ABSTRACT
Sexting constitutes a form of image-based sexual abuse when mutual consent between adolescents is not established, such as when one is pressured to engage in sexting or when images are distributed without consent. This study explored the prevalence of image-based sexting and sexual abuse experiences among early to middle adolescents (12–15 years) in Belgium. The study surveyed 2,644 adolescents and found that 9.6% had sent image-based sexts and 34.2% had received them. About 11% (10.9%) were pressured to send an image-based sext and 6.7% reported non-consensual forwarding of an image-based sext. Additionally, 9.6% were asked by adults for image-based sexts, and 15.5% had received unsolicited image-based sexts from adults. Boys were more likely than girls to non-consensually forward an image-based sext, and girls were more likely to send or receive image-based sexts as well as experience image-based sexual abuse and adult sexual solicitation. Overall, these findings suggest that educational and prevention efforts focused on helping adolescents avoid negative outcomes of image-based sexting may need to be specifically tailored to sex differences.
