A qualitative study of children, young people and 'sexting ... - NSPCC

A qualitative study of children, young people and ‘sexting’
I: So why would they call you a sket just because you don’t want to make friends with them?
R: Yeah. (Jodie, year 8, School Two)
Cherelle further describes the pressure and the fear and distress the requests on BBM have caused her:
R: Well, I know lots of times I’ve been asked and sometimes I will say ‘No’ and they will say,
‘Okay’ and they will be like nice to you and then they will ask again and then they will put
pressure on you and stuff like this and I will just be like, ‘I’m sorry I don’t want to’ and they
will say ‘Why’ and I will say ‘I just don’t want to’, and they will say, like ‘There’s nothing wrong
like all you need to do is just suck on it’ and I will be like, ‘But I don’t want to do that’ and just
keep going and they put the angry face on BBM and dedicate their status to you in a negative
way.
I: Like say what kind of thing?
R: Like, ‘Oh this girl is pissing me off’.
…
R: It is not a joke because boys get really serious because they just get really angry at the time and
say, ‘Do it, there’s nothing to it. Oh you are pissing me off, I know where you live you know’
and they will try for it in any type of way even if they don’t even know you. (Cherelle, year 8,
School Two)
The best way to illustrate the ubiquitous and unrelenting nature of sexualised communications on
Blackberry in particular is to illustrate three BBM digital communications that happened during one
focus group interview with year 8 girls at School Two in the time span of less than 1.5 hours.
Twenty minutes into the focus group one of the girls made the following announcement:
R: Do you know what someone just sent me – ‘Which girls on My Bebo are on beats?’
I: Which girls on My Bebo are on beats?
R: Beats, that is to everyone on my Blackberry contact list, who want to have sex basically, that
is what beats means.
R: Like you will find that when people say that they have a free [inaudible 44:39] people will be
like requesting beats like –
R: Oh do you want to come to my house.
R: How can I explain this?
R: People in this year group or above like, since going into year eight, they have been like beating.
I: Beating?
R: Yeah like having sex. That is usually like done when their mum and dad is not in the house
and like it has been happening a lot now.
About fifteen minutes later one girl told me that she had received a new default profile photo on BBM of
a girl’s head and a boy’s penis:
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