Texting II Sexting

Texting II Sexting

   First off, don't.  Sext me, that is.  I'm happily married, older, and quite frankly would find a sext message puzzling, embarrassing, perhaps disturbing and maybe even a bit guilt-inducing.  But that's me.  No, what the heading was meant to do (in addition to piggybacking off of the earlier post) was to highlight this month's issue of Wired, its bright yellow cover quietly unveiling it cover story, Sex in the Digital Age.

   For folks like me, those trying to keep up with the times but getting ever father behind, the articles are quite eye-opening for times appear to have indeed changed.  To see if you've kept up, see how many of these terms you recognize?  Heteroromantic demisexual.  Gray-asexual (also termed Gray Aces).  Grindr.  VR.  Redbook (the app, not the magazine).  Jimmyjane.  Hmm, how many did you get?  For me, the total was zero, but the education of the article was quite interesting.  Dumped into the dating world of today, I'm not sure where or even if I would fit in, fiddling with apps and wondering what the heck happened to good old fashioned romance (or maybe it's still there but in a different form)?  Or even more surprising (as quoted from the 11/3/14 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek), "According to a 2013 Journal of Sexual Medicine study, a quarter of men who seek medical treatment for erectile dysfunction are younger than 40, and half of them have 'severe' symptoms."  Maybe that's what happened to good old fashioned romance.

   Here was something else that was surprising.  The app Grindr, which allows for quick hookups and rendezvous, sort of a no-questions-asked sort of quickie site (but primarily for gay and bisexual men), is popular.  Quite popular, actually, with 38 million messages and 3.1 million photos posted every day!  And beyond San Francisco, the city close to passing it by is Boston, followed by Paris (from there, the rankings are L.A., London, New York, Chicago, Sydney and Bangkok).  And for a magazine like Wired (primarily a tech magazine) to be covering this topic was, well, also surprising.  But here was the magazine's view:  Technology seems so cold...Technology is changing everything about our sex lives, but there is nothing cold about it.  However visceral, animalistic, or fleeting, sex is, at its core, about human connection.  And we now live in the most connected age in history.  Getting it on is different today.  How we find partners, how we learn what excites us, how we flirt, how we make dates, how we grow closer, how we turn each other on--all of it has changed...The Web has flattened the world--enabling even the most isolated individual to find others who share their specific interests and desires...and there's something resolutely neutral about the technology now fueling our lust:  It is taboo-agnostic.

   This article was as puzzling to me as the one that appeared the month before dealing with dumpster diving and our trash and the discoveries one dumpster diver is finding.  For one, there appears to be quite an underground crowd digging through dumpsters and none of them appear to be homeless (in the article, the main person being interviewed, Matt Malone, makes six figures at his job as a security consultant;  the dumster diving only adds to his income and excitability).  And for another, there's a lot of stuff being thrown out, brand new stuff still in boxes.  Printers, reams of paper, ink toners, computers.  College campuses and storage units are gold mines, happily contributing to the over 7 pounds of trash each of us generates and discards daily, according to studies.

   This came home to me a bit as I continued my slow clearout, old inventory of items that didn't quite make it now heading into my recycle bin, brand new (never-watched and still sealed) DVDs heading to the library (which can't accept them for general circulation, in a bizarre policy, but can place them in their "sale" rack).  Clothing headed to collection centers for redistribution or to be made into rags (which is actually quite a lucrative business).  And I began to think of how many worlds and cultures are swirling actively around us, operating and leaving many of us in the dark, yet there all the same.  


   In today's changing world, those of us clinging to old ways might be feeling a bit left out, turning into our parents and yet, suddenly seeing why our parents were like they were.  The generation seems to have simply moved onto the next, my own puzzled expression of many of today's youths actions reflecting my own aging.  But we might be better off at least trying to understand why some of this is happening, what seems to be a growing disconnect with touch and contact and tossing things out that still work but are perhaps a bit dated, like software and relationships.  In this disposable society, perhaps the overall feeling is just one of running out of time or one of endless resources or one of wild exploration.  But we need to balance much of this with our hearts, for compassion and empathy might prove to play a much larger role in our lives than a new laptop or a one-night stand.  The world is changing and adapting and moving even as many of us stand still, but there just might be a reason for doing so.