“What would you be doing if I was there right now?”
Talk about a cliché.
Rolling my eyes, I hit pause on my Netflix show, the light of my laptop setting a blue hue across the walls of my pitch black dorm room.
It was the third or fourth text message I had received from this guy within a 10-minute span, and I couldn’t believe how persistent he was.
‘I don’t know, Man-I-Have-Never-Met,’ I thought to myself, ‘probably trying to avoid interacting with you at all costs?’
Getting into the mood through text message, better known by our generation as “sexting,” has never really been my thing. It’s often been said that while men are more visually stimulated, women tend to prefer reading things such as erotica to rev their engines (hence the popularity of “50 Shades of Grey”).
I was not, however, really sure this concept applied to me. I prefer in-person interactions. The idea of trying to get someone going through my Smartphone seemed silly, awkward and contrived.
‘Leave the sultry selfies to the Kardashians,’ I thought as I deleted his texts and resumed my show.
To view more videos, visit our Multimedia page.Fast forward nearly two months, and now my thoughts have been drastically transformed all thanks to one fellow and hundreds of miles of distance.I often find myself wondering what he is doing and what we would do together — not sexually, though that crosses my mind, too, but even simple, day-to-day things such as waking up or making food or grabbing coffee.
But as a busy senior in college, I can’t hole up in my bedroom and talk to him as much as I would sometimes like to. So more often than not, when the sun goes down and I find myself in bed, all the thoughts I had that day but pushed to the back of my mind come rushing back, leading me to reach for my phone.
Our interactions started off innocently, based off a mutual attraction and similar tastes in music. The attraction grew, and once I flew back to New York from my summer internship in Texas, we came to realize something would have to give.
That something turned out to be the both of us, and the giving entailed lots of late night stream-of-consciousness and Snapchats.
This is absolutely not to say that I haven’t thought of the risks involved. Numerous women (and men, too) have had the photos they have sent to partners maliciously uploaded to the Internet.
It would be completely unrealistic for me to believe this couldn’t happen to me. That is why I had always held off on participating, but when you build a strong enough relationship with someone that is full of mutual respect and trust, there is no reason you should not feel comfortable to seek fulfillment with and from one another.
Picture messaging is not the only form of sexting, either. A good ol’ message filled with strong language can be just as, if not more, effective and paint a vivid and consensual image for all parties involved.
Sexting is still not my go-to method of sexual activity and probably never will be. Nevertheless, it can be an effective and adventurous tool when desperate times call for desperate measures. Just make sure no one’s looking over your shoulder.
Email Maggie McVey at cp@cardinalpointsonline.com
