“As a linguist, nothing shocks me,” said Dr. Mara Berkland, writing “Dick Pics + Twat Shots Panel” on the dry erase board at the front of the classroom.
Berkland, along with three other professors from the communications department, Michael Blight, John Stanley and Steve Macek, held a panel on March 28 about sexuality in the media. Drawing on their own disciplines, the panel covered a range of topics including sexting, child pornography laws and “bro-jobs.”
Before getting into the discussion, the four professors spoke about specific areas where sexuality and media converge that relate to their own research areas. Berkland, who pitched the panel after finding research that showed how prevalent sending or receiving nude photographs was, explained that the cultural phenomenon of these images is worth understanding.
Looking at this issue from a cultural perspective, Berkland discussed the two societal responses to anything related to sexuality.
“One of them is that this is a deviant activity that needs to end and the other is that this is a normal part of human sexuality,” she said.
Because sexting is often correlated with sexual activity, people tend to view it as a deviant act. Sexting, defined as “the interpersonal exchange of self-produced sexualized texts and above all, mostly images via cell phone or the internet,” is not restricted to a certain age group. In fact, the research Berkland shared found that more people are connected to this than not.
Around 21 percent of minors in the U.S. report having sent at least one sex, while children under 12 rarely receive sexts. The number of people who report sending or receiving sexts increases with age, with around 50 percent of baby boomers engaging in sexual communication through either their phones or the internet.
While sexting is common, there are issues that come along with it regarding consent, coercion, revenge porn, social consequences, body image and child pornography laws.
Arguably the most misunderstood area here is the laws surrounding sexting. According to the research Macek shared, about 20 percent of adolescents have created a sexually explicit image of themselves while about 30 have received an image like this.
“That means between 20 and 30 percent of minors have violated the law in most states in the nation,” said Macek. “They’re in violation of the law and may be guilty of creating and disseminating child pornography or material harmful to a minor.”
He went on to explain that he does not agree with the way these laws are set up as they are not caught up with technological advances. The other panelists agreed and discussed how this is also punishing young people’s natural desire to explore sexuality. However, they also covered some of the more serious consequences of this, like how to avoid loopholes in new laws that would allow child predators to partake in this and how there are hundreds of cases involving minors and sexting.
The case he focused on was the 2017 incident involving a student from Naperville North High School who was threatened with being placed on a sex offender registry for possession of child pornography. The student, who was showing others an explicit video of a female classmate, left school and committed suicide after being scared by police.
Situations like this are not uncommon and the laws that currently exist are not up-to-date with technological advancements. “The way to deal with the problem is education rather than adjudication in the criminal courts,” said Macek.
Educating and normalizing sexuality among all age groups is more difficult than it sounds, though. Culture changes slowly, so there is no one way to start changing things. Each professor agreed that the best way to start changing things is to have more open and honest conversations about sex.
A shift in the conversation is happening online, where adolescents are able to “explore their desires and learn about their sexuality without having the risk of engaging in hand-to-hand, body-to-body intimacy,” said Berkland.
“I do think there is something to be said about the — and I say this cautiously — the value of sexting as a means to understanding self and as a means of understanding what relationships should look like,” said Blight. “We all sort of have this coming of age story where we all learn about sex and it’s that awkward giddy laughter you have with your friends or classmates and somebody says orgasm in class and your minds explode.”
Stanley shifted the conversation toward body positivity, race, gender, sexual identity and sexual orientation to examine how they all intersect. Through this, he discussed the ways in which African American women’s bodies are perceived because of media portrayals, Asian men’s documented lack of sexual desirability and the trend of “penis whitening” that originated in Thailand.
Male insecurity about genital appearance has gone beyond this, with Stanley explaining “There’s plenty of bro-texting out there where people who identify as heterosexual males are sharing their genitalia with their straight male friends and even some of their gay male friends to be like ‘hey how do I rank of a scale of 1 to 10?’”
These platonic exchange critiques cover lighting, shape, coloring and other characteristics.
“I think the whole idea of men sharing their penises with other men via picture and they claim to be heterosexual, is, I feel like, a good thing to help reduce homophobia,” said Stanley.
Further, this has gone beyond just exchanging explicit pictures. As Stanley explained, “Some men will engage in ‘bro-jobs’ where they will have sex with other men even though they claim they are heterosexual, they will do it as a way to experiment and test things out.”
Throughout the panel, the four professors offered research that seems to suggest the conversation around sexuality is progressing toward a more open future. However, they reiterated that this cultural change takes time and the best thing to help move it forward it by having open conversations.
“Everybody needs to be talking about this just like everybody needs to be talking to everybody about sex, but everybody’s so embarrassed and so prudish that what happens is people are left in the dark, literally and figuratively to try to figure out what’s safe,” said Berkland. “Just as we should have open and honest conversations about what is natural and healthy and STDs and pregnancy, we shouldn’t treat this as some sort of deviancy.”
