Abstinence doesn't work. So why are we telling teens to simply not sext?

"Abstinence only" is a failed approach in sex education, so why is it being trotted out again when it comes to sexting?

A report by Yfoundations, a policy group that looks at issues affecting young people, suggests that attempts to scare teenagers about the risks of expressing sexuality online are likely to be ineffective.

SEE ALSO: Teen boys are 'abusing' girls online. But how do we talk about it?

While education about sex and technology varies from school to school in Australia, it's too often focused on victim shaming, the report's author Jessie Hunt, told Mashable.

She sees old, unhelpful messages remerging that reinforce the idea that women should expect men to violate their boundaries in digital spaces.

"We are still seeing lots of narratives in media about it being a woman's responsibility to dress a certain way or behave a certain way, or to be prepared for the outcome of sexual assault," she said. "It's interesting to see [that] we seem to need to have this conversation every time a new technology emerges."

As an example of victim blaming, she points to the report's example of a police-supported educational film Megan's Story, in which a schoolgirl deals with the "unintended consequences" of sharing an intimate photo of herself with a boy. 

Importantly, Hunt suggests educators and parents should not assume they know what sexting looks like, and instead try to engage with what young people actually say they're up to online.

Digital sexuality is not just about texting images, after all. Often, it's also online dating or using Tumblr to meet people with sexual identities similar to your own.

"Part of the problem with some of the resources that do exist already is they assume there is one story or one way that young people are using sexting," she explained. "A sexually aggressive young man and a sexually submissive young woman."

That doesn't mean situations where images are shared non-consensually should not be addressed. Focusing on the risks of "sexting" to the victim, however, misses the larger conversation about how young men and women are taught to relate to each other. 

"For me, the best option is to work around those principles that we know to be true and important: consent," she explained. 

Calling it "harm minimisation," she advocates for programs that talk to young people about consent, including existing initiatives like Love Bites and Under Current that focus on respectful relationships and communication.

Following a number of scandals where explicit imagery of young women from Australian schools was shared online without consent, there came a legal crackdown. In September, New South Wales announced it would introduce a law criminalising the distribution of intimate or explicit images without consent.

"We have to come to terms with the fact that this is what young people are doing, and not just young people, but people in intimate relationships are using technology as a tool of flirtation or sexual desire," Nicola Henry, a senior lecturer at Melbourne's La Trobe University, told Mashable at the time. 

"We need to focus the attention away from the victim and onto the perpetrator. These images are not theirs to share."

Despite welcoming that often called-for shift in focus, in Hunt's view, bringing in the spectre of the law to intimidate young people may not be the best tactic.

"One of the reasons I don't necessarily advocate for that sort of educational approach with young people is that we don't have a lot of evidence to suggest that it works," she said, pointing to years of educational programming about the legal risks of underage drinking.

"I think that conversation can often become very hypothetical to young people, which doesn't always have a great effect," she added. 

"Most young people who take a photo of their body or who send on a photo of their partner probably won't face legal ramifications, and they probably don't know anyone who has."

(H/T The Guardian)