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More than a third of British adults do not consider “sexting” someone other than their partner to be cheating, a survey has revealed.
Researchers found 35 per cent of the 2,150 men and women surveyed in an online poll did not consider sending sexual messages and images to another person to be adultery.
One in 10 people said they considered “sexting” to be generally “just a bit of fun”, while 62 per cent said they considered sending photographs to be less acceptable than sending texts.
Around eight per cent of people admitted they had “sexted” a third party in the last year and a third of them said it had led to more compromising situations, like meeting up and having sex behind their partner’s back.
The study, commissioned by lawyer firm Slater & Gordon , also showed the difference between the way men and women view the subject.
While just under half of women - 49 per cent - considered it cheating, only 34 per cent of men feel the same.
Rupi Rai, a family solicitor at the firm, said more and more clients were coming to them to cite “sexting” as grounds for divorce.
According to UK law, adultery is defined as when someone has extra-marital sex with someone of the opposition sex during the course of a marriage.
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Ella Dawson
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Susannah Ireland
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PlaceIt/Just Another IKEA Catalog
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Love and sex news: in pictures Valentine's Day porn Pornhub saw a (slight) drop in traffic on Valentine's Day as people focused on pleasuring their partners rather than themselves. Everywhere, it is, except for London. Overall UK traffic dipped 3 per cent across the UK, with Plymouth and Oxford seeing the biggest drops of 11 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. In fact every major city spent less time watching porn bar London, the Pornhub audience for which grew by 2 per cent.
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Love and sex news: in pictures 1 in 10 men paying for sex A tenth of British men have admitted to paying for sex, according to a new study. Professionals aged 25 to 34 who binge drink and take drugs were found to be the most likely to have used the services of prostitutes, based on findings from a study of 6,108 men. Around 11 per cent of subjects, in the study published in the Sexually Transmitted Infections journal, have ever paid for sex in their lifetime and four per cent admitted to doing so in the last five years.
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Love and sex news: in pictures Questions that determine if you're in love The existence of love and its nature is something that has troubled philosophers for centuries, but a pair of scientists believe they have a set of questions that yield "clear empirical evidence" of it, or at least whether your relationship will end in divorce. They are: 'How happy are you in your marriage relative to how happy you would be if you weren't in the marriage?' and 'How do you think your spouse answered that question?'
Columbia
Ms Rai said: “With more people having access to social media and advances in technology, we have seen a rise in number of clients coming to us who think their partner has crossed the line and committed adultery, but not in the traditional sense.
“What some might consider a harmless bit of fun – like sending flirty messages or explicit pictures, others consider to be detrimental to their relationship and cause as much hurt and upset as physically cheating. The research is real warning to couples about being careful not to cross that line.”
But despite this most men said they would not leave their partner if they found out they had sent “sexts” to another person.
Just six per cent of men would consider leaving their partners over “sexts” - while 13 per cent had done it themselves.
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