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Celebrities aren't the only ones taking sexually explicit selfies.
About 20 percent of Utah's high school students are sending such pictures, too. And nearly twice as many are receiving them.
The findings come in a new study released by the University of Utah Wednesday. Researchers surveyed 1,130 undergraduate U. psychology students about their years in high school.
One in five reported sending such a picture to someone else.
The rates are constant from last year, and they are alarming, lead author Don Strassberg said in a prepared statement.
"You lose control of the image the moment you push send," he warns.
The fallout can be humiliating and terrifying: unwanted sexual advances, harassment, blackmail, and possible child pornography charges, if the teens are still minors, Strassberg says.
Utah earlier this year joined states nationwide in criminalizing attempts to humiliate former romantic partners by sharing nude pictures of them.
Some opposed the so-called "revenge-porn" measure, saying people should avoid taking such photos. But proponents said the law is necessary because the revenge tactic has kept some victims from getting jobs.
In the new study, men and women reported sending the texts in equal numbers. But about 47 percent of men said they had received one, compared to only 32 percent of women.
Researchers say the difference could be because more men acknowledged forwarding the pictures — 24 percent, as opposed to 13 percent of women.
A quarter of students surveyed went to high school in another state, and 7 percent attended school in another country.
The survey also asked participants how important religion was to them on a five-point scale. Students who saw their faith as extremely important did not "sext" as often.
Who gets sexts?
Sexts are most often sent to the messenger's boyfriend or girlfriend. Women reported sending them to a significant other 83 percent of the time. For men, it was 55 percent.
But students didn't stop there. Men reported sexting a "friend" 31 percent of the time, versus 15 percent for the women.
Some men also said they sexted "someone I wanted to date or hook up with." No women acknowledged sexting someone who was just a friend or acquaintance.