Sext dissemination presents policy and legislative challenges given its potential psychological, social, and legal harms. We report on a cross-national comparison of sext-image dissemination in a large sample of 1148 young adults aged 18–29 years (M = 22.54, SD = 2.50, 53.0% women, 47.0% men), either U.S. (53.8%) or Australian (46.2%) residents. The results indicate that 14% of young adults disseminated sexts, with no difference by gender or country. Over 50% of respondents indicated that the last time they received a disseminated sext, it was unexpected or unwelcome, with women twice as likely as men to receive unwelcome sexts. The most frequent motivations for sext dissemination were similar cross-nationally, relating to the attractiveness of the person depicted, as a joke, to gossip, because it was not a big deal, bragging, roasting or teasing, and to increase social status. Motivations of attractiveness, bragging, or social status were more commonly endorsed by men, while women endorsed reasons around gossip or roasting/teasing. Unique predictors of sext dissemination included U.S. residence, requesting sexts, receiving disseminated sexts, having one’s own images disseminated, and more positive subjective norms to dissemination, and there was a country–gender interaction, where Australian women and U.S. men were more likely to disseminate sexts than then U.S. women or Australian men. The findings have implications for prevention programs seeking to address harmful online sexual interactions, including addressing respect, consent, and subjective norms supporting non-consensual dissemination.

This study sought to explore whether body image self-consciousness during sexual relations predicts whether and for what reasons individuals send sexts. A series of ordinal and binary logistic regression analyses revealed that increased body image self-consciousness during sexual relations predicted consensual but unwanted instances of sexting for men and women, a lower frequency of sending sexts among heterosexual individuals, and a lesser likelihood of sending sexts in order to flirt. Body image self-consciousness, however, was not predictive of sending sexts in general or sending sexts in order to ‘feel sexy’. This research provides support for the negative relationship between body image self-consciousness and sexual agency across gender, and suggests that individuals affected by body image anxieties might be prone to technology-mediated abuse. Study limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Although consensual sending of sexts between adolescents is considered developmentally appropriate, it may also entail a range of negative consequences. Current sexting research lacks a comprehensive theoretical framework identifying a range of risk and protective factors underpinning adolescent consensual sending of sexts across individual, interpersonal, and distal levels. Further, there is a lack of systematic evaluation of how the importance of these factors may vary across adolescent age. This study investigated the utility of the Social Development Model to predict a range of risk and protective factors across individual, family, peer, school, and community-level factors. The sample included 1302 teenagers from Victoria, Australia (M_age = 14.54, SD = 1.14, 50.8% girls). Results indicated that 146 (11.7%) participants sent a sext (76 boys and 70 girls). Logistic regression analyses revealed that the Social Development Model accounted for 45.8% of variance in sexting, with greater likelihood of sending sexts being associated with older age, prior sexual activity, school sector, physical activity, lifetime substance use, greater depressive symptoms, sensation seeking, and perceived substance availability in the community. Multigroup analyses revealed that lifetime substance use was associated with a greater likelihood of sending sexts among younger teens. Among older adolescents, adaptive coping was associated with reduced engagement in sexting, while higher parental overcontrol and family conflict increased the odds of sending sexts. Overall, sexting is associated with a range of modifiable factors potentially amenable to intervention.

While sexting behaviours have attracted increasing research focus over the last decade as both normative and deviant forms of sexual activity, little attention has been paid to their potential associations with sexual preoccupation and heightened interest in sex. The current study sought to identify whether sexual preoccupation significantly predicts sending, receiving, and disseminating sexts, after controlling for pornography use and risky sexual behaviours. Young Australian adult participants (N = 654, 78.8% women) aged 18 to 34 (M = 19.78, SD = 1.66) completed an anonymous online self-report questionnaire regarding their engagement in sexting behaviours (sending, receiving, and dissemination), pornography use, risky sexual behaviours, and sexual preoccupation. Results showed that individuals with higher sexual preoccupation were more likely to engage in pornography use and risky sexual behaviours. Binary hierarchical logistic regressions revealed that sexual preoccupation predicted higher rates of sending and receiving sexts. However, sexual preoccupation did not significantly contribute to increased rates of sext dissemination. Our study illustrates the need to incorporate pornography viewing and sexting into the promotion of safe sexual behaviours in online and offline contexts, and the potential to utilise modern technology to negotiate safer sex practices.