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Gretchen McCulloch, a linguist who specializes in the language of the internet, told me it's not that sexting has made people hornier. "Read the poems of Catallus, or the letters James Joyce sent to his wife Norah—those are incredibly dirty," she said. But with the advent of cell phones, those dirty conversations can happen any time. You can send a text about rock hard dicks while sitting in the coffee shop.
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But now, since we're cramming all of this dirty talk into our cell phones, we say things to our sexual partners we probably would never be able to say to them in person. I don't think I've ever said the word "cock" out loud in a sexual situation. "Penis," sure, and obviously "dick"—but never "cock." It's like the Voldemort of genitalia. Have you ever tried to say the things you sext to someone? It's not natural.To prove this, filmmaker Eileen Yaghoobian started a project to act out real sexting conversations and turn them into short videos. The resulting Send Me Your Sexts videos are bizarre: None of the conversations make any sense; there's no real flow to the dialogue; there are awkward, extended pauses, and an uncomfortable vagueness about where exactly this dialogue should be taking place. Regardless of the context of the video, it's clear that these conversations were meant to exist in the digital world.I don't think I've ever said the word "cock" out loud. It's like the Voldemort of genitalia.
Yaghoobian's project resonates with me. When I read back something I've sent as a sext, I often find myself wondering, Who's typing this shit? Is this really me? It feels almost like the girl sending dirty texts is my alter ego, not the Alison that exists in real life.
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