“Who does that?” I asked my friend, Cheryl.  “Who sends naked pictures of themselves, face and all to someone via text? Shit happens! Someone else could see those pictures. Shit! I saw those pictures and aside from wishing I could bleach my eyes, I write about the ins and outs dating for a living. This whole ordeal isn’t going to stop here.  There is just way too much to say about it. I have material for a month but… it is just common fucking sense, right?”  Cheryl was driving and laughing so hard that I was certain she was going to crash the car she was driving. I chuckled and she just shrugged.  “You could have refused to help him,” she responded. “Nah, I had to help.  I wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone.” I finally said.

As most of you know, I recently gained access to all of the photos on a single, actively dating guy’s cell phone.  I didn’t ask to see the pictures on his phone.  A guy I used to date, used to want to live with, had unintentionally uploaded every picture from his cellphone to his Facebook account and couldn’t figure out how to erase them.  So he employed my help doing the later.

If you accidently upload all the pictures of every woman you’ve fucked or tried to fuck, wouldn’t you call the woman whose heart you broke, your relationship, dating and sex writer, former love interest to take off the pictures?  I wouldn’t either but that’s what happened.  I dare say my former partner doesn’t have many friends who could have figured out how to get rid of those pictures or wouldn’t have had more to say to him than, “Delete those pictures off your phone dummy,” when all was said and done.

So one beautiful sunny day at the library, I found myself perusing through way too many pictures of naked women who had sent pictures to a technically challenged, simple man who had unintentionally uploaded all of their pictures to a social network and called the only girl he knew with a fan base to remedy the situation.  Did he mean any harm? Of course not! He was upset and a little terrified that these women might see each other in the twenty minutes it took me to delete them.  But shit happens!  For a brief period of time those private pictures weren’t private.

It doesn’t seem like such a big deal really.  I’ve sent naughty pictures to a guy or two.  I don’t do it often and never outside a relationship but I have done it.  I’ve never really been worried about it.

Now you may be wondering why I didn’t worry about it and why implying these women in these photos should have been worried about it. It is pretty fucking simple I wouldn’t send a picture in which I could be easily identified by anyone else who might see the picture.

Today’s Sexting for Dummies Lesson…

If you are going to send naked photos of yourself to someone virtually don’t take pictures that include your face! For Fuck’s Sake!  That seems like it should be common sense.  Odds are the dude you sent the picture to is going to say, “Look at this chick’s awesome rack to a friend and show it to a friend/his brother/the dude he just did a shot next to at the bar and everyone knows exactly whose tits they are because your fucking face is in the picture.  I now have a fantasy about visiting my ex, just so, on the off chance I might get to meet any of you (60% of those photos were full body pictures of about ten different women) I can say, “Nice to meet you blah, blah. I’ve seen your tits and your vag.”

Unless you are getting paid for nude pictures of yourself (and I would have gladly paid most of the women I saw naked to keep their clothes on) don’t include your face in the picture.  Odds are the dude you sent it to couldn’t care less about whose face was attached to that body.  You also get the added bonus of not being recognized or talked about by everyone who ever saw those pictures.

In short, I have no issues with sending dirty pictures.  It can be fun and build up tension when you aren’t near each other.  Just don’t include your face.  Because you included your face in that picture, I know I saw YOU naked and it was pretty gross.  I really want to bleach my eyes… that shit would hurt.