‘Sexting and adolescents!?’ Who dares to address this controversial topic? Empowering parents using a sex-positive intergenerational co-learning approach

Parents, researchers, social media ... everyone has an opinion about ‘sexting and adolescents’, but do they talk about this topic with the youth themselves? Even though communication between parents and their children has an important, preventive role in sex education, these conversations seem rare. The moral panic around sexting results in more negative messages during conversations and in a more controlling, complementary conversation style. In this project, we introduce a new meta-theoretical perspective based on which we – making use of a sex-positive approach and of intergenerational co- learning – want to improve these conversations about sexting. We will first conduct three studies to investigate how communication about sexting between parents and children occurs in practice. Study A consists of focus groups to examine feelings and obstacles during these conversations. Study B, a lab-observation study, and Study C, a survey study, will investigate the associations between moral panic, complementary or symmetric conversations, sex-negative or -positive messages and the satisfaction during and after the conversations. Furthermore, we will explore in Study D the differences and similarities in vision on sexting within and in between generations using a Q-methodology study. Finally, in Study E we will set up a pilot intervention to test if intergenerational co-learning, framed in a sex- positive approach, can result in more satisfying communication about sexting.