Hetero-sexting as mediated intimacy work: ‘Putting something on the line’
Authors
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
New Media and Society
ISSN
1461-4448
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
24
Issue
1
Pages
122-137
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Amundsen, R. (2022). Hetero-sexting as mediated intimacy work: ‘Putting something on the line’. New Media and Society, 24 (1), 122-137. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820962452
Abstract
<jats:p> This article is concerned with women’s digitally mediated practices of creating and sending private sexual images to men, here referred to as ‘hetero-sexting’. Drawing on material from individual interviews with adult British women about their experiences of hetero-sexting, the article develops an understanding of women’s hetero-sexting practices as a form of female-conducted ‘mediated intimacy work’, constituted by a constant negotiation of female risk taking and male trustworthiness. In doing so, it shows how the women relied on and made active use of the sexting-related risk of digital image abuse as a means to establish and enhance trust and, as such, stress the significance of their hetero-sexting activities as performances of intimacy. Sexting-induced vulnerability was therefore both drawn on and dismissed within the very same accounts of hetero-sexting, as it was applied as a means to perform a new form of normative femininity, namely that of the agentic intimacy worker. </jats:p>
Keywords
Articles, Dick pics, intimacy, mediation, risk, sexting, trust, vulnerability, work
Identifiers
10.1177_1461444820962452
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820962452
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333177
Rights
Licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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