ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the legal and educational policy responses to youth sexting. I discuss the characterisation of youth-produced sexual images as illicit images of minors and, therefore, as illegal. I also discuss abstinence-based sexting education and campaigning, which seeks to make young people aware of the potential negative consequences of sexting in an effort to deter them from engaging in the practice. I explore how responses to youth sexting have become somewhat more nuanced over time as a result of the increasing recognition of the damaging impacts arising from the criminalisation of youth sexters and the need for a more context-specific, holistic approach both to proactive pedagogy around sexting and reactive (legal and non-legal) responses to specific incidents. Law enforcement, educators and others still, however, often struggle to know how to respond. The interplay of longstanding gendered and heteronormative assumptions about adolescent sexuality and anxiety about technology means that sexual pleasure and rights remain relatively marginalised in mainstream approaches to understanding and responding to youth sexting. The chapter explores these arguments and the role of a collectivist sexual ethics in addressing risky and harmful sexting practices.
