ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relatively new set of 'media practices' that have been described as 'sexting'. It covers the gendered and context-specific nature of the commonly articulated 'risks', 'harms', and 'consequences' associated with sexting, drawing on qualitative research on sexting, youth, and digital cultures. Qualitative research on gender and social media provides examples of the broader digital and visual cultures within which sexting media practices take place. As some scholars have suggested, women, girls, young people whose gender identities, sexual desires, and practices move beyond traditional heterosexual ones, and young people marginalised along other lines such as ethnicity, class, and physical ability are among those for whom sexting media practices might potentially be most socially transformative. To conceptualise sexting primarily as a 'crime' is to assume that it principally involves non-consensual and/or illegal media practices such as the malicious or unauthorised production and/or distribution of images, or the production and/or distribution of 'pornographic' images of children.
