Everybody Sexts – Just Ask New York Times Writer Jenna Wortham

Earlier this year, the internet was rocked by what eventually came to be known as The Fappening – a massive hack that resulted in the release of hundreds of nude photos of a number of female celebrities. The flood of private celebrity photos into the public eye inspired a range of reactions. Some attacked the hackers for their gross breach of privacy; others blamed the women for their own victimization, offering that they'd never have been exposed to the public if they'd been proper enough to keep their naked bodies hidden from the lens of their cameras. And at least one woman found herself inspired to create an essay/art piece exploring the place that sexting holds in our culture – and putting lie to the notion the nice girls and boys don't do it.

"Everybody Sexts", which launched today as part of the Matter collection on Medium.com, is a collection of the sexting experiences of ordinary folk (many of them friends, and friends of friends, of Ms. Wortham; and one of them yours truly). In her quest to normalize sexting, Wortham interviewed a number of people about their sexting histories – when they began sexting, how frequently they engage in the behavior, what they get out of sending dirty pictures digitally – and collected their nude photos; "Everybody Sexts" features brief stories from sixteen subjects, as well as artistic renditions of the photos they provided to Wortham.

Though sexting has long been portrayed as the domain of the young and the reckless (horny teens, for instance), "Everybody Sexts" offers a different picture of who's engaging in this erotic exchange. The sixteen subjects (six men, ten women) are far from the stereotype of rainbow party attending teens painted by the mainstream media. For the most part, they're urban professionals in their twenties and thirties, using sexting as a way to foster connection with people in their lives – be they strangers, friends, or serious partners. Some send photos to find new partners (like the man who shares a photo he sends to potential hook ups on Scruff), others to keep the magic and chemistry alive with current partners (like the woman who shares an image sent to her fiancé while he was traveling), still others to preserve a feeling or a specific moment in time (like the woman who photographed herself at six weeks pregnant, saying "I’d never felt so sexy").

Wortham began with a mission to normalize sexting, and her collection of anecdotes and images most definitely does that. But, even more interestingly, it offers the awareness that – contrary to popular belief – there's no one "right" way to sext; that a variety of people photograph themselves naked for a variety or reasons and in a variety of contexts. Wortham's subjects have a variety of views about what sexting is best for: while some see it as a way to flirt and kick things off ("I tend to send nudes as a way of flirting in the beginning of a relationship, as things progress and as a relationship goes from early flirtation to something more solid, the rate of nudes dies down"), others place it firmly in the serious relationship category ("In my opinion, sexts shouldn’t function as previews so much as a way to keep the momentum going, to maintain the eroticism of a really good sexual encounter."). They also have a range of attitudes towards security, privacy, and the fear of the inevitable leak. Some people cop to shooting their photos to obscure certain details (a face, the genitals, other identifying or risqué aspects of the body) to reduce embarrassment in case of a future leak; others are more relaxed about the possibility of having their sexts become public. Alan Dickson (which, for the record, is apparently his government name and not a clever sexting pseudonym) offers that, "At first it was a little nerve-racking. It was later, when the sex tape things started happening that I really came to realize that it might not be the end of the world if they leaked out a little."

As affirming as it is to see that, yes, everybody does, in fact, sext; it's even more interesting to explore the complexities and variations that exist within a number of different sexting strategies. Which is why it's thrilling to know that "Everybody Sexts" is merely the beginning of an important conversation. Wortham has revealed that she has plans to take the piece further, expanding her collection and broadening the discussion of when, why, and how we all choose to engage in sexting. And if all this reading about sexting (and gazing at arty sexting shots) has you feeling inspired you to wax philosophic about your own sexts, there's room for you to get involved: Wortham's encouraging fellow sexters to send their images – and, just as importantly, the stories behind them – to [email protected].