Boobs, back-off, six packs and bits: Mediated body parts, gendered reward, and sexual shame in teens' sexting images

In this paper, we explore a contemporary panic around teen sexting considering why it focuses mostly on girls’ bodies and ‘breasts’. Drawing on empirical findings from research with 13- and 15-year olds in two London schools, we ask: How are girls’ and boys’ mediated bodies and body parts constructed, negotiated and made sense of in the teen peer group? Howare images of girls’ breasts surveilled and owned by others? In what ways can images of girls’ bodies be used to sexually shame them? How do images of ‘boobs’ work differently than those of ‘six-packs’ and ‘pecs’? When and how is digital proof of sexual activity shamed or rewarded? Our analysis explores the affective dimensions of digital affordances and how relative gendered value is generated through socialmedia images and practices.Wedemonstrate how our qualitative research approach facilitates exploration of the online and offline relational,material embodied performance of negotiating gender and sexuality in teen’s digitally mediated peer cultures.

"we found images of girls’ bodies are highly sexually regulated. Particularly, images connoting sexual attention seeking outside the cover of a heterosexual relationship marked girls as ‘slutty’ and lacking ‘self-respect’. Boys, in contrast, can gain value and reputational reward from possessing images of esteemed girls’ bodies and the implication of sexual services from girls, in the form of images or text. Boys are rewarded for bodily displays of hard masculinity, highlighting shifts in requirements for boys to increasingly engage in self-work on the body (Manago 2013). However, the performance of heterosexual masculinity could be policed in relation to shame around penis size and ridicule for association with, or implications of pleasuring girls. Despite clear gendered hierarchies around bodily display and sexual shame, young people sometimes challenged these practices. There were inventive refusals of the pressures around feminine ‘sexy’ bodily display and requests for an image of one’s body parts, such as sending an image of a cat (pussy?). Some boys explicitly challenged the nonconsensual sharing and posting of images as ‘sexist’, ‘not smart’ and undeserving of respect. But there were highly gendered heteronormative performances of boys asking for and girls refusing to send images of girls’ bodies and participants consistently positioned girls who self-posted or sent ‘revealing’ images as lacking of ‘self-respect’. Consequently, it seemed difficult for girls to display and perform the ‘sexy’ self in ways that implied active sexual intent in their digital peer cultures." (Ringrose and Harvey, 2015: 214).