Members of the fairer sex share steamy snaps and sexts with men because they believe it is expected of them, a new study has found.
During a survey conducted by the University of Nebraska asking women why they have sent “nudes,” more than one-third of a participants said they felt “an obligation or inherent part of being in a romantic relationship.”
The study elicited a complex range of responses on the subject, with some women saying they passed out the sexy shots as a power move.
“I wanted to exert a sense of power over the men I sent nudes to; I could make them desire me and they would do anything to get a picture,” one participant said.
Still others said the sultry sharing was simply “to feel sexually aroused.”
‘Women frequently send sexualized nude images to men, but women’s motivations for sending nudes are unclear,” according to the researchers.
‘We find that women are not thoughtlessly sending images of their bodies to others, but rather are acutely aware of their motivations.”
The study, now published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, featured 207 women between ages 19 and 27 who had sent at least one nude photo in their lifetimes.
Through questionnaires, they had been asked “as thoroughly as possible, please describe the reasons that you have sent nudes to men.”
“Pressure” was one response, as was “being repeatedly asked for it until you gave in,” along with lighter answers such as “to be fun or flirtatious” and “as a sexy present for a someone.”
But the most common — selected by 35.3% — was “relationship norm expectation.”
Just below was “because [a partner] asked” at 20.8%, followed by “long distance/separation” at 17.4% and “validation” at 14%. Some said they had sent the pics in order to calm down an abusive partner, but this was not the norm.
“Relationship motives were the most prevalent while violent motives, instrumental motives and drugs or alcohol use rarely (if ever) spontaneously emerged as motivations for sending nudes,” the researchers said.