Skin in the game: Young digital sexualities and online access restrictions

• In Event: Children and Youth Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1: Digital Sexualities, Media, and Identity Construction

Abstract

The use of social media, online apps, and websites by tweenagers and adolescents for sexual and erotic purposes is an often-sensationalized yet not fully investigated international phenomenon. Young people's online sexual expressions, interests, and seeking of information are located in a complex constellation of legal prohibitions, age limitations for online accounts, and concerns about their safety and well-being – juxtaposed with children's sexual agency, evolving competence, and the demands of human rights frameworks such as the UN Children's Rights Convention. Recent legislation in Australia prohibiting access to certain social media apps for people under the age of 16 has supported proposals of similar legislation in other countries. Despite that these new policies do not aim at young people's sexual/erotic motivations within online communication per se, this paper argues that such policies deserve critical scrutiny as they are detrimental to minors' development of sexual competence, especially for girls, (prospective) members of LGBTQIA2S+ communities, and other socially oppressed minorities.
Based on empirical data and scholarship from South Africa, the US, and Germany, this paper offers, first, a social-scientific review/analysis of young people's gendered and sexual, digital lives and the relevant policies, laws, and rights that exist for all stakeholders (children, platform providers, parents/caregivers, governance). Second, these policies will be critically discussed regarding their enforceability, actual enforcement, and intended/unintended, positive or negative consequences, including the complex negotiation of children's rights to protection, participation, and provision. Lastly, the paper will provide recommendations for sensible policy around young people's digital modes of access, highlight the educational importance of media competence, and conclude with methodological implications for research on this controversial topic.

Author

• Stefan Lucke, University of KwaZulu-Natal