Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
One in four teens actively participate in sexting, or electronically transmitting explicit images to one another, and those who do are more likely to become sexually active within the next 12 months, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) report in a new study.
However, writing in the journal Pediatrics, Dr. Jeff R. Temple and Dr. HyeJeong Choi of the UTMB Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology said that while their findings indicate that sexting may precede intercourse in some cases, they found no link between the sending and receiving of explicit photos and the likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behavior over time.
“We now know that teen sexting is fairly common,” Dr. Temple, an associate professor and psychologist, said in a statement. Despite that knowledge, however, he said the majority of research into the topic “looks across samples of different groups of young people at one time, rather than following the same people over time. Because of this, it’s unclear whether sexting comes before or after someone engages in sexual activity.”
To find out, Dr. Temple and Dr. Choi used anonymous surveys to study approximately 1,000 high school sophomores and juniors from southeastern Texas, said Reuters reporter Andrea Burzynski. Of those polled by the researchers, 28 percent of teens said that they were involved in sexting, and those who admitted to doing so during their second year of high school were more likely to have engaged in sexual activity by the following year.
However, the study authors said that only active sexting, which was defined as sending an explicit photo, was correlated with an increased likelihood of sexual activity, added Burzynski. Passive sexting, or asking for or receiving a photo, was not. Their findings suggest that actively sending a nude photograph was the important part of the link between sexting and sexual activity, as opposed to simply asking for or being asked for one.
“Being a passive recipient of or asking for a sext does not likely require the same level of comfort with one’s sexuality,” explained Dr. Choi. “Sending a nude photo may communicate to the recipient a level of openness to sexual activity, promote a belief that sex is expected, and serve to increase sexual advances, all of which may increase the chance of future sexual behavior. Sexting may serve as a gateway behavior to actual sexual behaviors or as a way to indicate one’s readiness to take intimacy to the next level.”
According to Burzynski, the research (which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Justice) is part of an ongoing six-year probe of 974 ethnically-diverse adolescents. Each study participant periodically completes surveys, which discuss their history of sexting, sexual activity and other behaviors.
“For parents and teachers, sexting among teens is troubling not only for reasons related to personal values surrounding sex, but because the photographs can be easily and widely shared,” the Reuters reporter added. “The posting of nude photos of celebrities such as actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton on the Internet in September by an anonymous hacker, for instance, raised concerns about technology, security and privacy.”
However, Dr. Temple told Burzynski that parents should not become overly concerned if they find out that their teens are actively sexting, since the discovery could be used as an opportunity to engage those adolescents in important discussions pertaining to safe sex, sexual health and related issues.
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