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To Sext or Not to Sext?
Despite warnings of the downfalls of racy text messages, the trend continues growing.
The death of romance was announced more than once over the decades. Gentleman callers stopped opening the door for the ladies in their company, potential boyfriends opted out of paying for dinner and fiancés-to-be left the proposals to the woman. While some have embraced the changes calling them progress and equality, others miss the old world charm the little tokens of affection provided. While going Dutch has eased the burden on the wallet for men of society, certain other developments have had a less positive impact for both sexes. Modern technology, always the easily accused culprit, is more and more often cited as giving the axe not only to romance, but also to the allure of a little sexual mystery.
From the start, social networking websites have allowed users to inform their cyber world of their relationship status, with facebook even allowing for the defining of the somewhat indefinable "It's Complicated." What the networks certainly don't allow, or at least not yet, is the classification of mistresses, cheaters, or serial daters, all of which have been greatly helped by another technology– the text message. While it seems innocent, the text has spread like wildfire. As the phenomenon of what users are willing to send has also expanded, now texts include topics that were traditionally left behind closed doors, usually bedroom doors.
Sexting, as the sending of sexually charged text messages has been appropriately nicknamed, seems to be following the trend of more traditional texts and sweeping the world by storm. While teens are the most likely to engage in racy texting, coming in at 43%, a recent LG Text Ed survey suggests that the older generation is catching up, with 28% of parent participants admitting to the deed. The sexy time via a phone is not without its problems and as society in general has become more embracing of texting, the limits are continually pushed.
"Text and picture messaging has now become so second nature that people are less cautious, leading to messages often going astray," said Keir McConomy, Managing Director of SellMyMobile.com
According to the company, those under 25 are the most likely to sext and then unwillingly send it to the wrong contact. Of course that could be embarrassing and highly uncomfortable, but it could also have very serious legal and personal repercussions. Tiger Woods may have been caught in extramarital affairs at least in part thanks to the arrangement of liaisons in texts, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Text messages can potentially be used as evidence in court, justify custody decisions and even cause job loss. Certain cases have even resulted in unsuspecting citizens appearing on a list of sex offenders and despite a move in Connecticut to shift the classification to a misdemeanour when dealing with sexting between two individuals of the same age group, for some youngsters it's already too late.
Largely in reaction to such instances, MTV produced a special aimed at warning youth about the potential implications of sending out nude or semi-nude photos and sexual texts. Sexting in America: When Privates Go Public had the good intention of spreading the word, but in a society on the border of addiction when it comes to texting, the effort to curb the behaviour may be a little like preaching abstinence as the only sure method of birth control and sexual health.
Taking the more liberal approach, TigerText provides a service that was not intentioned as facilitating sexting, but could certainly be used as such, especially when it comes to the cheating sort of sexts. The SmartPhone application allows for users to send a text to the TigerText server before it is forwarded on to a recipient. The message can then be read or responded to, and after a period of time set out by the sender, it is deleted from both phones and the TigerText server. Eliminating the possibility of being found by a spouse, the iPhone version of the application still didn't factor in the screenshot possibility. By saving an image of the screen, despite the use of TigerText, sent texts could still be used as evidence of less then exemplary behaviour.
The fact that for every new technology there will be a way to get around it should serve as a warning for those sending out millions of sexts, texts and an array of other incriminating material that has not yet earned itself a shorthand description. No matter how safe it seems, perhaps it shouldn't be sent if grandma seeing it would make you blush.