Coercion: Young women under pressure to send nudes, says study
Sending saucy snaps can be an exciting (albeit risky) way to enhance a relationship with someone you trust.
However, a new study has shown that young women are under intense pressure to engage sexually online through the production and sharing of nude or sexual images.
The study found that many women face 'bombardment' from single or multiple individuals who badger them to send explicit images.
The study was conducted using the real life stories of young women and teenagers from A Thin Line, a website committed to dealing with online and digital abuse.
'I've been asked multiple times by my boyfriends and guy friends to send a nude pic,' one participant said.
'Every time I decline, I either get harassed for it, insulted, or they just flat out ignore or break up with me. I guess keeping your morals makes you a bad person?'
In many of the women's stories to the study, requests for nude images escalated into threats, anger and violence when images were denied.
79pc of women who refused to send naked pictures faced abuse, were broken up with, or dealt with some form of 'consequence' for saying no.
Other women reported being sent unsolicited nude images which would then be used as leverage to request nudes in return.
Four women of the 37 reported having pictures and videos taken of them without their consent.
'I was dating this guy and one night we went to a party an he put something in my soda and got some naked photos of me an sent them to everybody in my school'(sic) one girl wrote, describing a time when she was drugged and photographed against her will.
One 14-year-old girl reported being blackmailed by her partner for 'nastier' images – otherwise he would share the ones she had already sent him online as revenge porn.
Overall, the study found that women report feeling 'overwhelmed, confused, tired, bombarded and trapped' by the online coercion.
