Researching Young People’s Experiences with Sexually Explicit Content Online: Navigating the Legal and Ethical Risks of Visual Methods

This chapter focuses on young people's engagement with sexually explicit content online, focusing on the legal and ethical challenges in research involving minors under 18. It considers the formal and informal adult responses to young people’s online sexual behaviors and the impacts of these responses on young people’s protection and participation rights. The chapter reflects on the authors’ research experiences using and avoiding the use of visual methods. Through a case study of visual methods in researching image-based sexual abuse among English adolescents, the authors argue that visual methods offer an opportunity to empower young people and to generate insights to support safeguarding. While visual methods are valuable, their use requires careful consideration of institutional and socio-political contexts to ensure ethical and effective research practices.