Cyber Sexual Harassment among Adolescent Girls: A Qualitative Analysis
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Setting and Participants
2.2. Study Procedure and Measures
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Sample Characteristics
3.2. Qualitative Findings
3.2.1. Pressure to Send Sexual Photos
“Like I’ve had guys ask me on Facebook for nudes. And I’m like “What? I don’t even know you.” But I think it just starts like “Hey” like Hey…conversation, and then it keeps going down and then sooner or later they ask for the picture.”[male met online]
“Like I didn’t want to [text a sexually explicit photo]... I felt pressured to do it [send a sexually explicit photo]. Like I was just more afraid like, I was more afraid he was gonna tell people that like I’m a wuss or something like that.”[potential male romantic partner]
“…They [guys] ask [girls to send photos] and you think this guy likes me so you’re like, “Oh my god, okay ”[I will send a photo.]
3.2.2. Receiving Unwanted Sexual Photos
“A guy [friend], just randomly sent me a [picture of his penis] and he was like, ‘you like it? Send me one.’ And I was like, ‘Umm… no, thank you,” and he was like, ‘Come on … we’re just friends.” So… we were really close … but I didn’t want to do that because he was [like] my brother.”
“Some creepy guy on Facebook, I don’t know who he was and he just kind of messaged me and he sent me a picture of his penis, which is wrong! And I just felt really like… I don’t know, it just felt so awkward so I kind of like blocked the person.”
3.2.3. Unwanted Photo Sharing
“I guess this girl,…she sent a [sexual] picture out to one of the football team members and got all around the football team. From the football team it went to the whole school.”
“…I read the conversation of a friend and she sent the [sexual] picture and the guy started like bullying her like he was gonna post the pictures if she didn’t have sex with him…and she was crying… ’Cause everybody from school knows me… she was like, “Oh, go talk to him, please.” So I went and I was like, “You better erase the photos or the office is gonna know and stuff.” And then he was like, “No, I’m not gonna erase anything.” …And he… [eventually] deleted the pictures in front of her…”
3.2.4. Solicitation Online That Led to In-Person Sexual Harassment and Violence
“We started talking through Facebook. …[when we met in person] at the end…, he took me to like the corner and he was like “Oh, you don’t want to give me a kiss.” And I was like ‘What the hell.’”
“I met someone online…then he picked me up from school…We had sex…and we never talked again. I didn’t want [to have sex, I didn’t know we were going to have sex], we just talked about chilling and watching a movie.”
3.2.5. Other Consequences of Experiencing CSH
“[After a participant’s acquaintance’s sexually explicit pictures were posted online by her sexual partner]… everyone calls her like things… so she barely gets out to the halls or anything … a lot of her close friends don’t talk to her anymore [because of these pictures] … because they say that hanging around with her would make them seem like they’re like her, so they just stopped talking to her.”
“There was this one girl in middle school that had sent a [sexual] picture [to a male partner] and it got around...I think it affected her like dramatically cuz’ she stopped going to school.”
4. Discussion
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Salazar, M.; Raj, A.; Silverman, J.G.; Rusch, M.L.A.; Reed, E. Cyber Sexual Harassment among Adolescent Girls: A Qualitative Analysis. Adolescents 2023, 3, 84-91. https://doi.org/10.3390/adolescents3010007
Salazar M, Raj A, Silverman JG, Rusch MLA, Reed E. Cyber Sexual Harassment among Adolescent Girls: A Qualitative Analysis. Adolescents. 2023; 3(1):84-91. https://doi.org/10.3390/adolescents3010007
Chicago/Turabian StyleSalazar, Marissa, Anita Raj, Jay G. Silverman, Melanie L. A. Rusch, and Elizabeth Reed. 2023. "Cyber Sexual Harassment among Adolescent Girls: A Qualitative Analysis" Adolescents 3, no. 1: 84-91. https://doi.org/10.3390/adolescents3010007