6 Ways to Practice Safe Sexting

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6 Ways to Practice Safe Sexting

 

BY

JUSTIN FENNER FOR DETAILS

December 26, 2015 4:44 pm

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GETTY IMAGES/CULTURA RM

There’s nothing wrong with sending a sext. Just don’t be a dick about it

If you’ve not been formally welcomed to the Age of Sexting (by which we mean the period of modern history where pretty much everyone sends and receives sexual imagery using their mobile devices), allow us to be the first to do so.

In fact, if you’ve never sent or been the recipient of a grainy, poorly lit nude photo, you might be in the minority. Depending on which study you’re reading, “between 30 and 60 percent of teenagers and young adults are sexting in some form,” said Amy Hasinoff, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Denver who just published a book on the topic called Sexting Panic. She added that while there’s not much research yet on the sexting habits of older adults, it’s likely that at least one of your mom’s bridge partners has seen a dick pic.

 

 “This isn’t a bizarre thing that only strange people do,” Hasinoff said. “Sexting is normal.”

 

But the Age of Sexting has only been made possible by technology that has repeatedly gotten hacked, often turning these private images into public scandals. So how do you participate in what is rapidly becoming an expected part of romantic communication while keeping your privates private? A guide to smarter sexting below.

 

Try Not to Surprise Anyone

Sending someone an unsolicited picture of your dick, especially if you’re concerned about your privacy, is a bad move. No matter how impressively endowed you are, it’s going to make you look bad (Hasinoff said guys who send people these unwanted images are “basically subway flashers”), and there’s also a higher likelihood it’ll get shared.

“If [a recipient doesn’t] want those pictures, they’ll sometimes share them with their friends and say, ‘Oh my god, this creepy guy sent me a photo of his dick,’” she said. And making people you haven’t even met think you’re creepy is, well, something to be avoided.

 

 

Don’t Sext Someone You Don’t Trust

The number one risk of sexting is the person on the other end violating your privacy by sharing your image.

“People think that sexting is so dangerous, but is it really more dangerous than other types of sex acts?” she said. “It depends on how you’re going to weigh risk and danger.”

Hasinoff recommends talking about your privacy expectations, just like you would your expectations of exclusivity, or using condoms or birth control. “Most people generally expect that if they send a private, sexual image, that it will remain private,” but leaving that open to interpretation increases the risk of people you don’t want to see your junk seeing your junk.

 

Wait Until You’re Established

If you’re in a long-lasting relationship, you’ve got a lot less to worry about sexting your partner than the guy a few offices down who’s flirting with 12 new Tinder matches. “Distribution without permission is less likely the longer people have been together,” Hasinoff said, and that makes sense. Established couples would feel the pain of one of their photos leaking together, but without deep ties the same sense of

“Sexting as a way to start a relationship maybe isn’t the safest option,” Hasinoff warnd. “But it’s not that you shouldn’t do it. It’s that you should know that that’s statistically, at least, it’s a risk.”

 

Don’t Send a Sext You Don’t Absolutely Want to Send

There’s a tendency among younger people to share the images they’ve worked to coax out of someone, though Hasinoff warns that this is more of a problem with teenagers. Still, if a potential romantic partner is pressuring you to send an image you’re not ready or willing to send, use your common sense and don’t send it.

 

Crop Out Your Face

It sounds obvious, but if you want to preserve plausible deniability, don’t include your face or any identifying marks (tattoos, unique moles, and birthmarks included) in the explicit images you send. Think of this strategy as a first line of defence against the world at large knowing, and with certainty, what you look like naked.

 

Use a Service that Safeguards Your Privacy

If The Great iCloud Megahack of 2014 (the one that raided the photo streams of A-list celebrities and left everyone from Scarlett Johansson to Jennifer Lawrence exposed) has you wary of sending any suggestive images of yourself, you might want to try Bleep. The app, launched this week by BitTorrent, sends text and images directly to the intended recipient’s device through a peer-to-peer communication system, meaning messages never touch a server or cloud that might be compromised.

“There’s simply nothing to hack,” said Farid Fadaie, the company’s senior director of product development, who added that all messages are stored on the users’ phones.

 

Bleep also has a function called Whisper, through which users can send seriously ephemeral messages and images. This mode doesn’t show the sender’s name, and any content that’s whispered will disappear 25 seconds after the recipient reads it. If the reader tries to screenshot a whisper, the app won’t show the image or the name of the sender simultaneously.

All of this makes it sort of perfect for sexting, and BitTorrent doesn’t mind that association. “This is what consumer behavior is right now,” said Christian Averill, the company’s vice president of communications.

“The assumption is that between two adults, you should be able to share what you want to share, and there shouldn’t be a trade off between ease of use and privacy.”

 

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Source: GQ