Digital Sexuality: Exploring Social Media Influence on Adults’ Sexual Desires, Identities, and Behaviors

The paper investigates the approaches of adults to social media in all its aspects: perception, interpretation, and bargaining of the impact of social media on their sexual desires, identities, and behaviors. Existing literature on the topic of digital sexuality has mostly focused on adolescents and emerging adults, neglecting adulthood as a persistent location of sexual negotiation. The qualitative interpretive design was adopted through which semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out with 11 adult social media users (18-30) in Punjab, Pakistan. The thematic analysis of data was conducted in terms of the sexual scripts theory and performativity. The results indicate that social media strengthens sexual awareness and, at the same time, supports cultural ideas of modesty, respectability, and surveillance. Individuals participated in strategic self-representation, gendered containment, and selective use of personal digital space to assert hidden sexual agency.