What Sexting Reveals About You

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Anxious ambivalent people describe a love life full of emotional extremes, obsessive preoccupations, the desire for union with the partner, desire for reciprocation with the partner, and love at first sight. "I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or want to stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away."

The research on sexting and attachment style has indicated that those who send sexually explicit messages and attempt to initiate sex through texting also display either avoidant or anxious attachment styles with romantic partners. For example, Drouin and Langraff (2012) suggested that individuals who possess anxious attachment styles engage in sexting as a hyperactivating strategy, which means they are compulsively seeking proximity and protection. However, people with an avoidant attachment style employ sexting as a deactivating strategy—sexting meets their sexual needs, but at the same time keeps their partner at a distance.

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The researchers found that those in established relationships do engage in sexting, but the levels of reported sexting (messages and pictures) is lower than those for young adults. For example, only around 12% of people in established relationships engaged in sexting. This could be because those in established relationships are less likely to take part in risky behavior than younger adults, or are at least more likely to consider the risks of a third party seeing their sexts.

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