Sexting and Gender Justice
New Book Chapter by Karen Peterson-Iyer
Karen Peterson-Iyer recently had one of her articles--"Mobile Porn?: Teenage Sexting and Justice for Women"--included in a new volume published by Georgetown Press, SEX AND GENDER: Christian Ethical Reflections (ed. Mary Jo Iozzio and Patricia Beattie Jung). The article previously appeared in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.
The article's abstract reads: The practice of sending and receiving sexually explicit images via mobile phones (“sexting”) has grown exponentially in recent years with the accessibility of cellular technology. This essay examines this practice, when conducted by teenagers, in light of a Christian feminist approach to justice. Without harmfully exhorting girls’ sexual “purity,” we must nevertheless develop a moral framework that challenges the practice of sexting while simultaneously empowering young women to claim primary control over their own sexual experience. For Christians, justice, addressed to sexting, must attend to sexual injustice even as it promotes genuine freedom, embodiment, mutuality and relational intimacy, and equality.