Melody Chen, PhD Researcher in Gender-based Violence
This article draws on and has been inspired by the research of Jessica Ringrose, School of Sexuality Education, and WeProtect Global Alliance.
In this year’s hit British drama Adolescence, the 13-year-old girl Katie is not, at the beginning, a victim of the scandal around private photos — or rather, she seems to be acting on her own.
She has a crush on a boy in her year group and sends him a topless photo from her phone. What she does not expect is that the photo is shared with others and soon spreads wildly among her peers. As a result, she becomes the target of slut-shaming and collective exclusion.
This series of events in the drama not only sparked widespread debate in the UK, but also reflects a global, complex, and often hidden issue: how should we define the act of sending, receiving, and sharing intimate images among minors?
In Adolescence, after Katie’s private photo is spread and she is isolated, Jamie sees her as a “discounted product.” He believes that if he is willing to take her in, Katie should be grateful. Yet Katie refuses such objectification. To defend her dignity, she begins to fight back on social media by openly shaming Jamie for his hypocrisy and arrogance. This act of resistance becomes one of the reasons Jamie later turns violent against her.
With technological development, cases of minors being subjected to online sexual exploitation have become increasingly common, and many of the perpetrators are minors themselves. We must reconsider this social problem.
This article shifts the focus to a grey area that lacks clear response mechanisms: the problem of online sexual harassment among minors.
Q: What is online sexual harassment, and how can it be defined?
A: Online sexual harassment refers to a series of behaviours that use digital platforms to carry out gender-based discrimination, harassment, or invasions of privacy. Depending on its nature, online sexual harassment may violate different laws. But whether or not such behaviour is deemed illegal or criminal, it is a form of sexual violence.
In 2020, the UK charity School of Sexuality Education worked with a research team to develop a sexuality education and digital safety guide for students, educators, and policymakers. To help identify and address different forms of online sexual harassment, they divided the most common types into three categories:
- Sending sexual content that the recipient did not request (including harassing messages, images, etc.)
- Image-based sexual abuse (such as creating and/or spreading another person’s intimate images/videos without consent)
- Online sexual coercion and threats (such as using fraud, emotional manipulation, or intimidation to obtain images, engaging in sexualised acts remotely, and/or moving offline to commit assault)
Of course, different forms of online sexual harassment may overlap, and this is not the only way to categorise them. Such classifications and frameworks are not just tools for educational intervention. They are also the foundation for the continued evolution and refinement of legal systems. Whether a behaviour constitutes a crime depends on whether the law can recognise and clearly define its nature and social harm. In addition, it reminds us to continually examine the diverse manifestations of gender-based violence, so that interventions can be precise and targeted.
Q: What are the characteristics of online sexual harassment among minors?
A: Prof Jessica Ringrose, one of the scholars who co-developed the conceptual framework with the above-mentioned organisation, later conducted interviews with students in several UK public and private schools. Their findings (2022) reveal clear gendered asymmetries in how online sexual harassment plays out among minors.
First, the research team found that online sexual harassment among minors reflects the binary gender structures embedded in society.
“Toxic, competitive masculinity” often leads to the objectification of girls’ bodies. Boys engage in reputational attacks and vindictive shaming of girls within peer groups. Girls’ intimate images become “social currency” used for boasting and enhancing status. Peer solidarity among boys creates implicit encouragement to share such images. Together, these dynamics promote the prevalence of online sexual harassment among minors.
Second, Ringrose et al. (2022) found that when intimate images of girls leak, they are far more likely to be shamed and stigmatised, while boys’ images are more often dismissed as “jokes” or “banter”, which rarely results in sexual humiliation.
In this cultural atmosphere, regardless of whether private photos were voluntarily taken and sent, or digitally manipulated, once a girl’s intimate images are spread, she may face serious collective rejection and slut-shaming. Typically, the blame for the “leak” is placed on her, and the accompanying stigma or accusations are directed at her, rather than at the boys who shared the photo without consent.
At the same time, many girls who experience online sexual harassment choose silence out of shame and fear, unwilling to seek help. Some do not even realise that their experiences constitute harassment. This highlights the necessity and importance of educating minors about online sexual harassment.
Notably, they also uncovered illegal sexual behaviours specific to UK private boys’ schools. Some boys, in order to “protect their future digital selves” and maintain an image of “perfection and propriety,” would save girls’ intimate photos to their phones to show other boys in person, rather than spreading them online — “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave digital evidence on the internet that could be used against me.”
These cases provide a particularly sobering warning: even when there is no forwarding or visible circulation, the hidden viewing and consumption of others’ privacy is still taking place.
This reminds us that the harm of online sexual harassment does not only come from the act of sharing. It also lies in the structural power to control and objectify others’ bodies, a power that is often highly concealed and intertwined with class, gender, and media literacy.
Q: Are only girls victims of online sexual harassment?
A: At this point, you may wonder: since most of the victims mentioned above are girls, does that mean only girls can be victims of online sexual harassment?
The answer is no. While data shows that girls often experience harassment more frequently and with more traumatic effects, there is also evidence that gender stereotypes linked to masculinity, along with discriminatory laws in certain countries or regions, create barriers. These barriers not only prevent boys from disclosing their experiences or seeking help, but also hinder society from recognising them as victims or survivors, even when their rights have clearly been violated.
Research has found that compared with girls and gender-diverse groups, boys tend to be less concerned about online risks. Yet this stands in contrast to evidence that boys are disproportionately targeted for sexual extortion and coercion. In a reality where gender inequality and expectations remain deeply rooted, the law must pay attention to the diverse ways harm and trauma manifest.
An effective legal response cannot remain at the level of treating all cases “equally in principle.” It must be built on an understanding of structural gender differences.
Q: What are the impacts of online sexual harassment among minors?
A: Sexual harassment and assault among minors are not accidental. They are forms of violence rooted in existing gender inequalities and amplified by new digital networks. And like all forms of violence, they can cause serious harm.
In 2023, the WeProtect Global Alliance — an international coalition of over 200 governments, technology companies, and child protection organisations — released its Global Threat Assessment 2023: Assessing the scale and scope of child sexual abuse online.
This report pointed out that the psychological harm caused by the circulation of minors’ private images is no different in essence from the harm caused when adults are perpetrators. Victims often experience shame, trauma, social withdrawal, depression, and disruptions in schooling. Some of these effects can last for years.
Even when intimate content is created “voluntarily” by both parties, if it is shared without consent or used for extortion, it can still cause harm. Research by IBSEAC shows that 60 percent of perpetrators are people known to the victims, including intimate partners, friends, and acquaintances.
This also reminds us: if, in cases like these, society focuses only on excusing perpetrators with “they are still young” or “they don’t know better,” while forgetting that the victim is also a child — a child who can be hurt — we will never be able to build an effective protection mechanism.
Conclusion
Different countries respond to this issue in different ways. In the UK, for example, the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 introduced laws against “revenge pornography.” Sharing another person’s private images without consent is a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in prison.
In practice, however, when both the sharer and the person depicted are minors, the situation is far less clear. The threshold for holding a minor offender criminally responsible remains relatively high. This means that when criminal sanctions are not possible, guidance, education, and supervision from families, schools, and society become even more critical.
Of course, we may not choose the same path as Australia. In 2024, its Parliament passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age), banning minors under 16 from using social media. While this policy has been criticised as a “one-size-fits-all” approach, it reflects a growing awareness of the risks social media poses to young people.
But to truly address online sexual harassment among minors, we need more than emergency responses. Stronger legal frameworks, improved policies, and long-term collaboration are essential. Only by doing so can we uphold the principle of acting in the best interests of the child, helping minors recognise risks, respond to harm, and navigate the fragile yet inevitable boundaries of adolescence.
Feminist Educational Engagement Lab 