ABSTRACT

The proliferation of youth self-produced sexual images (SPSI) raises complex practice challenges for professionals supporting victims of sexual abuse. This paper examines the views and perspectives about youth SPSI among professionals with expertise in child sexual abuse, who in the course of a study on child sexual abuse images, commonly raised SPSI without prompting. Eighty-four participants from three professional sectors (Internet child exploitation law enforcement, child protection, and children’s mental health) took part in 12 focus groups, the analysis of which indicates that most participants regarded youth SPSI as a complex social phenomenon, and had trouble fitting it into their existing professional expertise. Participants were immersed in larger cultural narratives about youth sexual agency, the dangers of constantly evolving technology, and the digital age compounding generational differences. Lack of clarity about when and whether a young person requires support and/or legal intervention arose from a tangled web of punitive, permissive, and ambivalent perspectives on youth SPSI. Professionals experienced with victims of sexual abuse focused on SPSI as opposed to child abuse images, and struggled to distinguish between what is normal versus problematic youth sexuality in the digital age, confounding efforts to settle on appropriate legal and support responses and interventions.

摘要

青年自制性图像 (SPSI) 的激增给支持性虐待受害者的专业人员带来了复杂的实践挑战。本文研究了具有儿童性虐待专业知识的专业人员对青少年 SPSI 的看法和观点，他们在研究儿童性虐待图像的过程中，通常在没有提示的情况下提出 SPSI。来自三个专业领域（互联网儿童剥削执法、儿童保护、儿童心理健康）的 84 名参与者参加了 12 个焦点小组，分析表明大多数参与者将青少年 SPSI 视为一个复杂的社会现象，并且遇到了麻烦将其融入他们现有的专业知识中。参与者沉浸在关于青少年性行为的更大的文化叙事中，技术不断发展的危险，以及数字时代加剧了代际差异。由于对青年 SPSI 的惩罚性、宽容性和矛盾性观点错综复杂，因此对年轻人何时以及是否需要支持和/或法律干预缺乏明确性。经历过性虐待受害者的专业人士专注于 SPSI，而不是虐待儿童的图像，并且难以区分数字时代的正常青少年性行为和有问题的青少年性行为，混淆了寻求适当法律和支持响应和干预的努力。