What happens when the birds are sexting and the bees watch pornography?: Digital sexualities, sexuality education and New Zealand adolescents

Abstract

The relationships between young people, technology and sexuality are highly contentious. We live in a digital age and young people are fully immersed. Increasingly, their communities are negotiated and formed in cyberspace. This historical moment is viewed as unprecedented, yet many persistent and historical structural inequalities permeate the digital sphere, framed as contemporary problems. This can be seen in cases such as the 2013 ‘Roast Busters’ scandal which I will consider in this thesis. The notion of young people in cyberspace has been considered and reconsidered by academics, the media and popular culture alike. Simplistic interpretations of complex realities have robbed many debates of the richness that they otherwise could have had. This has frequently seen young people constructed as corruptible, at risk, and in need of protection.

This thesis examines the diverse and divisive discourses that surround young people’s use of technology, particularly as it is utilised to negotiate their sexualities. Further, it interrogates governmental policy that is enacted to solve the social ‘problems’ associated with young peoples’ (digital) sexualities. I will reveal and dissect anxieties which regard young people and their bodies as problematic. Using a Foucauldian feminist framework, I ask who speaks and why, and locate biopower in the mechanisms and techniques used by the State to subjugate and control young ‘unruly’ bodies. I look specifically at sexuality education in New Zealand, and whether it has adapted to a transformative digital context. I will also contemplate interventions such as the Harmful Digital Communications Act and the relationship education programme Mates & Dates and ask if they simply add to the neoliberal ideologies that prop up decontextualized understandings of sexuality and health, or if they represent progress.