Hispanic women’s perceptions of teenage sexting: qualitative analyses using a sexual scripting framework

Abstract

Research on sexting perceptions and practices among high school students is extensive; however, this work has focused on predominately White samples, ignoring Hispanic adolescent young women’s experiences and interpretations related to sexting. This study used qualitative methods to examine Hispanic college women’s reflections on their engagement in and perceptions of image-based sexting during high school. A total of 56 Hispanic college women participated in individual-interviews about high school sexting. Approximately 20% of participants reported sexting images of themselves during high school. The common perception among participants who did not sext was that girls who sent sexualised images of themselves in high school were attention seekers or responding to a request from a boy. Those who sent sexts reported having sent the images of themselves within the context of a romantic relationship. Teenage girls whose sexualised images were widely circulated were viewed negatively by both sexters and non-sexters and faced negative social repercussions. The results highlight the influence of traditional gendered sexual scripting norms on sexting perceptions irrespective of behavioural intentions.

Keywords:

• Adolescents
• Hispanic
• Latina
• perceptions
• sexting

Acknowledgements

We thank the following undergraduate research assistants who contributed to this study: Rebekah Antoine, Alexa Colloza, Yoli Davalos, Nicole Malagon, Jennifer Perales, Christy Querol, Gloria Selva, Danielle Sepulveda, Ryan Baker, Jessica Machado, Nathalie Perez and Nicolas Reyes.

Disclsoure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Hispanic is a population category title created by the US government to identify people “who speak, are affected by or are Spanish-like” (Suro 2006). As it is incorrectly used to encompass other non-Spanish speaking nationalities such as Brazilians, terms like Latino/a and Latinx are often used instead. However, as the interviews for this study were conducted in an urban centre where most residents - including the study participants - primarily self-identified as Hispanic, the term is used in this paper.