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Sexting: What’s Law Got to Do with It?

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Abstract

Sexting, the phenomenon commonly defined as the sending, receiving, and forwarding of nude, semi-nude, or sexually explicit images within digital forms of communication, is a practice that has received heightened public attention. While many scholars consider consensual sexting to be innocuous and a normative part of development, the potential for youth engagement to result in instances of cyberbullying, revenge porn, and child pornography has ignited public fear and anxiety, resulting in a messy patchwork of legal responses that often yield disproportionately punitive responses. Upon exploring the legal parameters surrounding youth sexting in Canada, this paper will argue that while the logic of the current legislation in protecting youth from harm is appropriate, its method of implementation is misguided. The legal reform advocated here calls upon child pornography and online harm laws only when the case involves an adult perpetrator, and suggests a more nuanced, graduated juvenile scheme when the behavior involves youth sexting participants.

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Notes

  1. According to Cohen’s (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panic, a moral panic occurs when “a condition, episode, person, or group of persons emerge to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests” (p. 9). For a phenomenon to be classified as a moral panic, Cohen (1972) argued that five essential principles must be satisfied: concern (i.e., a legitimate belief that the behavior has a negative effect on society), hostility (i.e., a clear division of an “us” versus “them” must be formed as hostility toward the behavior increases), consensus (i.e., widespread acceptance that the behavior poses a real threat to society), disproportionality (i.e., the solutions enforced must be seen as disproportionate to the actual threat posed), and volatility (i.e., moral panics are high unstable and tend to evaporate quickly).

  2. Twenty-two studies were from the U.S., 12 from Europe, 2 from Australia, 1 from Canada, 1 from South Africa, and 1 from South Korea. In addition, 18 studies examined sexting using mobile devices and computer, 6 studies examined sexting just using computers, 14 involved only mobile devices, and 1 provided insufficient information for determination.

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  1. School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, 655 Auditorium Road, Baker Hall Rm 138, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Jin Ree Lee & Kathleen M. Darcy

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  1. Jin Ree Lee
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Correspondence to Jin Ree Lee.

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Lee, J.R., Darcy, K.M. Sexting: What’s Law Got to Do with It?. Arch Sex Behav 50, 563–573 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01727-6

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