Exploring Sexting and Online Sexual Victimization during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

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...

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Published inInternational journal of environmental research and public health Vol. 18; no. 12; p. 6662
Main Authors Gassó, Aina M., Mueller-Johnson, Katrin, Agustina, José R., Gómez-Durán, Esperanza L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 21.06.2021
MDPI
Subjects
Adults
Behavior
Consent
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Data analysis
Disease control
Disease transmission
Divorce
Hypotheses
Internet
Pandemics
Quarantine
Questionnaires
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Sex crimes
Sexual behavior
Single persons
Social distancing
Social networks
Text messaging
Victimization
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Summary: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.
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ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph18126662