Despite my ardent love of technology, even I can admit that technology and some things just don’t mix. Examples: water (the name you called that vodka and sprite your Blackberry Curve dropped into when you had to tell your parents why you will DIE without the iPhone4s), big corporations that haven’t figured out how to use it to their advantage yet (too soon?), Applebee’s (they never do come when you press those stupid buttons, do they?), and your grandma (unless you have one of those cool, texting grandmothers: “Totz c wat u were saying about thongz now! no panty lines! btw, made u sum of ur fav cookies 4 this weekend. love ya!” Alright…they definitely don’t mix). Then, there are the aspects of life that technology can both get in the way of and facilitate, such as school, work, relationships…and sex.
If you want to learn more about-ahem-“toys,” you’re in the wrong place, but feel free to turn on one of those television sex shops late at night while also feeling totally not free to ask me how I know that. While I am at it, let me clarify that everything that I am typing here is based on empirical research from many scholarly sexting journals (it’s not) and what will appear as personal anecdotes (some might be) are actually totally hypothetical, kind of like that book O.J. Simpson wrote about how he would have killed her if he did it, but he totally didn’t. Also, don’t expect a lecture on how if you sext, you will get get pregnant and die, just like your paranoid grandmother warned you about since it happened to her “best friend” (even though sexting didn’t exist yet and she apparently has had a hundred best friends, each of whom died doing something exciting). Why preach abstinence when you know that technology and sex are going to link up? Instead, I provide you with some lessons that other people (who are referred to in the first person for simplicity) have learned to help you make sex with technology everything that it should be without it–safe, pleasurable, and only mildly awkward–and more.
Lesson 1: Make sure your digital advance is desired.
Once upon a time, a guy that “I” had previously liked did not reciprocate my feelings (Ha! Clearly I am not really talking about me), and he later apologized for making a huge mistake (okay, that’s more like a me story). After admitting he had been an ass, he thought it was a cool idea to send me a picture of him naked. Aside from a few general sexual jokes, the picture was largely unsolicited, and made me LOL (the kind where you really are laughing out loud) instead of sighing along with the longing in my loins. This brings me to:
Lesson 2: Don’t hook up with a writer, and then piss her off…uh, or her “roommate.”
To be fair, he once saw me after a year (and while I still had feelings for him) in a parking lot dressed head-to-toe in purple and red with feathers sticking out of my wild hair, surrounded by old women in similar attire before I left to see “The Nutcracker” ballet with my grandmother and her Red Hat Society chapter.
Lesson 3: Trust what’s on the other side.
In a land not so far, far away, a group of women asked “me” how to begin a “sext” (for the conservative reader who should not be reading this, that is a sexual text). I realized that I could not think of any specific ways to do it, but that I said either what came totally natural and was really felt, or something so unnatural that it was humorous enough to get away with. They subsequently dared me to see how quickly I could get a naughty picture from a guy. After sending out what was (unbeknownst to the recipients) a mass text with what, as I recall, was a joke about getting a nude, I actually received more than one photo. While this seems like the move of a soulless virtual vixen, their move was that of an ignoramus. The moral of the story is that due to the nature of the cell phone, you never know where your recipient really is, who they are with, or what they will do with your picture. So…
Lesson 4: You can never really trust what is on the other side.
Remember that guy you created a wedding Pinterest board with last semester, but then he took his slutty “study buddy” to Scoop’s reopening? Who knows what he will do with that odd-angled cell phone pic of your cleavage that could sort of be mistaken for the side of your bent knee? Those pics-of-my-ex websites really exist. In today’s world, third parties can get a hold of and use almost anything that we put out there. I once logged on Facebook on my phone to see a completely naked picture of a friend of mine on my newsfeed, instantly realizing that somebody must have taken her phone and uploaded them. While spontaneity and a little forwardness can be sexy, I feel obligated to remind you that you should not put anything out there that you could not be willing to cope with being seen by the wrong person.
One method is not showing your face, which I learned from a guy who is either a really bad cellphone photographer unintentionally chopping off his head, or he is attempting to practice safe sext and does not realize how truly recognizable his nipples are. Luckily, a little bit can go a long way, and it’s timeless lady-logic that leaving something to the imagination is good. With the right timing, you can make somebody hot without revealing much more than you would at the beach. The next time he is asking you to show instead of tell, opt for the sexy boy shorts and bra, and tell him to come see the rest soon.
Lesson 5: Don’t try too hard.
Wording can be difficult for some people, especially when it comes to sex. The trick is not to try too hard. For example, being too formal or scientific can ruin the mood, unless the receiver is a biology major who is weirdly turned on by your use of medical terminology. Being too crude can also turn a sexy sext session into a boys’ locker room.
As for pictures, while a good shave and the prompt removal of your Disney toothbrush holder and retainer from the frame are recommended, natural make-up and undone hair will suffice. Primping too much and taking a picture of yourself died with Myspace, and anybody who you are sexting should like you for you. After 50 pictures where the arm that you’re snapping with looks like a human-experiment gone wrong, you finally get the right one. You have your “morning stomach,” your lips look luscious but not “duck face,” and you remembered to wear heels so that your butt was in mirror range. How will you ever achieve this again!?! This is a recipe for what I refer to as the “recycled sext,” which is that stock picture that avid sexters send to more than one person. An ultimate player move, this is sort of rude, lazy, and demeaning to the recipient, and it could come back to haunt you. “Wait, didn’t you just dye your hair Rich Mahogany for Winter?” he will ask. Whoops.
Lesson 6 (awkward, but Lesson 2 was sort of a cop-out): Choose your technology wisely.
With mobile phones, people are generally texting intermittently with doing other things, meaning that the recipient of a sext may not be fully invested in the textersation. For all you know, the dude could be playing solitaire (the literal kind with cards), rendering you the only idiot about to take their pants off, fully engaged in trashy romance-novel prose. For this reason, a sext is better for a brief, surprise tease. While you might make the receiver look like stupid in public for a second with his/her reaction (jaw drop, look around like everyone is looking at your phone, ridiculous smirk he/she can’t wipe off), the anticipation it elicits is key. For a more mutual, lengthy exchange, reverting to the traditional cyber sex method may be better. Instant messaging allows for greater attention to the task at hand. Still, much like the text forward, you must also beware of copy and paste, which is a blessing and a curse.
Since we’re not in some Rated X version of the Wall-E movie and floating around in hovering lounge chairs watching porn on personal TVs and sexting, I am going to assume that some of you will meet with your sexting partner for some physical touch one of these days. Technology still plays a role in these encounters. While it’s hard to believe that guys somehow used to get laid without popping in “Love and Basketball” or something similar, such luxuries as television to drown out the heavy breathing when your roommate is home and mood music did not always exist. Now that they do, it is vital to realize that technology can also be distracting (like that time where your Spotify-assisted make-out session became a three-way as Michael Bublé interrupted to advertise his new album) or unfitting (like when he paid $3 for strange background noise in the form of Waterworld on Pay-per-view). Need I even mention the pros and cons of pornography? With technology and sex, it’s what you do with what you have that matters.