Beyond the ‘sext’: Technology-facilitated sexual violence and harassment against adult women
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865814524218 |
| Author | Nicola Henry,Anastasia Powell |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2015, Vol. 48(1) 104–118
!The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865814524218
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Article
Beyond the ‘sext’: Technology-
facilitated sexual violence and
harassment against adult
women
Nicola Henry
La Trobe University, Australia
Anastasia Powell
RMIT University, Australia
Abstract
Young people’s use of technology as a tool for the negotiation of their sexual identities and
encounters has increasingly become a focal point in popular and scholarly discussion. Much of
this debate centres on the sending of explicit sexual images and/or video (‘selfies’ or ‘sexting’)
by mobile phone, email or social media. In Australia and elsewhere, legislative frameworks
have arguably over-regulated or criminalised young people’s consensual, digital, sexual com-
munications. Equally, the law has failed to respond to the harm that is experienced by victims
of non-consensual making and/or distribution of such sexual images. In this paper, we examine
the non-consensual creation and distribution of sexual images in the context of harassment,
stalking and family or intimate violence. We argue that harmful digital communications are
often framed as a problem of user naivete
´rather than gender-based violence. Moreover, we
argue that current legal and policy approaches fail to adequately capture the social and
psychological harm that results from the use of sexual imagery to harass, coerce or blackmail
women. We draw on preliminary data from a larger project investigating adult women’s
experiences of technology-mediated sexual violence and harassment.
Keywords
Sexting, gender-based violence, technology, revenge porn
Introduction
The interface between technology and sexuality has become an important subject of
public debate in recent times, with much attention focused on how young people
Corresponding author:
Nicola Henry, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Legal Studies, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086,
Australia.
Email: n.henry@latrobe.edu.au
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