Asynchronous Encounters: Artistic Practice and Mediated Intimacy in the Space-Time of Lockdown

This essay engages with pandemic-era artistic practice, asking how digital technologies are being taken up out of desires and attempts to be intimate with, proximate to, 'contemporary' with one another. Drawing on theories of pandemic temporality and on media analysis approaches that highlight the digital's materiality, affectivity, and self-reflexivity, we think with three first-person, visual-digital works composed, circulated, and archived during the COVID-19 pandemic: Ella Comberg's research creation photo-essay on Google Street View, titled 'Eye of the Storm,' Bo Burnham's Netflix streaming special Inside, and Richard Fung's short documentary film '[ ... ],' shot on iPad. We suggest that these visual-digital pieces open onto the promises and limitations of mediated intimacies - with others, with ourselves, and with the space-time of lockdown. Their commitments to texture and tension draw out the 'impurity' (Shotwell 2016) of our digital lifeworlds, while also attuning us to possibilities for 'waiting with' (Baraitser and Salisbury 2020) one another amidst what Nadine Chan (2020) calls the 'distal temporalities' of late capitalism. To deliberately dwell in stuck or looped time and linger over the touch of distant, distal others - or what we call asynchronous encounters - is not to indulge or excuse the ways in which contemporary media platforms capitalise on affective and creative labour or surveil digital lifeworlds. Instead, we posit that the textures, glitches, and flickering bonds of mediated intimacy may offer new, multiple, reflexive and recursive pathways 'toward inhabited futures that are not so distal' (Chan 2020: 13.6).

Caring through things at a distance: Intimacy and presence in teletherapy assemblages.

The COVID-19 crisis in the UK precipitated a sharp rise in the use of remote technologies to provide therapy during the lockdown. With mental health care services migrating to devices and video-conferencing platforms, nearly all forms of therapy had become 'teletherapy'. Drawing on interviews with UK-based practitioners, this paper explores how existing ideas of intimacy and presence are challenged when care is practiced at a distance. Against the background of concerns that remote technologies erode intimacy and degrade physical presence, the argument is made that presence, distance, intimacy and control are reconfigured within mediated therapy. Analysis of practitioners' experiences of teletherapy examines the material and expressive components of 'assemblages' characterised by their stable and fluid properties. Two assemblages are identified and discussed: emergency care assemblages and assemblages of intimacy, both of which are aligned with specific sectors of mental health care. Evidence that therapeutic encounters are constrained by technologies are considered alongside the material conditions and inequalities of vulnerable groups, while assemblages with relatively stable properties are generative of new ways of relating to clients online. These findings highlight the material and expressive components of human and nonhuman assemblages that create new kinds of affective relations in distanced care.

The Meaning of Online Social Work Education for Students and Faculty during COVID-19: Between Preservation and Change

Academic online social work (SW) education has developed over the decades, fully transitioning to it following the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies have examined the emotional responses, coping strategies and resilience of faculty and students to this transition. Our aim is to examine online education experiences and their meaning for faculty and SW students following the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed based on principles of thematic analysis. Interviewees included fifteen SW students and fifteen faculty members at schools of SW (n = 30) from universities and colleges throughout Israel, who also participated in a quantitative survey addressing online SW education. Findings include two themes: (i) Between the illusion of intimacy and the illusion of anonymity: Is it so? (ii) Experiences of difficulty, acceptance and choice relating to online education interactions. Both themes refer to interpersonal dimensions of communication and contact between faculty and students and among students. The desire to preserve a traditional education format versus openness to the online platform is discussed using critical reflexivity. Alternative education programmes combining the two should be developed. The unique and deceptive interplay between intimacy and anonymity in the online space should be considered in courses relying on interpersonal interaction and self-disclosure. The COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020 has dramatically changed lives in all domains, including the format of social work (SW) education, which shifted from face-to-face encounters to online. Although online education had been developed in SW education before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was restricted to SW courses on theory and policy and was never fully employed to include courses teaching SW practice skills. Accordingly, our aim is to examine online education experiences and their meaning for faculty and SW students following the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed. Participants included fifteen SW students and fifteen faculty members at schools of SW (n = 30) from universities and colleges throughout Israel. Students and faculty addressed the illusion of intimacy and anonymity in the online space, revealing its complexity, including difficulties, acceptance and choice relating to online education interactions. Findings refer to interpersonal dimensions of communication and contact between faculty and students and among students. We discuss preserving a traditional education format versus openness to online platforms and suggest developing alternative education programmes combining the two. Furthermore, the unique and deceptive interplay between intimacy and anonymity in the online space should be considered in courses requiring interpersonal interaction and self-disclosure.

Are We Losing Connection? Lived Experience of Online Mutual Aid Groups During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The current UK based study aimed to explore the experiences of individuals attending online mutual aid groups for alcohol use, while their face-to-face groups were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging evidence suggests that the pandemic and concomitant isolation is associated with elevated mental health problems. Furthermore, historical community-wide crises are associated with increases in alcohol consumption. Due to the paucity of qualitative research on the subjective experience of online mutual aid groups, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was undertaken to explore group members' experiences. Methods: A sample of six eligible members of online alcohol mutual aid groups were recruited and completed semi-structured interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic between October 2020 and February 2021. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify key themes and evidenced with salient quotations. Results: The superordinate theme developing an understanding of the differences between face-to-face and online group proceedings was identified, which is presented and unpacked with evidential quotes. Conclusion: The study explicates group members' perceived differences between online and face-to-face experiences. Some participants valued the increased control and anonymity of online groups, while others missed the profound intimate connection that face-to-face groups fostered. It is recommended that future provision is informed by service-user voice to develop an attunement with the subjectivity of mutual aid group members' experiences. © The Author(s) 2023.

A Meditation on Grief in Pandemic Times

This essay considers the compounding nature of grief as the author experienced it during the COVID- 19 pandemic. The author considers how the pandemic shifted no-tions of time, alongside those of space and intimacy.

Love of Empire by Dissociations

In the past two years, as the whole world has been deeply mired in the COVID-19 pandemic, we may have observed neoliberal capitalism's crisis of care: exposed and exacerbated by the global pandemic, made explicit alongside examples such as the collapsing of health systems, the shortage of care labor and overwork of nurses, the serious outbreaks in aged care facilities, the increased burden of domestic labor and care work due to school closures, and the worldwide rise of domestic abuse. Feminist calls for economic independence for (mostly middle-class) women to work for equal pay as men certainly do not resolve the care problem but, instead, further obscure colonial divisions of labor under which the racialized labor mostly from formerly colonized nations is made to fill up the gap.2 I consider the discursive formations of love as a point of departure to review how the global pandemic bears on our everyday practices of intimacy. The historical effects of racialized displacement can be seen as consisting of three sets of often-dissociated social relations during the pandemic crisis: archetypical angel-heroines in white (nurses), angels in the house (housewife and mother), and fallen angels (prostitutes).3 During the pandemic, many of us constantly experience fears about the health systems being overwhelmed, even while we express growing appreciation for the essential care provided by health workers. The virus eventually spread to the teahouses of Taipei's Wanhua neighborhood—also known as an adult entertainment red-light district in Taipei. Since Wanhua was reported as the center of a major cluster, the workers in the sexual venues, in particular, became a singularized target of public criticism.

Attachment and Sexuality: Impact of Confinement by COVID-19.

This study examined attachment style and its relationship with sexual self-esteem during COVID-19 confinement. COVID-19 has caused changes in the way couples interact intimately and sexually around the world; some have found improvements and others an increase in difficulties. This article uses a retrospective pre post approach to evaluate 120 men and 89 women who were part of a couple at the time of confinement in Spain and completed an online survey. The sample was obtained during the de-escalation months, from May 9th until July 1st, 2020. Through an online survey we collected the data using the Spanish version of the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-S) to measure attachment and the Brief Sexuality Scale (SS) to measure aspects related to the participants sexuality (sexual self-esteem, sexual depression, and sexual preoccupation), as well as a scale designed post hoc on other aspects related to sexuality. Overall, the t-test results suggest that confinement had a negative effect on sexuality because sexual depression (SD) had a small increased in our sample. Multiple regression analysis showed that FSI, and ANXS attachment style were able to predict sexual depression during confinement. The results also showed a decrease in the strength of the relationship between sexual self-esteem (SSE) and attachment styles during confinement. However, sexual preoccupation (SP) and sexual self-esteem (SSE) remained relatively stable. Based on the results obtained, we conclude that there is an association between an increase in participants' sexual depression and being confined due to COVID-19.

Emotional reflexivity in the time of COVID-19: working-class emotional practices

We share findings from a qualitative study on emotions in Scottish working-class households during lockdown. The results challenge existing research focused on emotional capital, which often suggests that working-class people struggle to provide emotional resources to those close to them. Using the concept of emotional reflexivity we show how these household members cared for each other's feelings, challenging deficit views of working-class emotionality. This research offers a novel understanding of working-class participants collaboratively making space for each other to feel, many favouring acts of care rather than talking. The COVID-19 lockdown, however, tended to reinforce gendered practices of emotion work, although some participants drew on emotional support beyond the household to try to mitigate this burden. The emotionally reflexive practices seen in these households suggest that sustaining more equality in emotional wellbeing relies on navigating material circumstances, is not always about verbal sharing, is often an interactional achievement, but also means resisting unrealistic expectations of intimate relationships within households as the fountainhead of all emotional succour.

Couples challenged during the lockdown caused due to COVID-19 pandemic

Objectives. - The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in strict containment. The isolation and anxietyinducing nature of the situation had an impact on the mental health of individuals. Our study examines the intimacy of individuals confined with or without their partners during this period and explores the risk factors and resources available to them. Methodology. - We distributed an online questionnaire during the first lockdown (April 2020). In total, 1985 adults (80.3% female;M=34.27, SD = 14.96) participated in the study. Several validated scales assessed life context, mental health, substance use (alcohol and cannabis), intolerance of uncertainty and intimacy in the couple. Participants described their experiences through openended questions. Results. - Our results indicate that couples who lived in separate households during confinement (n=453 or 22.8% of our sample) were more depressed, more anxious and more intolerant of uncertainty. Through a thematic analysis, we found that couples who were confined together were more likely to report an improvement in the quality of their emotional and sexual life than couples separated by confinement. However, restriction of available space, reorganisation of work and leisure activities and relationships with children emerged as potential stressors. Conclusion. - The intimate partner can be a form of support for stress during containment and supports resilience in a pandemic crisis. (c) 2022 Societe Francaise de Psychologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

A Preliminary Investigation of Privacy Issues during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Alongside greater convenience, the rapid development of technology in the modern world has also brought about many ethical problems. This article examines privacy issues that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of applied ethics. It focuses on two specific examples of privacy issues that emerged in higher education and social policy amid attempts to prevent and control the disease. Based on the moral framework of consequential evaluation, this article discusses the concepts of privacy and privacy rights and the difference between maximization and optimization in the context of an incomplete ranking of options. This article also discusses two ways that the loss of privacy has been understood: the control account and the access account. Another important discussion in the article is the place of privacy in the context of intimate relationships, and why the resolution of some issues concerning privacy requires a discussion of the concept of intimacy. Based on the above analysis, this article concludes with a discussion of how to evaluate the privacy issues in the two examples.

(Dis)Connected: Establishing Social Presence and Intimacy in Teacher-Student Relationships During Emergency Remote Learning

In the effort to "flatten the curve" of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers were required to adapt their curricula, pedagogy, and relationships with their students to remote learning structures. Using data gathered through an online qualitative survey of over 800 Chicago teachers in July 2020, this article will examine the ways that the shift to remote learning challenged teachers' relationships with their students during the spring of 2020. By utilizing social presence theory and considering the significance of emotional connection in teacher-student relationships, the study captures some of the relational challenges that teachers experienced during the initial months of remote instruction. The study identifies increased individualization, deeper holistic understandings of students, and a diversity of mechanisms of engagement as pedagogical techniques that allowed teachers to maintain and even improve their relationships with students.

Love, intimacy and online dating: How a global pandemic redefined romantic relationships

This book is an innovative work that explores the concept of intimacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides an overview of the online dating world and apps, the use of which gradually became common as the pandemic restricted people's interaction in the physical world. The author's extensive research conducted during the pandemic posits a comprehensive understanding of the individual's motivation to join a dating app and explores its varied aspects. The book explores the themes and elements of online dating and examines the users' motivation for joining a dating app, for seeking intimacy as well as for self-presentation on the app. It examines the underlying politics and role of infrastructure of dating apps and describes how gender, power and intimacy intersect to create new intimacy phenomena. The book also utilises the author's research to put forth the key concept of 'Jagged Love', which describes a user's cyclical relationship with dating apps during the pandemic, and the gap between a user's act to seek familiar romantic narratives and the app's inability to deliver against these ideas. It explores the differences between virtual and In Real Life (IRL) intimacy, the generation of gender and the emanation of stereotypical cultural ideals that the users sought through the apps. The book serves as an invaluable discussion on the pandemic's impact on modifying the definitions of romance and intimacy. It highlights the impact social factors can have on familiar concepts and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the definition of love and intimacy, making it fascinating for students, academics and professionals interested in relationships, digital media and gender. The book will also be useful in enhancing the comprehension of love and romance in the fields of social science. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Relationship Functioning and Gut Microbiota Composition among Older Adult Couples.

An emerging area of research extends work on couple functioning and physical health to gut health, a critical marker of general health and known to diminish with age. As a foray into this area, we conducted a pilot study to (1) determine the feasibility of remote data collection, including a fecal sample, from older adult couples, (2) examine within-couple concordance in gut microbiota composition, and (3) examine associations between relationship functioning and gut microbiota composition. Couples (N = 30) were recruited from the community. The participants' demographic characteristics were as follows: M (SD) age = 66.6 (4.8), 53% female, 92% White, and 2% Hispanic. Two of the couples were same-sex. All 60 participants completed self-report measures and supplied a fecal sample for microbiome analysis. Microbial DNA was extracted from the samples, and the 16S rRNA gene V4 region was amplified and sequenced. The results indicated that individuals shared more similar gut microbial composition with their partners than with others in the sample, p < 0.0001. In addition, individuals with better relationship quality (greater relationship satisfaction and intimacy and less avoidant communication) had greater microbial diversity, p < 0.05, a sign of healthier gut microbiota. Further research with a larger and more diverse sample is warranted to elucidate mechanisms.

Between existential mobility and intimacy 5.0: translocal care in pandemic times.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reconfigured every social, political, economic and cultural aspect of modern society. Millions of people have been stuck in lockdown within and across borders, national and regional terrains, in their homes and worse places. At this time of unprecedented change and 'stuckedness', digital communication technologies have served as a lifeline to forge and nurture communication, intimate ties and a sense of continuity and belongingness. But being stuck and simultaneously virtually mobile has brought many difficulties, tensions and paradoxes. In this paper we discuss first insights from a study with 15 members of the older Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) population in Victoria, Australia to explore experiences of being physically stuck and virtually mobile. We find practices of translocal care - ways of caring for distant others through digital technologies, has been made more complex by the pandemic and shaped by two dynamics: networked collective 'existential mobility', and a quantification of feeling that we call 'intimacy 5.0'.

Expressiveness and psychic internality: The use of online diaries in the contemporary forms of life

The idea of psychic internality/interiority has always been a problem for Psychology as a science. The specific purpose of this chapter is to develop (1) a brief questioning about the meanings of privacy interiorized in the grammars of socio-historical and cultural perspectives of Psychology;(2) an approach to Wittgenstein's linguistic pragmatism critiques of language games from internality to the psychological individual;and (3) a discussion based on a research instrument for online diaries, about another grammar of a dialogical nature, which would dispense the spatialization of the psyche to talk about subjective agentivity and its psychic processes in the face of the alterity of the life of intersubjective relationship. Thus, we hope to sensitize the readers about the effects of internality spatialized in the current ultra-individualistic ways of life and to encourage them to pay attention to how dialogical ethics, anchored in the ideal of democratic utopias, can illuminate the very way we conceive, describe, and produce knowledge about the subjective and creative dimensions of life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

A people's future of leisure studies: Leisure with the enemy under COVID-19

To those of us who have been consistently critical of leisure, we have mapped our critique of leisure onto discussions of leisure as a concept, as a tool, or as a social construct in society that has had serious implications on the gendered, the racialized, and the classed as disposable. Leisure is a life-politic that hides: dominant lifestyles, harmful environmental engagement, and political regimes. But in the midst of pandemic, there are two enemies, at the mirco- and macro-level to the life of a person via leisure that are becoming exposed at this time: 1) Person to Person;and, 2) The State to Person. With the coronavirus pandemic, it reveals a need to depart from a happiness and titillation orientation of leisure, and more a collective life-giving requisite in our research, instruction, and advocacy. For with COVID-19, leisure (as it is predominantly conceived) is the enemy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The PreCCL strategies to empower women against intimate partner violence occurrences in Limpopo province, South Africa

South African women remain vulnerable to gender-based violence, including femicide. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a major and very complex public concern in the country currently. This makes IPV the most widespread method by which men perpetrate violence against women. It is not clear if women are empowered with IPV Information, Motivation and Behavior skills (IBM) to protect themselves against IPV occurrences. This article presents the developed PreCCL (prevention, community-based, corrective and law enforcement) strategies to empower women against intimate partner violence in Limpopo Province, South Africa. PreCCL strategies were developed based on qualitative and quantitative IBM (Information, Motivation and Behaviour) of IPV results as well as evidence-based information from the review of literature. Delphi technique was used to organize one stakeholder engagement meeting with a panel of 38 experts knowledgeable regarding Vhembe district IPV issues (namely managers from Vhembe Thohoyandou victim empowerment centre, members of the Executive council of the 6th administration of Limpopo provincial Legislatures, heads of departments or directors from the department of health, social development and community safety and security, chairperson of gender equity, TVEP managers, as well as women who were victims from Vhembe where the study was conducted, and chairperson of gender equity, disability women and children). The purpose of the stakeholder engagement meeting was consultation and buy-in of experts in the field regarding feasible and practical evidence-based intervention strategies for local communities. The setting for stakeholder engagement meeting was Vhembe District Tshifulanani at Munnandinnyi and Hadumasi the Victorious Community offices. However, due to COVID-19 regulations other stakeholders failed to attend, and the rating scales were emailed to them together with the PreCCL strategies. The participants were asked to rate the PreCCL strategies on a given Likert scale in terms of relevance, importance, potential effectiveness and recommendation for adoption. The 0.67 Cronbach Alpha reliability score of the Likert scale was found acceptable for this study. Of the 65 questionnaires sent out, only 38 were returned, which was 58.5% response rate. Data were analyzed quantitatively using SPSS. The strategies were rated relevant in addressing IPV in the district by most (n = 36;97,4%;Mean ± SD = 3.0 ± 0.7) of the stakeholder, whereby (n= 6;15.8%;Mean ± SD=3.8 ±1.2) strongly agreed and (n =30;78,9%) agreed. In terms of importance, most (n = 32;84.3%) of the respondents rated the strategies very important in addressing IPV in the communities. The strategies were rated potentially effective in addressing IPV by most (n =34;89.5%;Mean ± SD (3.2 ± 0.6) of the stakeholder. The majority (n = 34;89.6%) of the stakeholders recommended the adoption of the developed strategies in current state. Conclusion: PreCCL strategies to empower women against IPV occurrences, which were developed based on IBM qualitative and quantitative results as well as review of literature are considered relevant and potentially effective by stakeholder who recommend their adoption by the Department of Social Development, Limpopo Province.

What Makes People So Fond of Food Travel Vlogs? A Preliminary Study

The large consumption of food travel vlogs during the COVID-19 pandemic shows its potential for destination promotion. However, little research has been done on this video form. This study explores the difference in food travel vlogs, short videos, live videos, and DMO promotion videos (DPVs) and concludes four distinctive characteristics of food travel vlogs (storytelling, authenticity, intimacy, and presence) through 38 semi-structured interviews. A Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model-based conceptual framework is proposed to help understand the mechanism underlying the influence of food travel vlogs on travellers. This study hopes to provide theoretical and practical implications for destination management and vlogging practices. © 2023, The Author(s).

L'intime au bout du fil. Enjeux méthodologiques de l'entretien biographique à distance

Résumé. La pandémie de la COVID-19 et la crise sanitaire et sociale qui en a découlé ont encouragé la conduite d'entretiens semi-directifs par téléphone ou par visioconférence. À partir de trois enquêtes réalisées par des jeunes femmes portant sur l'intime et ayant recours aux entretiens biographiques, cette note méthodologique examine les façons dont l'entretien à distance transforme la nature des matériaux collectés et recompose ce taisant le mode de production de connaissances sociologiques. Elle montre que le distanciel renouvelle les profils sociaux accessibles en ouvrant la voie à des configurations inédites. Elle donne également à voir les atouts de ce dispositif pour accéder à l'intériorité du sujet et souligne son potentiel dans les cas où des positions asymétrlques entre enquêteur/rice et enquêté·e dans les rapports de pouvolr (en particulier de genre) sont susceptibles d'entraver la relation d'enquête, risquant dès lors d'appauvrir les connaissances produites.Alternate :The COVID-19 pandemic and the health and social crisis it caused led researchers to conduct semi-directive interviews either by telephone or videoconferencing. On the basis of three surveys on intimate personal matters conducted by young women and requiring life history interviews, this methodological assessment examines the ways in which remote interviewing of these kinds changes the nature of the material collected and in so doing rearranges the sociological knowledge production mode. It shows how remote interviewing renews accessible social profiles by opening a path to previously unknown configurations. It also shows the advantages of this arrangement for accessing the subject's inner thoughts, feelings, and processes, and highlights its potential for cases where asymmetrical interviewer/respondent power positions (particularly gender positions) are likely to hinder interviewer-respondent rapport, risking an impoverishment of the knowledge produced.Alternate :Die COVID-19-Pandemie und die damit entstandene Sanitäts- und Sozialkrise haben die Leitfadengespräche über Telefon oder Videokonferenz gefördert. Ausgehend von drei von jungen Frauen durchgeführten Untersuchungen zur Intimsphäre anhand von biographischen Gesprächen prüft diese methodologische Notiz, wie das Ferngespräch die Art der gesammelten Materialen verändert und dabei den Produktionsmodus von soziologischen Kenntnissen neugestaltet. Sie zeigt, dass das Distanzgespräch die erreichbaren Sozialprofile erneuert, indem der Weg zu bisher nicht vorhandenen Konfigurationen geöffnet wird. Sie zeigt außerdem alle Pluspunkte dieser Vorgangsweise zur Erreichung der Interiorität des Subjekts und unterstreicht ihr Potential in den Fällen, in denen die asymmetrischen Positionen zwischen Befrager und Befragten innerhalb der Machtbeziehungen (besonders Gender) möglicherweise die Befragungsbeziehung einschränken und somit die produzierten Kenntnisse verringern könnten.Alternate :La pandemia de COVID-19 y la crisis sanitaria y social que ha derivado de ella han llevado a la realización de entrevistas semi-directivas por teléfono o por cia. A partir de encuestas que llevaron très mujeres jóvenes acerca de lo íntimo y que se basaban en entrevistas biográficas, nuestra nota metodológica observa de qué manera la entrevista a distancia transforma la naturaleza del material colectado y por lo tanto reorganiza el modo de producción de conocimientos sociológicos. Muestra que la comunicación a distancia renueva los perfiles sociales accesibles al posibilitar configuraciones inéditas. También revela las ventajas del dispositivo para acceder a la interioridad del sujeto y subraya su potencial en los casos en los que posiciones asimétricas entre investigador a y encuestado a en las relaciones de poder (en particular de género) podrían frenar la relación de investigación y así empobrecer los saberes producidos.

Sexting motives and sexting behavior among emerging adults in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown

Sexting behavior is a contemporary form of sexual expression where people can send, receive, and exchange sexually suggestive content online. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has greatly exposed emerging adults to sexting behavior. The present study aimed to examine the level of engagement in sexting behavior and the sexting motives (intimacy, enhancement, self-affirmation, coping, peer pressure, partner approval) among emerging adults in Malaysia during the pandemic lockdown period. Men and individuals in a relationship were previously observed to have reported a higher engagement in sexting. Therefore, the present study also investigated the differences in gender and relationship status in sexting behavior. A cross-sectional quantitative study was adopted to recruit 252 emerging adult respondents (Mage = 22.84, SDage = 2.05, females = 53.1%) through a purposive sampling method. The descriptive statistics indicated that nine in 10 emerging adults sexted and that an independent t-test depicted men and individuals in relationships being more likely to engage in sexting behavior. The hierarchical linear regression too showed that sexting motives of intimacy, enhancement, peer pressure, and partner approval contributed to a higher level of sexting behavior. Overall, the results may serve as resourceful input for future revisions and implementation of sexual reproductive health education.