Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has impacted daily routines, forcing people to stop socializing in person and changing the way people express their feelings and their romantic or sexual interactions. Social distancing has changed the way people behave online, and we expect that engagement in sexting and online sexual victimization behaviors have increased during lockdown. The aim of this paper is to study the prevalence of sexting and online sexual victimization behaviors during the COVID-19 lockdown in Spanish adults in order to explore how social distancing has affected these behaviors. The sample comprised 293 Spanish adults (mean age = 30.3; 66.2% female) who took part in an online survey about their engagement in sexting behaviors and online sexual victimization experiences. Overall results were apparently not supportive of our main hypothesis, showing that both sexting engagement and online sexual victimization decreased during lockdown despite the increase in internet use. Apart from differences in time period of reference, some alternative hypotheses relate to the increased presence of capable guardians according to the routine activities theory and to forced distance as a demotivation to sext. Possible explanations and hypotheses for these results are discussed further in the paper.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has impacted daily routines in many ways
Voluntary and consensual sexting between adults is considered by most scholars to be a form of normal sexual expression [6]; it has been conceptualized as a risky behavior that increases vulnerability to online sexual victimization (OSV), such as sexting coercion, non-consensual dissemination of sexual content, revenge porn, sextortion, or online grooming [7]
Our hypothesis was partially supported because results indicate that internet use is associated with sexting engagement, as has been reported by previous literature [21,29]
Summary
It forced people to stop socializing in person and non-cohabiting couples to spend weeks apart, and it has changed the way people express their feelings and their romantic or sexual interactions. There have been media reports on the increase of sexting and worryingly, of sexual harassment and victimization using phones or online media [1,2,3]. Voluntary and consensual sexting between adults is considered by most scholars to be a form of normal sexual expression [6]; it has been conceptualized as a risky behavior that increases vulnerability to online sexual victimization (OSV), such as sexting coercion, non-consensual dissemination of sexual content, revenge porn, sextortion, or online grooming [7]. Psychological consequences of OSV range from victims’ low self-esteem, decrease of academic performance, and sleep alterations to more severe implications, such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, and many suicide cases related to OSV have been publicized widely in the media [8]
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