Sex & Online Safety

In a digital world, we can now have relationships online and access material about sex and relationships. This can be fun, when it's safe and you have thought about yourself and others when interacting online and through messaging apps.

Sexting and Selfies

Sending ‘sexy’ messages or pictures (‘sexting’) to a partner can be exciting and fun but remember there are rules to stay safe.

• Sending messages between young people under 18 is often against the law. Some phone apps also have rules about the language and content you share (remember companies can check your messages, nothing is 100% private).
• Some people may like to try out ‘sexting’ but may not feel comfortable doing it and they should never be made to do it.
• You do not know what will happen to a message or picture you send. They could be shared without your permission. This happens a lot when relationships end and people want to make you feel bad. Imagine how you’d feel if this trust was broken.
• If you have promised to keep things private and delete messages you must keep your promise, too.

If someone does betray your trust, it can be tough to deal with. You might feel embarrassed that other people are seeing the images. Remember none of this is your fault, no one should share things without your permission. You can report it to social media sites and ask for it to be removed. It’s helpful if you can provide evidence by taking screenshots of the sites where it’s shared. You could ask a friend to do this if you find it too difficult.

Make sure you get some support to cope with the emotions you’re probably feeling. Remember, you should never feel pressured to share things you don’t want to, no matter how hard anyone tries to persuade you.

Pornography

Pornography or ‘porn’ is ‘sexually explicit’ content where people are acting out sex or sexual activity. It’s been around in different forms for hundreds of years to arouse, stimulate and pleasure people.

Some facts:

• Porn is staged – it rarely shows realistic people, relationships or sexual activity - it’s fantasy sex.
• Porn doesn’t usually show that sex should be consensual and safe, or condoms being used.
• Porn can give us unrealistic, and even unhealthy, ideas and expectations about sex, our bodies and relationships.
• For some young people, the only information they have on sex is through pornography, and this can give them confusing and unhealthy ideas about what to expect and influence their behaviour.
• Pornography can do harm if it makes people think that the images of people and what they do in porn films is normal.
• Not all porn is bad and there is pornography being made that shows different relationships. There are also films where consent and the use of condoms are shown.
• Don’t assume that your partner will like the things that are done in films - it’s always important to get consent for any type of sexual activity. Remember it is not real life!