Privates in the online public: Sex(ting) and reputation on social media

Drawing on focus group research, this article examines the impact of norms of publicity and privacy on young people as they negotiate technologically mediated intimate and peer relations. This article argues that digital images of bodies circulate online in manner that reinforces gender inequalities, as the public feminine body is conflated with pornography in contrast to the range of meanings that can append to the public masculine body. While the exposed female body was subject to pejorative ascriptions of sexual promiscuity, the exposed masculine body could serve a range of purposes, including its deployment in sexual harassment. Young people tended to ignore male perpetration and hold girls and women responsible for managing the risks of online abuse. The article underscores the need for a ‘critical pedagogy’ of online abuse, but it also argues that social media is rendering the homosociality and misogynist strains of online publics visible and therefore contestable.

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