Engl. transl.: “Tailored pornography”. Content, context and consent in young women’s sexting

Drawing on 17 qualitative interviews with women aged 18–22, this paper explores how sexting practices are related to views on and uses of pornography. While pornography was found to be an important reference point for participants in their sexting, sexted images were actively tailored to differentiate themselves from porn in three ways. First, private images were to be less explicit and more realistic in terms of content. Second, unlike pornography, which was seen as one-sided, sex- ting relied on reciprocity and intimacy. Third, participants were careful to explicitly state what they were consenting to when sexting and, although a few were turned on by coercive fantasies found in porn, they clearly demarcated such experiences from those they wanted in their sexting relationships. This paper examines women’s active engagement with pornography to extend our understanding of the relationship between sexting and mundane media use, specifically in this case pornography.

examination: "how women’s different experiences with pornography play a role in how they negotiate content, context and consent in sexting" discussion: "how women engage with porn in multiple ways, criticising it as well as enjoying it." "Rather than imitating porn, the women used sexting to produce sexual images that contained components they felt porn was lacking, namely authenticity, subtlety and reciprocity." "The images they produced in their texts ‘solved’ some of their criticisms of porn and allowed them to feel good about their own bodies, rather than representing a direct means of achieving sexual satisfaction. As regards both sexting and porn, the women remained aware and alert to risks of coercion and, while porn could be used to fantasise about transgressive sexual practices, the participants sought to stay in control when sexting." "Our findings support the argument that sexting is a media practice that should be interpreted as produced in relation to other available resources and representations." "Our analysis has shown that women are very articulate about the porn they watch and detail how they integrate these experiences into their everyday digital sexuality." "We have developed here the concept of ‘tailored pornography’, a term coined by one of ou r participants (Olga) to capture how women deliberately work with sexual images that suit their porn preferences. We argue that women’s user experiences – of browsing through, recoiling from and being aroused by porn – are important aspects of under-standing women’s active engagement with the pornifi cation of culture and how it is (not) allowed to seep into their sexting practices."