Experts have warned that the widespread sharing of explicit images of girls amongst schoolboys will have a serious long-lasting impact on the mental health of the young women.

They have spoken out after a recent Ofsted report found that boys are distributing ‘nudes’ of girls with each other via social media like a “collection game”.

The school watchdog, which spoke to over 900 children and young people, discovered the intimate images are routinely shared on platforms like WhatsApp or Snapchat.

Around nine in 10 of the girls inspectors spoke to said being subjected to misogynistic name calling and being sent unsolicited explicit footage or images occurs “a lot” or “sometimes”. Sexual harassment is “so commonplace” for some children that they “see no point” in reporting it to school staff, the report found.

Laura Steventon

Laura Steventon, a stress relief and self-worth therapist based in Stirling, Scotland, said: “Having your trust violated and being unable to speak up for yourself when you have been victimised will have very serious consequences for the victim’s feelings. When an emotion becomes too painful to cope with, we form coping mechanisms that will either dissociate us from the pain or manage the level of pain that we feel.

“Dissociative coping mechanisms include all forms of addictions, obsessive thoughts, depression, extreme rage and self-harm. Whereas coping mechanisms that help us manage the pain we feel are things like people-pleasing, perfectionism, being a workaholic, self-sabotage, self-criticism, being a know it all or utilising sarcasm and humour inappropriately.

“It would therefore not be a stretch to imagine that the victims who are having their trust violated and being harassed about speaking out about it would develop one or more of these coping mechanisms.”

She added: “Applying this towards their view of what healthy sex looks like, well, it appears that right now their belief is that in order for a boy to like you, you need to share intimate pictures with him. Therefore, it could go either way in the future, where they simply don’t care who does what to them and may end up in an abusive relationship or sexual encounter, because this is what they believe sex and/or relationships to be like.

“Alternatively, they become so self-conscious that they don’t allow their partner to see them naked ever, or it may cause other problems in a relationship because the victims will have such a low level of trust in their partner that they could constantly be accusing them of all manner of activities that are untrue.”

“The bottom line is, the impact long term of this behaviour on the victim is incredibly damaging. We are already seeing very high levels of self-harm, depression and suicide in the younger generation with delusions of fame not meeting reality. This type of behaviour only cements further the feelings of inadequacy, self-hate, guilt, the inability to trust oneself or running from healthy connections for fear of being hurt, in a ‘better to hurt than be hurt’ mentality.”

Siobhan Booth

Siobhan Booth, who runs Anxiety 2 Confidence in Andover and is a clinical hypnotherapist specialising in anxiety disorders and low confidence, said young women feel caught between being either a “prude or slut”, with no middle ground.

“So victims can be put under huge pressure to take nudes and give them to someone, and then feel extremely exposed and betrayed when they are shared with people that they were not intended for,” said Siobhan. “This can often lead to victims feeling ashamed and blaming themselves, making them much less likely to report it.

“Society also blames and shames victims by suggesting that ‘they shouldn’t have taken nude photos’ or that ‘they are putting themselves at risk’ by sending images to someone. This puts victims at further risk of shame and self-blame and further reduces the likelihood that it would be reported.

“Shame and self-blame can be very damaging emotions as they can quickly lead to low self-esteem, anxiety and depression. Many victims punish themselves for years after the event. Trusting new sexual partners can be very challenging also, as a victim who has had images shared, has suffered a huge breach of trust and consent.”