I'm Not Experienced ... Please Send Advice': Teens Seeking Information and Advice About Sexual Behaviors on Reddit

Abstract

Teens commonly use the internet for seeking information about sex and sexual relationships, particularly in the absence of comprehensive sex education from offline sources. The social media platform, Reddit, has become a popular forum for teens seeking information about sex from peers, due to its culture of anonymity. To explore teens' use of Reddit for this purpose, we asked: What advice/information about sexual behaviors are teens seeking out on Reddit? We performed qualitative content analysis with secondary, publicly available social media posts ( n = 180) from a large community on Reddit (r/teenrelationships) designed for teens to ask questions about relationships. Five primary, non-mutually exclusive categories of advice/information were identified, with 26 subcategories: 1) Sexual issues within their relationship (42%; e.g., differences in desire, past trauma); 2) Identifying/responding to "red flag" or abusive behaviors (41%; e.g., sexual coercion, harassment); 3) Responding to cheating or jealousy issues (27%; e.g., partners' past sexual behaviors; porn use); 4) Making decisions about having sex (19%; e.g., timing, anxiety over first time); and 5) General sex education (10%; e.g., concerns about being pregnant). These findings emphasize the importance of including information on socioemotional dynamics and healthy relationship building in comprehensive sex education for teens.