Sexting is so commonplace that 88% of participants in a 2015 study said they'd done it. So common that research psychologist Peggy Drexler wonders if there's even any stigma attached to it. So common that, as we found out last week, even someone as high-profile as Amazon founder Jezz Bezos has exchanged explicit pics.
If it's done in a consensual relationship, it -- like other sexual behavior -- isn't necessarily harmful. But men will often send such photos unsolicited to women they're either not in a relationship with or they don't even know.
There are several theories why.
Men often misperceive a woman's interest
Men just aren't good at gauging the level of a woman's interest in him. A man who's spent the past 15 minutes chatting with a woman can't figure out whether it was just innocent conversation or flirting.
"Yes, they're bad at it," Alexandra Katehakis, founder and clinical director of the Center for Healthy Sex in Los Angeles, told CNN. "And (the pictures) are not welcome."
Besides, Katehakis says, most women aren't interested in pictures of penises at all.
"They're more turned on by (images of) a man's eyes or his butt," she said.
But a lot of men don't realize this.
They'll do it to seek validation
"Most men really have thought that women would be open and wanting to see (a penis picture) and that it would make them sexually aroused," said Joe Kort, a relationship and sex therapist in Royal Oak, Michigan. "Of course for most women this doesn't happen."
Kort said men just don't send these types of pictures to women either.
"Many straight men will send pictures of the genitals to gay men for validation as well and enjoy knowing that it has aroused somebody else and makes them feel sexy and wanted. They want the same reaction from women," he told CNN.
They're attached to their private parts
New York psychotherapist Jeannette Stern said this misperception is also fueled by men's attachment to their private parts.
"I think men, generally more than women, feel a connection to their genitalia and want the person they are interested in sexually to share that interest," said Stern. "I do think that men perceive this as being more pleasurable to the recipient than it often is."
They may get a thrill out of it
Some men get a rush from sharing photos of their private parts with complete strangers, and they often do it through what's known as cyberflashing.
Men will often use the iPhone's AirDrop feature to do this. AirDrop lets iPhone users receive photos from nearby people if the feature is turned on and set to receive pictures from everyone.
Some lawmakers in New York have proposed legislation to make cyberflashing a crime, CNN affiliate WPIX reports.
It's just a hi-tech version of male flashers from years past.
"It's not that different from old school exhibitionism," said Katehakis "We think of the creepy guy in the trenchcoat. This is the modern-day version of this."
In some cases, it's borne of hostility
She considers it an act of rage against women, now filtered through the cybersphere.
"For the man, it's very much about power and control. An act of sexualized hostility," she said. "Men taking out their rage against women in a erotic form."
The shocked reactions from the women who get these pictures is a big part of the thrill for the men who send them, Kort said.
It may be about dominance
Detroit sex therapist Russell Stambaugh explained that sending pictures of private parts is a combination of seeking acceptance and intimacy, bragging and dominance-seeking.
"Since bragging and dominance-seeking are less conventional expressions of female gender roles, it is not surprising that men ... do this far more frequently," Stambaugh told CNN. "Because it is often unsolicited dominance seeking, guys genital pics are far more often regarded as aggressive."
For many, it's an impulse thing
Many of the men lack impulse control, said Stern.
"Impulsivity plays a big part in this as does drug and/or alcohol use. Someone who is more impulsive is more likely to actually send the photo, especially under the influence whereas a less impulsive person might want to but then thinks better of it, unless perhaps under the influence," she told CNN.
"Thrill seeking behavior such as this with a partner feels safe but cybercommunications are really never safe and this seems to be a lesson that bears repeating."
There's some evolutionary basis to it
Are some men just hard-wired to do this kind of stuff? Stambaugh's almost certain of it, saying there's an evolutionary basis for some of this type behavior. He calls it "sexual signaling" that's designed to stimulate conditions from which reproductive sexual behavior can happen.
Sex educator and researcher Justin J. Lehmiller agrees with that sentiment and talked about in a blog how something called the error management theory works.
"(A)n evolutionary theory that suggests men and women have evolved specific cognitive biases that are likely to assist in successful reproduction," Lehmiller writes. "Overperceiving a female stranger's interest in sex -- whether on Tinder or in the real world -- could be viewed as adaptive from the perspective of this theory in that it reduces the likelihood that men will pass up any potential reproductive opportunities."
But Lehmiller adds that men shouldn't use that as an excuse for bad behavior.
"Even if we think of this behavior as being adaptive in an evolutionary sense, this isn't to say that it's OK or excusable for men to send women photos that they don't want to see," he wrote.
After all, Katehakis said, we have evolved.
"It probably has some biological underpinnings," she said, "but we've developed these big brains to negate all that."
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