ABSTRACT
Around one-third of teens and up to half of young adults have sent a sexual image of themselves to someone else (Drouin et al., 2013; Strassberg et al., 2013). For many people, sexting is a normal part of their intimate relationships. In surveys, people report that they sext because it is a fun, pleasurable way to engage in sexual communication with their partners, and many see it as a form of foreplay (Albury and Crawford, 2012; Burkett, 2015; McDaniel and Drouin, 2015). Since many social interactions occur online, it should be no surprise that interpersonal sexual communication has been digitised as well. Indeed, if we view sexting as a continuation of phone sex and nude Polaroids, and even as a creative form of media production (Hasinoff, 2013), it becomes clear that the problem is not, as the media panic claims, the practice of sexting itself.
