Sexting and the experience of non-consensual dissemination of sexts. The moderator role of self-objectification

Non-consensual dissemination of sexual materi als – or sexts – via technology represents a crime \r\nwith psychological and social consequences for the \r\nvictims, mostly women. Commonly, non-consensual \r\ndissemination of sexts results from sexting, i.e., the \r\npractice of sharing sexually explicit materials via \r\nmobile and internet technologies. The literature \r\nso far has provided inconsistent results on the \r\nimplication of this practice, and it remains unclear \r\nunder which conditions sexting may represent a \r\nrisk for suffering non-consensual dissemination of \r\nsexts. Based on objectification theory (Fredrickson \r\n& Roberts, 1997), we investigated whether the \r\nrelationship between sexting and experiences of \r\nnon-consensual dissemination of sexts in young \r\nwomen (N = 351) would be moderated by self objectification, i.e., the consideration of themselves \r\nas a sexual object rather than a fully human being. \r\nOverall, results revealed that the link between \r\nsexting behaviors and experiences of non-consensual \r\ndissemination of sexts was significant only for \r\nwomen with high levels of self-objectification, \r\nsuggesting that women who reduce themselves to \r\nsexual objects were more likely to have experienced \r\nnon-consensual dissemination of sexts due to sexting \r\nbehaviors. Implications of results are discussed.