It's no secret that most people these days resort to sexting as a means of sexual expression. While this is usually seen as normal behaviour, this also means that sometimes people receive unwanted photos. With the advent of dating apps, it has become almost impossible to not receive unsolicited photos from strangers. And while the receiver might just put this off as annoying behaviour, researchers have now found that forced sexting could actually be associated with mental health problems.
Most people have now started resorting to posting these unwanted pictures on social media in hopes to stop this kind of behaviour. But unfortunately, their efforts have only been in vain. It was also found that this practice of sending photos of genitalia seem to be a lot more popular amongst men and one woman even conducted an experiment by sending photos of her genitalia to a number of men on an app. Apparently, most of them were rather appreciative of it.
Research has now found that this kind of behaviour can have serious mental health consequences for people. A study titled ‘Sexting and Psychological Distress: The Role of Unwanted and Coerced Sexts’, happens to be the first of its kind to associate sexting with mental health issues like anxiety, depression and low-self esteem. It was found that normal texting had no impact on people's behaviour but sexting was a whole other topic. It was also found that men were more prone to be negatively affected by sexting seeing as how they were also more prone to be rejected.
"Our results showed no association between receiving or sending sexts overall," the researchers wrote. But it was found that receiving unwanted sexts or being forced to sext could lead to psychological issues like depression and anxiety. "The relationship between these sexting behaviors with poor mental health was moderated by gender, with poorer outcomes for males receiving unwanted sexts," they added.
"One potential explanation for the discrepancies in findings on sexting and mental health may be how willingly a person receives or sends the sext," they wrote. When one study was conducted it was found that 52.3% of the young participants had reported sexting consensually but it was despite not wanting to sext. They'd done so owing to factors like intimacy reasons or wanting to satisfy a partner's sexual needs.
"Indeed, peer pressure seems to be an important reason for sexting, with another study reporting that 23 percent of teens felt pressured to sext, and 51 percent of teenage girls saying they felt pressure from a boy to send sexually explicit messages," they added. When it came to coercion, it was found that both men and women suffered from the same levels of anxiety and uneasiness.
The researchers also realised that people who force their partners or other people to send such photos are themselves at risk of exhibiting sexually violent behaviour or may already be that way. So, while it is often thought that this behaviour is normal, maybe it's time to start taking things more seriously rather than just putting them off. Stay tuned for more updates.
