What is SEXTING?
Sexting is the sending of sexually explicit photos, videos, text messages, or e-mail by using a cell phone or other mobile devices. They can be sent from a friend, boyfriend, girlfriend or someone you’ve met online. We understand how easily sexting can happen and how things can go wrong – even when you didn’t mean for them to.
This is a common practice among teenage boys and girls since the emergence of cell phones and Smartphones. The popularity of these devices has immensely changed the way we do things.
Sexting can happen for lots of reasons:
1. Curiosity! Teens may be curious as to what others look like when naked and also easily aroused by nudity.
2. Having a long distance or online relationship with someone and want to have a sexual relationship with them.
3. Feel proud of your body and want to share it with others.
4. Doing it to prove that you are sexy.
5. Be in love with a person and trust them completely and feel like it’s okay. Some thinks that sexting spices up a relationship.
6. Feel like ‘everyone else is doing it’ and want to fit in with friends – especially if they are boasting about sending or having nude photos or videos on their mobile phone.
7. Thinking that you ‘owe’ your boyfriend or girlfriend or made to feel guilty if you don’t do what they ask you for and many other reasons…
THE APPS
Apps like Snapchat, Tinder, Kik, Whatsapp are commonly used for sexting. These apps enable you to send text, audio, picture and video messages. Some sexters prefer using the Snapchat app to send nude photos, because this enables you to set the amount of seconds the photo can be viewed before it will self-destruct. But the irony is; the receiver can snapshot the photo and keep it.
THE METHODS
Most sexters would prefer being alone when doing it and others have no time and place for it. They have their own style of words when sexting with their partners and others prefer using emojis to chat. They start with the mind and then to the physical, arousing sexual anticipation.
THE CONSEQUENCES
Think before you send…
Before hitting the send button; think twice, think of the consequences that could happen. Your photo or video can end up somewhere you don’t expect, like a social media site or even on a porn site. Some young people blackmail their partners and former partners by threatening to release private images of them, if they don’t do what they asked for. Most sexters will share the message with their friends and those friends could also share it with another people.
~Faal
Ousman Faal [Digital Vigilante] is a Tech Entrepreneur & Digital Skills Trainer who teaches both in the classroom and online. He has experience in various technologies and likes sharing it with others. Ousman has published 149 articles on this blog. He is the CEO of Faalen Technologies and Skills.gm.
