural norms of sexual agency. Guided discussions involving 36 young women were conducted. The main of aim of this study was to gain insight into the characteristics of sexualised adolescent cyberculture by analysing their discourses about sexting, the effects on their lives and its implications. In this article, I argue that the discourse analysis of these young women’s own construction of their sexualised gender identity may throw light on the interrelationships between dominant purportedly sexualised culture and agency.
Introduction
Over the last decade, mass media, legal debates and (feminist) digital media scholars are pointing to the practice of taking pictures of oneself posing in sexually provocative ways and exchanging these digital images of an explicit sexual nature through mobile phone messaging or the Internet on social network sites. This social phenomenon – known as ‘sexting’ – seems to be gaining popularity among both adults (Lee et al., 2013) and young adolescents (Schloms-Madlener, 2013). In particular, Dake et al. (2012) attempt to offer a direct correlation between age and gender and argue that older adolescent girls – among adults, older and younger adolescents – are more likely to engage in both sexting and actual sexual behaviour.
Even though there is a general agreement among researchers on both the definition of this practice and the prevalence rates, a stark disagreement exists over the appropriate response to this social practice since legal contexts and mass media seem to be unable to differentiate between adolescents’ consensual sexual use of mobile media and their misuse of social media to sexually harass others (Karaian, 2012, 2015; among many others).
Over the last years, more and more countries have started regulating and criminalising the production, the possession, the sharing or distributions of this material without consent both on and offline. Legal responses, on one hand, focus on the dangers and risks of sexting (Crofts and Lee, 2013) insofar as very young girls as young as 11 years old have been exposed (Eleftheriou-Smith, 2015) and, on the other, the legal responses purport to determine the boundaries of criminal law and, more specifically, whether this non-consensual distribution of sexual images without consent should be criminalised or not (Franks, 2015). Of special interest here is Lee et al.’s (2013) study that suggests that legal discourses seem to conflate sexting and child pornography and are unable to give a comprehensive account of ‘all the complexities of young people’s sexuality in twenty-first century and the disjunction between the social/moral norms that are imposed on their lives’ (Franks, 2015: 45). In the same vein, Albury and Crawford (2012) argue that adolescents do discern between consensual sexting and the circulation of sexual images with malevolent intentions.
Conversely, leading-edge research on gender and social media ranges from discussing the inappropriateness of such behaviour by minors (Thurlow, 2014) to suggesting education and intervention strategies that include building knowledge and skills in ethical sexual decision-making (Dobson and Ringrose, 2016; Katzman, 2010). More specifically, research has shown that sexting not only goes beyond claiming that this sexual practice is not always non-consensual (Hasinoff, 2012) but also makes it possible to highlight the complexity of agency by interrogating young adolescents in general and girls’ apparent conformity to sexualisation,
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in particular (Hasinoff, 2014). She questions the commonly shared assumption that sexualisation is to blame for sexting. In doing so, she conceptualises sexting as media production and provides a new way of studying and thinking about sexting that seems to revolve around ‘sexuality’ and ‘agency’. As Hasinoff (2012) herself asks,
When girls use mobile media to produce their own pornography, how are they challenging the sexism of the commercial media industries and how are they reproducing it? Could mobile phones help girls be more assertive and confident in expressing their sexual needs and desires? […] How do girls produce their sexualities by producing social media? (p. 460)
To explore these questions, I offer a discourse analysis perspective of this social phenomenon, analysing British young women’s evaluative beliefs and motivations to sext, as a way of illuminating issues of resistance, girls’ sexual agency and disinhibition. I begin by outlining the theoretical framework of ‘sexting’ within the contexts of post-feminism and discourse analysis. I continue discussing the data compilation methods. By using online data and guided discussions, I intend to contribute to the debate about sexualisation, sexting and women’s agency. In order to do so, this study builds upon Hasinoff’s (2012) argument that ‘scholars should investigate how sexting could help girls find new ways to express their sexual needs and desires and even perhaps re-write some of the gender norms that ask girls to be passive and acquiescent in intimate heterosexual relationships’ (p. 455). This study therefore aims to analyse young women’s evaluative beliefs and motivations behind the act of sexting voluntarily in an attempt to shed further light on the way(s) they depict and negotiate their gendered identity and sexuality while ‘performing feminine desirability’ (Ringrose et al., 2013: 307).
Sexting: embodying sexual femininity
Studies in feminist research have delved into (digital) cultures and, beyond the alarming mass media claims, have attempted to throw further light on the controversial social media practices that young women engaged in (Dobson, 2015). In doing so, this research has contributed to an understanding of increasing girls’ agency as deeply implicated in projects of regulation in virtual and non-virtual contexts (Dobson, 2014b; García-Gómez, 2014; Gill, 2008; Ringrose and Eriksson Barajas, 2011; among many others).
In general terms, sociological, psychological and discourse analysis works have provided evidence that digital media have a real impact on young women’s representations of themselves online and offline (García-Gómez, 2014) and play an active role on the way young women relate to others and explore their sexualities (Dobson, 2014a). In particular, these studies not only suggest that young women are objectified by the way they are portrayed in a sexual manner in media (Attwood, 2006) but also question whether or not young women are in control of their own sexual decision (Egan, 2013). In this line of work, Salter (2015) highlights how the circulation of digital images of bodies online has a different impact on both men and women. His study points to the direction that sexting reinforces gender inequality insofar as girls and women are held responsible for managing the risks of online abuse. Indebted to Attwood (2009), these studies raise the question of whether young women are empowered to make healthy sexual choices according to their own will or they are slaves to dominant culture and hegemony.
Specifically, the bulk of work on sexting from a feminist perspective has focused on how social media facilitates the sexual objectification of girls. Leading-edge feminist research has shed further light on the heterosexualised norms of desirability negotiated online and the construction of girls’ sexual morality, vulnerability and agency (Davidson, 2014). In this vein, Ringrose et al. (2013) have mainly concerned with a specific form of sexual empowerment: compulsory female sexual agency. More specifically, they endorse Gill’s (2008) conceptual device that combines the ideas of ‘compulsory’ with ‘sexual’ and ‘agency’ aimed at undermining the notions of free will and choice that humanist theories of agency take for granted. In their view, such a challenge denotes the presence a ‘new hegemonic discourse of feminine empowerment’ (Gill, 2008: 67). By carrying out a qualitative research of sexting, they develop Gill’s argument and manifest the sexual double standards behind sexting ‘where sexually active boys are admired and rated, while sexually active girls are denigrated, shamed and despised as sluts’ (Ringrose et al., 2013: 12) and claim that the production of sexually explicit images is aimed at embodying sexy femininity.
Of particular interest here is Hasinoff’s research on sexting, she also contributes to the discussion by drawing attention to the fact that ‘discourses about sexualisation inadvertently pathologise conformity and exalt resistance to mass culture as the only healthy or genuine form of agency’ (Hasinoff, 2014: 110). Given that sexting is mainly understood as a symptom of ‘technological, sexual and moral crisis’ (Hasinoff, 2012: 450), she asks readers to reconsider the assumptions that there is such a thing as ‘authentic’ desire, an agency, and argues that
According to the dominant models, the only sexual agency teenage girls have is the agency to resist male sexuality and sexuality in media. It is far easier, more comfortable, and less disruptive to these common sense assumptions to interpret girls’ consensual sexting as evidence of their subconscious victimization by outside forces. (Hasinoff, 2015: 157)
Her argument not only suggests that some sociological studies give an over-simplistic view of media effects by depicting girls as victims of sexualisation who are unable to make their own choices about their sexual embodiment, but she also claims that, given that everyone is influenced by culture, media and sexualisation, our culture celebrates resistance to mass culture too much and too readily.
In accordance with Hasinoff’s (2014) claim that suggests that sexualisation ‘underestimat[es] the interrelationships between dominant culture and individual agency’ (p. 103), this study draws on a growing body of literature that proposes a rethink of the assumptions behind sexualisation, empowerment and choice (Dobson, 2014b, 2015; Hasinoff, 2014, 2015; Ringrose et al., 2013). More specifically, this study aims to contribute to the debate about the sexualisation of girls as well as the complexity of girls’ choice in the hypersexualised mass culture by analysing young women’s evaluative beliefs and motivations behind the act of sexting voluntarily. By focusing exclusively on heterosexual young women sending sexts, the study attempts to give full account of this community of practice (Stapleton, 2001) and explores how these British young girls seem to understand sexting as a means to fully live their sex lives and relate to others. All in all, the discourse analysis of these girls’ evaluative beliefs will throw light on whether they experience empowerment or they reproduce dominant gendered norms (Dobson, 2014b).
Data and methods
The data I analyse are drawn from a larger study I have conducted as part of a conflict resolution programme in four different secondary schools in the northern England (García-Gómez, 2014). Given that the study is aimed at interrogating girls’ choices and social sexual norms, the focus is on young women who have consensually participated in sexting. More specifically, I use a quantitative and a qualitative method, based on a rigorous discursive analysis of guided discussions among young women who (1) have practised sexting with their close friends or their significant others as part of a consented game and (2) comment on the social and personal consequences.
Data collection
The 68 female teenagers who had already taken part in the previous study were asked to complete a questionnaire on their online habits. Among the different questions, they were asked to say whether they have ever sexted or they knew somebody who had done it. Out of the 45 young women who admitted to sexting in the prior year, 36 parents signed the informed consent form for the research after their daughters had also agreed to take part in the study. The catchment for the four schools which the 36 young women attend is predominantly White, lower-middle class, and the population has low socio-economic status.
Very briefly, the programme used in this study consisted of a talk to introduce these high school students to the issues at stake here. After the talk, guided discussions involving four or five young women were held to debate about (the risks of) sexting, each lasting between 45 minutes and an hour. These guided discussions, which were conducted by a teacher who knew nothing of my research interests, were aimed at fostering the creation of an appropriate forum for discussion and exchange of ideas. Although I was present at each and every discussion, I acted as a mere observer so as not to interfere with the natural flow of the session. It is worth pointing out that these guided discussions unfold naturally with little intervention, except when a hot point was discussed and the teacher had to intervene so as to give the floor to one or another particular participant and make sure everyone could have their say.
Preliminary analysis and classification process
Guided discussions among these young women were recorded and transcribed. The resulting conversations consisted of 7821 turns, comprising seven discussions and a total of 9 hours and a half. Inspection of the corpus made it possible to identify three main discourse functions of utterances: elicitations, directives and informatives. More specifically, every utterance was coded for its pragmatic meaning and classified into a consistent and manageable taxonomy of 12 principles of classification of main communication acts in the corpus. These 12 principles were adapted from Tsui’s (1994) classification of Speech Acts. The aim of adopting these principles is not to confirm Tsui’s model but rather to facilitate the formalisation of observations of regularities exhibited in the sample of data:
Elicitations. (1) Elicit: inform the addressee (e.g. ‘Do you know Angie kissed him?’), (2) Elicit: confirm speakers’ or addressee’s point of view (e.g. ‘Do you also think she’s a bitch?’), (3) Elicit: commit to a course of action (e.g. ‘Will you stop dating him? Will you?’), (4) Elicit: evaluate speaker’s and/or addressee’s point of view (e.g. ‘How can he call himself a man?’);
Directives. (5) Directive: suggestion of a course of action (e.g. ‘If I were you, I’d sort out my priorities’), (6) Directive: warning (e.g. ‘Stop calling me or else’), (7) Directive: imposition of a course of action (e.g. ‘Don’t phone me again’), (8) Directive: threat (e.g. ‘Mind your words’);
Informatives. (9) Informative: (in-) direct positive appraisal of the speaker (e.g. ‘I’m a very popular girl’), (10) Informative: (in-)direct negative appraisal of the speaker (e.g. ‘People call me names because I get my knees dirty’), (11) Informative: (in-) direct positive appraisal of the addressee (e.g. ‘He’s the man of my dreams’), and (12) Informative: (in-)direct negative appraisal of the addressee (e.g. ‘You’re a carpet muncher’). It is worth pointing out that, given the multi-functional dimension of many utterances, the coding process accommodated annotation at different levels or for different functions.
Sexting: creating sexual images for a particular audience
In this article, discourse analysis of these young women’s evaluative beliefs about sexting not only sheds light on the complexity of girls’ sexual agency and the intricate interdependence between mass culture and the individual but also makes it possible to interrogate girls’ choices and social sexual norms. More specifically, inspection of the data shows clear evidence that these young women’s motivations behind sexting do not only function at the level of the individual, but they show an interpersonal dimension (i.e. sexting as a means of relating to young men) and an intergroup dimension (i.e. sexting as a means of relating to other young women). These two intertwined dimensions for creating sexual images can be explained as follows.
Exploring the interpersonal dimension of sexting
Even though these young women decided to sext freely and they depict sexting as a desire to be looked at, all of these young women report that sexting is their way to relate to young men. Interestingly enough, discourse analysis of this interpersonal dimension of sexting reveals competing narratives, according to whether or not they are in a relationship, that range from dominance to submission. More precisely, these narratives consist of (1) crediting themselves as free women who use men to satisfy their own sexual needs or (2) supporting traditional patriarchal discourses that revolve around women’s submission to satisfy their significant others sexually. Linguistically speaking, these competing narratives are mainly built up by means of informatives and elicitations. Table 1 shows the linguistic realisations identified.
Exploring the interpersonal dimension of sexting.
All in all, the presence of the aforementioned competing discourses makes it possible to argue that agency has a gendered normative dimension (Hasinoff, 2014). Let us discuss each narrative in detail.
When these young women are not in a relationship, they enhance the positivity of their self-concept by crediting themselves as free women who use men to satisfy their own sexual needs. This narrative has the following two features:
Cognitive dissonance. These young women’s evaluative beliefs about sexting seem to revolve around a cognitive dissonance episode (Festinger, 1957) that reflects the tension between these young women’s attitude towards sexting versus those of adults’. Their evaluative beliefs reveal that these girls assume that adults assess this social practice negatively and they reduce dissonance by assessing the reasons and consequences of sexting positively.
Sexual self-awareness. These young women seem to be able to make choices, discursively speaking, about why they sext. As they report, they sext in order to express themselves sexually, they defend the importance of knowing (and being proud of) their body and depict sexting as a way to live their sex life in full (in contrast to adults’). The fact that these young women are strikingly upfront and openly describe sexting as part of their sexual practices makes it possible to interrogate girls’ choices and the ‘supposed ideological passivity of girls’ (Hasinoff, 2014: 104) insofar as these young women, in contrast with previous research with high school girls (Ringrose et al., 2013), self-present as sexually self-aware and unusually sexually liberated. Therefore, this sexually self-awareness supports Hasinoff’s (2014) claim that the literature offers a simplistic view of sexting that entirely erases girls’ capacity for choice.
Consider the following excerpts from the data where these 15-year-old young women narrate they have sent pictures with sexual content to someone they were dating occasionally or somebody they had just met in a chat room:
Excerpt (1) A (participant 6): Everyday it’s quite the same, we go home and go to our room and it’s like what can we do? and then we switch on the computer and see who’s there and we chat and erm we’re bored and we do it B (participant 7): ((nodding)) I send pictures these kinda pictures quite often. I guess we all do so ((looking at the other girls)) It’s not like such big deal, is it? C (participant 8): Yeah, parents make a fuss about it but it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s like they don’t understand B: They don’t ((laughing)) We are not afraid of sex, it’s not like when my parents thought it was a sin and they didn’t have sex and now they are afraid of speaking about sex or making sex […] I like my boobs and if I take a picture and I feel like, you know, erm polishing the pearl ((laughing)) I do it and I know how to satisfy myself, don’t care if I’m chubby or if I don’t have skinny tights I like the way I am C: My parents would give me a bollocking if they knew I took pictures of myself, but I enjoy doing it. I know they want to protect me, but I’m a grown woman. It’s like I explore my body and I know how to pleasure myself, you know, there’s nothing wrong erm I started, you know, being with boys when I was 12 and I know what I like and what I don’t and if I like something I do it, why not? D (participant 9): yeah, it’s like it makes me feel I’m pretty and I play with boys ((laughing)), you know, it’s like you say ‘You want to see my bum’ and boys are all like ‘whoo’ and it’s like you send them a picture and they would do anything ((laughing)) B: Boys are so erm predictable, you know, you’re chatting with somebody and he’s saying things like he’d like you to work your hand along his shaft and then he sends a pic so you say something that you know will drive him crazy like I want you to bury your fingers inside of me ((laughing)) […] Excerpt (2) A (participant 15): I know you think I’m wrong ((looking at the mediator)), all adults say that but it’s like something you don’t understand, I mean, it’s like something young people do and there’s nothing wrong about it B (participant 16): yeah, I’m not a bitch because I like sex and I enjoy my body. Oh, yeah. I take my vibrator out for a play session and think what the fuck. I love recording myself, what a turn-on too, I feel so dirty and erm so good. C (participant 17): I’m fed up with all the crap we all heard in the news and everything, you know, sending these kinda pics get me hot and horny and when I want to masturbate you know this is a way. B: It’s like a game, we all like games, adults as well, but they don’t speak about sex and that’s not good. I like it because I feel I’m in control, and I tell a guy to do it and he does it A: ((laughing)) Guys are so predictable. You tell them you’re horny and they do anything and then I laugh ‘cos they think they are that strong but I can do anything with them B: ((laughing)) yeah, that’s true. When boys are horny they are so erm stupid, you say ‘hey darling you just turned my pussy into a leaking tap’ and they will be eating out of the palm of your hand ((all laugh)) […]
As shown in excerpts 1 and 2, these young women position themselves in discourse as assertive women who have a healthy self-esteem and are able to assess reality. Such a discursive positioning is mainly built up by means of informatives which
Claim common ground with the other girls by indicating sexting is a natural/common thing (e.g. ‘I send pictures with sexual content quite often’, ‘I guess we all do so’);
Deny responsibility for consequences of actions in general (e.g. ‘It’s not like such big deal’, ‘there’s nothing wrong with that’) and/or put the blame on external factors or others (e.g. ‘we are bored and we do it’);
Evaluate sexting positively in a(n) (in-)direct way (e.g. ‘yeah, it’s like it makes me feel I’m pretty’) or appraise themselves positively because they sext (e.g. ‘I feel I’m in control, and I tell my boyfriend to do it and he does it’). This positive appraisal of themselves revolve around being sexually active and knowledgeable (e.g. ‘Oh, yeah. I take my vibrator out for a play session and think what the fuck. I love recording myself, what a turn-on too […]’) and using sex to manipulate boys (e.g. ‘[…] boys are all like “whoo” and it’s like you send them a picture and they would do anything’).
In brief, inspection of the data gives evidence that these young women present themselves as sexually agentive. More specifically, these young women describe themselves as ‘agents’ and ‘active’ (Lamb, 2010) that seem to resist sexism and gender conformity (Eisenhauer, 2004) by exploiting their sexuality on purpose in order to play with boys, manipulate them and satisfy their own sexual needs. However, one may question that this form of empowerment may backfire given that they treat themselves as a commodity or an object of male sexual desire. Such sexual self-objectification serves, at least, to underscore the feminist claim that the fact that girls may be too much sexually active makes sexuality conflate with sexualisation (Egan, 2013).
Although the motivation behind sexting still shows an interpersonal dimension, these young women’s evaluative beliefs change dramatically when they are in a relationship. In particular, these young women’s evaluative beliefs support traditional patriarchal discourses that revolve around women’s submission to satisfy their partners sexually, that is to say, their choice to be submissive to their boyfriends is determined by an embodiment of sexual acts that are then given a new meaning. This narrative has the following two features:
Cognitive dissonance. Inspection of the data gives evidence that these young women redefine their sense of power and desire, almost exclusively, in terms of the satisfaction of their boyfriends’ will. Their narratives reflect the struggle between the subordination of their personal choices (i.e. they were reluctant to sext) and the dominance of peer pressure (i.e. other girls do it) caused by the need to relate to their boyfriend (i.e. sexting is part and parcel of the relationship).
Self-affirmation. In contrast with the other young women’s sexual self-awareness, they express a positive attitude towards themselves by self-presenting as women in love. More specifically, these girls are no longer free and in control of the body and sex life. As their evaluative beliefs reveal, these young women diminish their responsibility for sexting by self-presenting as innocent, sexually passive agents who would do anything to satisfy their significant others’ sexual needs. Their narratives also show how they relate sexting to their attempt to guarantee the happiness and stability in the relationship. Furthermore,
Consider the following excerpt from the data where these 16-year-old women explain when and why they started sexting:
Excerpt (3) A (participant 33): Yeah, well, I started sending my boyfriend pics about a year ago and well he was like ‘I’m hard baby’ and I was like ‘you’re stupid!’, I didn’t wanna do it, but I don’t know one day I just did it. I still remember I took a picture and texted him ‘Ohhhh wish I can have you in me right NOW!’ and sent him my pic and well I didn’t think about it I just sent it. You know I was in my room and chatting with him and I was like feeling the earth move. I was so hot and then with just a click I don’t know I guess it’s so easy to take a pic and then in a sec he can see you […] Now it’s like you know he tells me how much he likes me and I tell him stupid things like ‘my pussy is aching for you bad and I can’t wait for you to power drill me’ and then he always says he wanna slap his balls into me and then I ask him to show me how hard he is […] I know he’s so popular that I don’t want any other girl to erm you know B (participant 34): yeah, that’s right. The first time my boyfriend asked me to take a pic of my bum, you know, erm I didn’t want to do it, but it was like I was embarrassed but he insisted, well, he told me that all of his friends’ girlfriends do it and well I. D (participant 35): yeah, my story is pretty much the same. I started sending these pics when I started going out with my boyfriend. I haven’t done it before but he insisted that it was ok and I kind of, I don’t know. He asked me to send him some pics of mine and I felt embarrassed at the beginning, but I love him and I started taking pics erm I started sending pics in underwear, but he wanted more and you know I love him to bits and I knew he wasn’t going to show my pics to anybody and I sent him some more […] it’s kinda weird, it makes me feel sexy […]
As shown in excerpt 3, these young women’s narrative is based on a self-affirmation process that seems to justify why these young women comply with anything their boyfriends may wish. In doing so, they tend to only value the positive consequences and justify the negative ones in terms of their love (e.g. ‘because I love him’). Discursively speaking, this is realised by means informatives which have to do with (1) understanding sexting as a means of self-affirming (e.g. ‘it makes me feel sexy’) in spite of their self-perception (e.g. ‘I’m just an ordinary girl’) and (b) denying responsibility for consequences of action (e.g. ‘My boyfriend turned me on and I did it’).
Given that the important negative consequences of sexting cannot be omitted, these young women also tend to exploit elicitations that are aimed at encouraging the hearer to (1) confirm what they are saying is true and/or (e.g. ‘it was the same with you, right?’) and (2) commit to practice sexting to see the benefits (e.g. ‘people who criticise it don’t know what they are talking about, would you not do it if it makes you feel so good’). In doing so, they redefine reality as an attempt to seek social support for their beliefs.
In line with previous qualitative research with high school girls (Ringrose et al., 2013), this particular female discourse reveals how these young women seem to subordinate their personal needs to their boyfriends (i.e. satisfaction of the interpersonal dimension) which, in turn, underlines their confusion about their sexual choices. Furthermore, such positioning underlines Lamb’s (2010) argument that ‘using active vs. passive, subject vs. object as ways of describing good vs bad sex, suggests to girls that there is only one correct position from which to have sex, the position that has traditionally been associated with men’ (p. 299).
In addition to the interpersonal dimension of sexting, these young women’s beliefs about sexting reveal the relationship between this sexual practice and the satisfaction of a particular intergroup behaviour. In what follows, I will explore this new dimension.
Exploring the intergroup dimension of sexting
The existing literature has already given evidence of the fact that the Internet, in general, and social media, in particular, enable young people to explore their identities and socialise (boyd, 2008); however, a detailed analysis of these young women’s evaluative beliefs makes it possible to throw light on ‘issues of peer networks, friendship, intimacy and gendered and sexualised identity, and power dynamics’ (Ringrose, 2010: 170). Inspection of the data shows that these young women’s positive evaluative beliefs about sexting serve to underscore that this sexual practice determines both intergroup and interindividual relations. In particular, these young women report that sexting with boys not only has a social impact on the way they maintain interpersonal relationships with young men but also on the way they relate to other young women. For instance, consider the following excerpt from the data, where these 15-year-old women describe sexting a ‘girl thing’:
Excerpt (4) A (participant 1): Yeah, all my friends do it as well. It’s like erm it’s like you know something people our age do. People would say you’re weird if you didn’t do it. Don’t know never thought about it, but it’s like B (participant 2): My friends and I do it. There is a girl in my class that doesn’t do it and everybody laughs at her because they say she is erm she is you know weird C (participant 3): Yeah she’s a not a party girl, is she? ((all laugh)) D (participant 4): It’s a kinda girl thing. We all share tips and tricks for sexy legs or to look more awake and sexy […]
Linguistically speaking, this distinctive narrative is exclusively built up by means of informatives. Table 2 summarises the linguistic realisations of the construction of these young women’s discursive positioning when relating to other young women.
Exploring the intergroup dimension of sexting.
Given that this consensual sexting does not happen ‘in a context free of coercions’ (Hasinoff, 2012: 456), these young women indicate they are locked into a state of mutual helping and understanding so as to give advice about how they look and how they should pose. This narrative has the following two features:
Cognitive dissonance. Inspection of the data reveals these young women’s choices about sexting are also determined by a cognitive dissonance episode (Festinger, 1957) that reflect the struggle between peer pressure (i.e. sexting as a ‘girl thing’) and social pressure caused by the need to live up to in-group social norms (i.e. the fact of looking good and sexy to play with boys). It is such peer and social pressure that regulates the way these young women embody and express their gendered and sexual identities. In other words, inspection of data shows how they explore their gender and sexual identities by defining themselves as ordinary girls who take pictures of themselves and share them with other female friends to look for their approval. Here, I argue that the intergroup dimension of consensual sexting can be understood as a mechanism of social control since it does regulate social behaviour among them by causing in-group favouritism.
Self-objectification. In spite of their attempt to normalise sexting as a way to achieve positive self-identity, the specific strategies these young women adopt seem to point to the direction that media do have a negative impact not only on these girls’ self-image but also on their understanding of sexuality and sexual agency. During the group discussions, most of them agreed that they enjoyed posing in a provocative way and they imitated women they consider to be sexy on the Internet. In doing so, they portray themselves as primarily an object of men’s pleasure (Kozak et al., 2009) and reproduce the conventions of commercial pornography (Boyle, 2010).
Consider the following excerpts from the data where these 15- and 16-year-old women describe why they exchange this sort of pictures with their friends:
Excerpt (5) A (participant 15): When you like a guy, and you don’t know whether to do this or that, I usually text my friends and then they tell me what I should do. B (participant 16): It’s not like we are taking pics all the time. I’ve got some pics stored in a folder on my phone and yeah all of my friends have seen them ‘cos I wanna know what they think, if I look fat or you know C (participant 17): Yeah, I also have that so If I’m chatting with a new guy, and he’s hot and if I’m erm interested ((laughing)) you know I need to pull out all the stops to win him so I can’t send him any pic A: That’s right, you wanna make sure you don’t look too fat. Many girls are getting a little too much into posing and I don’t want that so erm my friends tell me if I look ugly or my hand is bigger than my head or I’m posing too much. Besides, I don’t feel really confident in my body I actually hate my belly fat and my friends have shown me how to hide it […] Excerpt (6) A (participant 19): I can’t really tell why I do it, it’s not something I, don’t know, I know, don’t know really B (participant 20): You’re so excited that you forget you’re chubby or you don’t like your boobs C (participant 21): We teach each other how to make a guy horny, I do this or I do that ((laughing)) it’s really quite simple. Just tell a guy you’re wearing a skirt and you’re not wearing underwear ((laughing)) A: yeah my friends always say, ‘hey babe just say, Do I strip for you?’ and you already know the answer ((laughing)) so I start licking my lips, then I unhook the clasp of my bra then let it fall to the floor so he can see my naked breasts. I want him to know I’m sexy […]
As shown in excerpts 5 and 6, these young women seem to understand sexting as an in-group strategy that allows them to strengthen the bonds of friendship. Discourse analysis of their evaluative beliefs and motivations for sexting gives evidence of the positive impact sexting seems to have on their sexuality as well as on their social status among their female friends. Linguistically speaking, informatives are exploited to indicate alignment. More specifically, these informatives are aimed at the following:
Creating bonds with other female friends who seem to share this social practice as a routine (e.g. ‘[…] my friends tell me if I look ugly or my hand is bigger than my head or I’m posing too much’);
Sharing tips with their friends to look hot and sexy – in spite of their body insecurities (e.g. ‘my friends always say, “hey babe just say, Do I strip for you?” and you already know the answer ((laughing)) so I start […]’).
All in all, their narrative makes it possible to interrogate these young women’s agency as they not only tend to self-objectify in the belief of being playing with boys to satisfy their own sexual needs, but they also treat themselves as an object to be evaluated on the basis of appearance characteristics (McKinley and Hyde, 1996).
Conclusion
Especially over the last decade, sexting has been the subject of intense debate. Yet questions remain about the complexity of young women’s choices, agency and the norms of ‘performing feminine sexiness’ (Ringrose et al., 2013: 307). Authors such as Hasinoff (2012, 2014) and Dobson (2015), among many others, call attention to the simplistic and alarming nature of policy and educational responses to this social phenomenon and urge academics to further rethink sexualisation’s assumptions. In line with their work, this study has purported to intervene into these debates on sexualisation, women’s sexual agency and choice, drawing upon the discourse analysis of young women’s evaluative beliefs and motivations behind the act of sexting voluntarily.
By having analysed how these young women position themselves and discursively negotiate their gendered identity while justifying their sexuality and morality, I have sought to give evidence that sexualisation seems to be a simplistic view of sexting on one hand and girls’ capacity for choice cannot be reduced to the influence of mass culture on the other. In particular, discourse analysis of these young women’s evaluative beliefs has shown how they self-present as sexually self-aware and sexually agentive and credit themselves as free women who live their sex life in full. I therefore argue that this sexual self-awareness not only blurs the boundaries between dominant culture and agency, but it also draws attention to a discourse of feminine empowerment insofar as these young women treat themselves as an object of male desire and, in so doing, gain a sense of agency. In line with Ringrose et al. (2013), this article gives discourse evidence that self-objectification is ‘re-interpreted not as oppressive but as constituting a primer site of sexual liberation, value and pleasure’ (p. 306). In addition to this, both these young women’s sexually self-awareness and self-justification of this practice makes it possible to illustrate Hasinoff’s (2012) claim that sexuality conflate with sexualisation.
However, the exploration of the interpersonal and intergroup dimension of sexting has also given evidence that this form of empowerment is not without its contradictions. These young women’s evaluative beliefs and motivations behind the act of sexting change dramatically when they are in a relationship. The subordination of their personal needs in order to satisfy their boyfriends’ not only reveals a competing narrative but also underscores these young women’s confusion about their sexual choice. The exploration of the intergroup dimension has emphasised this idea; that is to say, the social peer pressure behind these young women’s evaluative beliefs makes it possible, on one hand, to illustrate not only the negative impact media on their self-image and, on the other, to understand sexting as a mechanism of social control that regulates in-group behaviour.
All in all, my analysis has attempted to interrogate young women’s sexual agency and the complexity of women’s choice by analysis of their evaluative beliefs and motivations behind sexting. My findings suggest that the sexual agency implied in sexting shows the tension between the presence of a feminine discourse of empowerment and the conformity to cultural ideals of beauty and the reproduction of dominant culture and hegemony.
Natural directions for future research include a further interrogation of young women’s sexual choice by exploring the way(s) these young women’s boyfriends negotiate their sexual gendered identities, navigate their sexual relationships and make choices about their sexual embodiment by explaining why their girlfriends sext. In addition, future research should further examine whether or not poorer and less educationally advantaged young women are more likely to self-justify this practice and whether or not their norms of performing feminine desirability may vary.
Footnotes
Funding
The present study was financially supported by a grant (ID No: FFI2013-47792-C2-2-P) From the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. This article is part of the long-term research Project ‘EMOtion and language at work’: The discursive emotive/evaluative FUNction in different texts and contexts within corporate and institutional work: PROject PERsuasion (EMO-FUNDETT:PROPER).