Kath Albury confirms that that mobile technology had overtaken internet use for young same-sex attracted people. This presentation was given at the Young Gay Men's Symposium at Promises & Limitations, the CSRH social research conference, February 2014.

1. Same-sex attracted young people & mobile
media
Kath Albury, k.albury@unsw.edu.au
School of Arts and Media

2. Young people and sexting in Australia: ethics,
representation and the law
Investigators: Dr Kath Albury (UNSW); Associate Professor Kate Crawford (Microsoft
Research/UNSW); Associate Professor Ben Mathews (QUT)
Partner Investigator: danah boyd (Microsoft Research)
Research Assistant: Mr Paul Byron
Funding body: ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation, QUT, $60 000
This pilot project aims to both develop a nuanced taxonomy of sexting (ie sexual representations and
self-representations using mobile and online media), that takes account of young people’s
understandings of intimacy, friendship, ethics and representation as well as bullying and
harassment. The project will examine legal, professional and popular media discourses around
sexting, and will also involve consultations with young people aged 16-18, and adults who address
sexting in a professional capacity (ie policy makers, educators, legal aid workers, police and youth
workers). The pilot aims to inform Australian legal, educational and policy responses to sexting, as
part of the CCI’s Risk and Representation project

3. 18-29 year olds
F4: With my close friends, at the end of a week if you were to ask for a progress update on how they
were getting on with their certain person that they're interested in or whatever, and they were like,
oh, we sexted. It would kind of be like that would be a threshold crossed kind of thing, like a
certain level of intimacy achieved. As opposed to just like texting, like normal shit.
M4: The word sexting itself doesn't actually really come up in any kind of conversations, like informal
conversations that I've witnessed or have done. It's just like a very grownup, you know, kind of
you’ve never involved yourself in so…

4. Finding other queer people
F5: Just out of curiosity so it would be funny, right. I don’t know if it was designed for that purpose or it
was just designed for like, you know, finding other queer identifying people in the area. Because
that to me, coming from outer suburbia, is a fun thing, because I turn it on when I'm at my mum's
place in [outer West suburb] and it's like other young, other queer girls in [outer West suburb]. I
haven't seen them.

5. M3: if people don’t send [photos], it seems weird. …it’s becoming so common now that the person that
doesn’t send… it’s strange, so they probably won’t meet as [they would] if people exchange the pic.
(and also) M3: Hornet makes it so easy and that’s why Hornet grew so fast. I just discovered, it’s quite
new. It’s a few months ago and I discovered here. Because Grindr is too slow to send a picture.
As Hornet, just a click and you can see ..

6. Legal questions
M2: …sometimes, with a lot of my friends, they often get confused, like, at - my 18 year old friend, he there’s another guy who’s 16 and they’re talking and, like, everything and they’re wanting to date,
but he keeps saying to me that, “I’m not sure, because even though he’s, you know, old enough
for sex, I’m still the adult and he’s technically not an adult yet, so does that count as paedophilia?”
That’s what his concern is, because yeah, I mean, that’s where it’s really contradictory. Because
they say under the law an 18 year old is technically an adult, but you’re allowed to have sex and
do all that at 16, which, kind of, it’s - I don’t - even I don’t understand it really. It’s weird.

7. Safety and risk
M3: I’m quite surprised that the apps I found, but I don’t know, maybe I need to learn more, but I was
surprised – I found it quite safe, in the sense of, I never – I will take so many pictures, and I never
found any of them in a porn website, because somebody could send it to somewhere…
(apps seem safer than online profiles)
M3: …as it comes from a phone, which is more personal, all profiles seems more real and more
personal.
(and also) M3: I was afraid when I was younger to find, on a dating website, to find homophobic people
and hidden behind a profile and we don’t know who we meet. As with a date, with the apps, we go
to meet very quickly.

8. Safety & risk
M1: It feels more personal. It feels like you have a lot - a little bit more control over the phone than
online.
M2: Yeah. Like, with your history and everything, you don’t necessarily - well, you can easily get rid of
the history and everything.
M1: Yeah.
M2: And you know that no one else is monitoring it. Because my mum monitors the computer at home.
The main one. Not my iPad, thankfully, but yes.
M1: Yeah. No. It’s the same. Like, being at that home PC thing and I had a computer in my
room, when I was a kid, and you’re always clearing your browser history in case Dad wanted to
come on or Mum wanted to come home. Especially when you were still experimenting and you
didn’t know. Well, my phone is password locked. No one knows it. No one touches my phone, so
it’s a lot - you think you’re safe, but in reality…
M2: You’re not really, no.
M1: The same risks are there that they were 10 years, but you think there’s some kind of false
security, because it’s your phone.