Smart Phones, Social Media, Sexting, and Dick Pics in the Age of Raunch Culture

• In Event: 4284 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 16. Sexual Assault, Trafficking, and Street Harassment

Abstract

Millennials, the generation born between 1982-2004, negotiate the combined challenges of abstinence-only sex education (Herzog 2008), trolls, harassment, and assault (Hlavka 2104), internet pornography (Bridges et al. 2010), hookup culture (England et al. 2007, Wade 2017), dating apps like Tinder, “dick pics” - a completely new cultural norm, and the largest concentration of sexist representations of women that have ever existed. They share that they and their peers struggle with low self-esteem, internalized sexism, misogyny, pressure to be perfect, and issues in their interpersonal relationships, and they credit raunch culture with, if not always creating, at least exacerbating these problems. Because raunch culture is a relatively new phenomenon – I date the beginning of its rise in its current form to the mid 1990’s – and it accelerates with the speed of technology through a variety of media platforms (Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Yik Yak), older generations of people do not experience, perceive, or understand what raunch culture is and how much of an impact it has on young people’s lives. Drawing on content analysis and interviews this manuscript explores elements of raunch culture in new media.

Author

• Bernadette Barton, Morehead State University