How To #23: Sexting for Total Amateurs

Once the territory of long distance couples, pervasive grown men on questionable chat rooms and the odd sexually charged teenager; now everyone’s at it. Or not at it, as the case may be.

Of course, I’m talking about sexting, the concept of which is hilarious. Obviously a word invented by the producers of This Morning to diagnose Diana’s horror when she found indecent texts on her 14 year old's Motorola Razr.

I personally blame it all on snapchat, for making sending that surprise, unwanted dick pic just that little bit easier.

And there’s rules to this game too, if you can’t stand the heat, keep your goddamn clothes on. If you want to know how to go from beginner to sexpert, ask your therapist or something because I have no fucking clue.

Gone are the days when a winky face was enough to arouse someone, now we require photographic stimulation that self-destructs in 10 seconds. Yay technology.

So yeah, I’m like the furthest thing from being an expert at this as they come. But I do have a couple of questions.

Is sexting like a planned thing, or do things just escalate and you then feel obliged to go along with it? Because god forbid you ignore a snapchat. I highly doubt you ask someone if they want to sext, mostly because it will be highly embarrassing for you if they say no. I like to think it just happens, but I don’t know, you might not be into that. We’re all just as fucking pathetic as each other though if you think about it.

How is sexting different to phone sex? I feel like phone sex could turn out to be very awkward unless you are already in a steady relationship with that person. In this situation where anything could happen, no one wants an awkward silence. Whilst acceptable if you live thousands of miles apart from each other, calling your significant other whilst they are on lunch at work is highly inappropriate, and also super awkward with a mouthful of tuna. Sexting doesn’t have that emotional attachment, so you can basically use each other for that 10 minutes of self-gratification whilst giving zero fucks.

How do you know when the time is right? I mean, right now you’re hovering in the innuendo, mildly sexy zone, but you don’t want to cross over into the *CUE RED FLASHING LIGHTS* sext zone. You can’t just go from pulling stupid facial expressions to a close up of your hooha, you’ll give the poor girl/guy a heart attack, for Christ sake. I’d say unless they explicitly tell you to take your shirt off (which, if they do, why are you giving this piece of shit the time of day?), give cues that you would like to move into the sext zone, pretty please. Start with a sneak peak of a bra strap or your chest and work your way up (or indeed, down) from there I guess.

Okay, so you’ve sent your sext-nificant other a really sexy photo, it’s probably your best one yet. Victoria Secret would be dying to hire you right now. You wait in anticipation for a gratifying response, and you keep waiting, maybe listen to a couple of Taylor Swift songs to pass the time. You check your phone and still nothing. There’s only three possible things that could be going on here. 1. They’ve fallen asleep before receiving it, which is just rude, I mean; you should be engagement enough to keep anyone awake at night. 2. They’ve opened it, but they haven’t replied, which means you’ve stepped over the mark and made them extremely uncomfortable, which you know, you kind of have to question your sanity for now. Failing this, and leading me onto point no 3, they’ve opened it, haven’t replied, but you bet they’ve screenshotted it, and are showing all their friends as they speak. You should’ve left it at bra strap, my friend.

All in all, I feel like sexting is more trouble than it’s worth. I mean, if you were that desperate, you’d just go and have sex with them. But it’s fun, and gives you something to do of a Sunday night, I suppose. Just a few general common sense rules about sexting to follow; which, if you don’t live by already, you should not have access to the internet, you amateur.

·         If you’re going to send a full body nude, for the love of God, don’t show your face. Or you know, do, if you want to be as famous as Kim Kardashian one day.

·         If they screenshot you, send out a hitman to take their phone and their life. 

·         Not to sound like an advert from the 2008, but remember that once you send a picture, you can’t get it back. Unless you work for MI5, in which case, screw all the rules.

Apart from that, let your virtual sexual appetite run wild, and just feel lucky about the fact that some of us are still petrified by Tinder.

Confessions of a Social Media Addict

I downloaded Pinterest the other day. It was possibly the worst and best mistake of my life. I stayed up for two hours one night ‘pinning’ pictures of cats doing funny things, floral skirts and moody boys from angsty teenage bands. Why? It’s not because I don’t have a million and one other things to do, it’s because I literally can’t tear myself away from social media.

Snapchat took away it’s ‘Best Friend’ feature this week, a visible list of people you and other fellow snappers Snapchat most frequently. I was distraught, obviously, like many other Snapchat users, how else where you going to keep tabs other people’s relationships now?

It truly is a sad day when you come to the realisation that you count Twitter bird logos in your sleep and keep your phone next to your bed, just in case one of your friends sends you a snapchat of the Netflix programme they’re watching- you know, ground-breaking stuff.

To tell you the truth, no, I don’t care that you died your hair pink, and no, I don’t care that that it’s snowing where you are at the moment- that white stuff that falls from the sky, yeah, I’ve seen it before. I just like to be in the know- as in, I don’t care if you have that “cheeky Nando’s,” but if you do, I’d like to know about it please.

The same with Facebook- so called ‘friends’ that I probably wouldn’t know if I fell over them, I still can’t bring myself to delete from my virtual life. No, I couldn’t give two hoots about that mean girl I used to go to school with having her hundredth child, or has since gained a lot of weight- it just makes me feel better about myself.

I narrate my whole life over Twitter, which is totally unnecessary thinking about it. No one cares that my food shop is arriving tomorrow and no one cares that my lunch consisted of a donut and coffee that one time (although it did get ‘favorited’ by four people, just saying.)

I find myself trying to concentrate on a lecture that in an ideal, social media free world, I would find very interesting. But where there is a pen in one hand, there is also a phone in the other- with WhatsApp open, sending useless dolphin emojis and hysterical made up words to my flatmates.

Pinterest is just the final nail in the coffin really. Although my ‘boards’ are quite creatively named if I do say so myself (‘Cats: Masters of the Universe’ being my personal favourite) – there are only so many cat pictures one can take, if you can believe that to be possible.  

Now I’ve got that off my chest, I can also say it’s not only me. I’m not the only crazy internet lady around here. The people with their laptops open in lectures are either on Facebook, internet shopping or playing a really intense game of Tetris. And when there is that awkward pregnant pause in a conversation, people turn to their trusty smartphones for comfort- pretending to do something urgently important but are really scrolling through Kendall Jenner’s Instagram feed.

The, what I like to call ‘Professionals of Society’ seem to think we are in fact, obsessed with social media. But, hey, I could’ve told you that- so what is the psychology behind it all? Social psychologist Larry Rosen, writing for Psychology Today, states “We have not sunk to the level of psychiatric disorder like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but we are not far away. Just watch people in the world around you. If you are watching a young person who is not looking at his or her phone keep watching. Soon that phone will come out of the pocket or purse, most likely without having gotten an alert or notification but being driven by a combination of pleasure and anxiety.”

If this is true, we have turned into the generation of insistence- we need constant stimulation from our digital friends and crave instant gratification in order to make us feel better about ourselves. And we love it. Don’t pretend that when you get over 11 likes on a ‘selfie’ you posted on Instagram, your next thought isn’t “someone hand me that damn modelling contract!”

Nothing we do matters any more unless someone else knows about it. Who cares that you had an amazing, once in a life time experience at Glastonbury if you don’t chronicle it in your Snapchat story? Who cares that you’re expecting unless you post weekly updates about the progress of your pregnancy?

So, yes my name’s Georgia and I’m a social media addict. It’s not something I’m proud of, there’s a chance it could be driven by crippling anxiety, but that’s not going to stop me telling you what I ate for dinner tonight via Twitter (…it was spaghetti Bolognese- come on, how could you not be interested?)   

Talking of which, fancy following me on Twitter and Instagram? Click on the links to right. 

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