Women as bodies. The role of ambivalent sexism and sexual objectification on non-consensual sharing of sexting images

Discriminatory attitudes towards women are still widespread and have also pervaded the digital world. They are often connected with the propensity to view and treat women as sexual objects, which sometimes leads to negative and harmful behaviours, such as the sharing of intimate images without the partner's consent. The present study aims at investigating the non-consensual sharing of intimate images in relation to benevolent and hostile sexism, direct and mediated by female sexual objectification. The sample was recruited through the snowball sampling technique and was made up of 2,305 young Italian adults aged between 18 and 35. Analysis was carried out using structural equation modelling and the multigroup mediation model, allowing us to detect any gender differences. For both, males and females, results show that benevolent sexism has neither a direct nor indirect correlation with non-consensual sharing of sexts. Instead, hostile sexism has an indirect relation with non-consensual sharing mediated by the sexual objectification of the woman's body. Results do not show differences between male and female groups and highlight the need to focus on the socio-cultural context that enables the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, which is a variety of cyberviolence against women. Practical implications of the results will be extensively discussed. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.