On March 13th, French newspaper Le Monde published an interview with Swiss criminologist Yara Barrense-Dias, who completed her life sciences PhD at the University of Lausanne in 2019. Her thesis research focused on the sexting habits of teens and young adults.
Now a researcher at Unisanté, Barrense-Dias has studied sexting extensively, notably via a national survey of 5 million young adults in Switzerland.
In her interview with Le Monde, Barrense-Dias describes some of the overall trends she has observed in the digital phenomenon, which she defines as “the electronic exchange of content (image, text, audio, etc.) of a sexual nature between two consenting people”. She says she discovered a wide range of media being used, differences in the habits of young men and women, and a general awareness of the risks.
In addition to characterizing the motivations for sexting she has observed, Barrense-Dias outlines her recommendations for how to prevent the spread of such content without consent.
Read the full article: « Bien souvent, le sexting relève plus du charme que de la pornographie »
