Sexting Education

This chapter explores the current educational responses to sexting. While education ‘remains a key component of how society should respond to sexting’ (Australian Privacy Foundation 2012, p. 2), not all educational campaigns are equally valuable. Moreover, it could be argued that, despite a plethora of educational campaigns across the developed world, ‘educators are struggling to keep up with the phenomenon of sexting’ (Law Reform Committee of Victoria 2013, p. 4). In this chapter, we demonstrate that some educational campaigns perpetuate gender stereotyping and victim blaming, in much the same way that early sexual assault campaigns tended to blame the victims for their own behaviours that led to their victimisation (Matthews 1994, p. 11). Such campaigns often miss the mark with young people; they are not responsive to the concerns and voices of those they seek to protect. While there are potentially negative consequences to sexting that in some cases may be severe, there is a distinct tendency in the campaigns to date to overemphasise the risks related to sexting. In so doing, the negative consequences of sexting for young people are articulated in ways that may neglect some of the potentially positive experiences this practice might have, such as the empowerment young people may feel through engaging in sexting behaviour (see for instance, Simpson 2013).