Oh hey everybody.
This week on Ask Cristen sexting.
Hello?
Which really has nothing to do with talking voice to voice so this example is bogus!
This week’s Ask Cristen question is coming from Dana who wants to know, ‘Why do guys
ask us to send them “sexy pics”?
At first he seems all nice and kind and oh such a gentleman.
Then bam, “Send me a cute sexy photo of yourself”.
Can I say “no” without them judging/not wanting to talk to me anymore?
How do you respond to that?!’
Now to answer your first all caps question of why are guys asking for these pictures
in the first place, I think we have to acknowledge the fact that sexting is simply part of our
sexual script these days.
Of a nationally representative sample of people 18 to 75 years old in the US, 21% had sent
a sext and 28% had received a sext.
And I say this in no way to invalidate Dana’s frustration around this state of affairs but
sexting is simply on the menu.
Not only that but research also finds that men are one and a half times likelier to send
sext messages and also have higher sext-pectations, or positive expectations about the outcomes
of sexting, which guys are likelier to associate with excitement, arousal, desire and also
a boost in confidence, whereas a lot of times for women if we’re looking in like very
heteronormative contexts, women are much likelier to feel like sexting is riskier due to the
chance of slut-shaming and photos that are being sent privately being shared publicly.
If we look at sexy photo-swapping by itself, far and away this is most common between people
who are in committed, monogamous relationships and in fact it can be good for your relationship
some studies find, deepening senses of intimacy and healthy sexual dialogue.
And in that case, if first comes love, then comes sending sexy photos of yourself, maybe
those requests for cute, sexy pics feels so abrasive because it feels like guys are collapsing
the whole dating process and jumping over all of these other steps that you would prefer
to go through before understandably exposing yourself or just part of yourself to somebody
else that you might not know all that well IRL.
And the thing is just like there’s nothing inherently wrong with hooking up, there’s
nothing inherently wrong with wanting or even asking for cute sexy pics of people that you
are texting with.
To me, the red flag starts waving when someone tries to coerce or pressure someone a cute,
sexy or straight up nude pic.
And this is where consent and personal boundaries come into this sexting landscape.
Dana, if you don’t want to send a guy a cute, sexy pic, you don’t have to send a
guy a cute sexy pic, you can just say like no, that’s not my game.
And if a guy judges you and tries to prude-shame you for not wanting to send a cute sexy pic
then screw that dude.
On the flip-side of that if you are in a safe relationship, whether that’s a long term
or a short-term, with someone else and you want to explore what it’s like to express
yourself sexually through text messages and photos then it’s totally fine to do that
as well but it’s all about consent and comfort level and healthy exploration rather than
feeling like you should send this sexy pic because that’s what people do and that’s
what guys expect and they really like it and if you don’t do it they won’t like you.
A quick word about sending unsolicited sexy pics to people that you are not in a relationship
with, imho it is poor-sexting etiquette, or sext-iquette.
I do not know of a single woman who has ever been like, ‘Yes!’ for getting an unsolicited
penis pic.
One thing that disappoints me about a lot of the research out there on sexting cis and
heteronormative it is, there’s very little nuance even at this point with all the sexting
research that’s been done.
With that I want to open up this conversation to all of you, do you have any advice for
Dana?
Guys do you have any insight on this as well because I certainly don’t want to sit here
and to sit here and woman-splain why men sext.
And I also don’t want to demonize sexting in any way at all because there are just enough
people out there doing that already.
How can we improve our sexting etiquette and also how can we ensure that the sexting that
we’re doing promotes a healthy, consensual, sexual culture?
Let me know in the comments below.
And as always ask me your questions whether they have to do with sexting, texting or just
any old thing that pops in your head so that I can give you some answers.