photo by CoreForce

Our contributor is a junior in college. And that’s all she’s willing to say. Except this…

Sexting, for the uninitiated, involves sending texts that are sexual in nature. These can range from straightforward (e.g. “I want to fuck you right now”) to graphically descriptive (use your imagination). And, if you’re brave — or, perhaps, foolhardy — they may include photo messages, too.

The man I sext with is not my boyfriend, or even an ex. We have not established what we are yet, or what we will be in the future, but we do sext nearly every night. We were co-workers, then we hooked up and then, just when we’d started to figure out that we really liked each other, he moved 9 hours away for a new job. So now we are in an e-relationship with the occasional phone call and sexy video chat.

Because he’s is on a different schedule than I am and seems to be up working all hours of the night, I leave my phone on when I go to bed, knowing he is usually able to chat at around 1 a.m. I am happy to be woken by his sexts.

One night last week, he really surprised me. “Who wants a dick in them?” he texted as an opening, as opposed to his usual “hey” (that’s foreplay in texting). It caught me off guard and, of course, had me thinking the rest of the night about how much I did indeed want that.

Sexting is all about the surprise. For example, I wake up earlier than he does, so one morning I got out of the shower and took a from-the-neck-down photo of me standing in front of the bathroom mirror. I sent it to him and two hours later, when he woke up, he sent back his praises. He said it was nice waking up to a picture like that.

We like to play a game we call “The Picture Game” (creative, I know). One of us sends the first dirty picture and we have to keep sending photo after photo, trying to outdo the last person each time (without ever showing our faces).

I save the pictures in my phone, even though I worry that one of my nosier friends will accidentally see them some day — then again, sometimes it’s tempting to show off the pictures myself (what he has is pretty darn good!). But so far I’ve resisted. Sure, with no face in the photo, there’s no way for me to prove it’s his body (and the same goes for his photos of me), but nevertheless, I try to respect him in the same way I hope he respects me.

Perhaps the reason I feel so satisfied right now, despite the fact that my crush lives 500 miles away, is that the man gives good text. When I send him a sexy text, he always, always sends back something sexier. He’s never selfish. He aims to please. And because he’s a writer, he knows how to be descriptive. He never fails to get my hand down my pants as our texts are flying back and forth.

But before I could feel satisfied, I had to feel comfortable. I’m at ease now, but it wasn’t always that way — my first few sexts were awkward and halting. I don’t think I could ever say some of the things I’ve sent to this man in real life. But, now, I can sure as hell text them. I think that’s why sexting appeals to me so much. I can express the crazy things I want to do without feeling like I’m going too far or being awkward. Some things are just uncomfortable to say out loud — at least for me. I can’t wait to have real life sex with this guy the next time we see each other — because now we both know some of the positions we want to try out. If I’m being honest, I never could have communicated that if he was lying right next to me.

The only downside is the cost that can be incurred from excessive sexting. Last month, I went over the number of texts approved on my plan and ended up with a $300 bill — quite a steep price for reaching out and touching someone.