advice on getting into sexting?

[alriune]

i recently made a separate nsfw tumblr account to sort of act as a horny diary (if you're wondering how that's possible since tumblr banned nsfw the moderation sucks and people have found ways around it lmao) and i realized that i would be okay with sexting another person and receiving pics from them if i were completely anonymous while doing it. i thought about it some more today and realized i would actually be fine sending pictures as long as they aren't of my face or my genitals. but here are some issues:

• i am a capital v Virgin with no experience with anything like this
  my psychological issues
  finding people i can trust
  possible problems regarding time zones and availability

i'm extremely worried about running into creeps and/or people who won't respect my boundaries. i want to dip my toes into doing things with people over the internet because i think it will help my relationship with my sexuality and i'm also getting a little bit bored of my typical masturbation habits. other issues are, if i have a bad experience that could ruin my relationship with my sexuality even more, what if i fall in love with them even though i said i want it no strings attached, how i would even do this to begin with, stuff like that.

i don't know of any reputable apps or online communities that are for anonymous sexting, so i have no idea where to even start. as i said my biggest worry is running into bad people and i'm not even sure how i would find decent people anyway because they would have to have the patience of a saint and also have the grace to understand what exactly i'm looking for and the problems i have, and that i'm trying this out as partly a therapeutic measure.

[Jacob]

Hi alriune!

I don't think there's any platforms for that which we can vouch for, but I totally get it!

Online spaces in many cases do provide ways to be creative with your sexuality and fantasy play, without as much of the physical risk that anonymous meetups, for example, might pose. On the other hand they can provide more opportunities for other people to be deceptive and betray your trust without consequence, so there's a trade-off.

My approach to risk in general, is that the best you can do is try and understand what the risks might be, and then in the same way that we talk about 'informed consent' you try and get a feel for ways you can mitigate those risks then decide whether you feel willing to take to those risks, and in which environments you feel most comfortable taking them if at all. If not, you're probably not going to do that thing, and are going to look for something else, somewhere else. Sharing photos for example is going to up the risk level beyond what a text-based interaction would and we might find ourselves deciding 'okay, not that'.

When it comes to regrets you may have in the future, hindsight is a helluva thing and having things we regret is almost inevitable at some point. If you find that you've hurt someone, or someone has hurt you through your well-meaning exploration of your sexuality in whatever space, there are probably things to learn from, but it is probably going to happen somehow. Sadly, beyond basic research, we can't ever be sure we've learnt now, everything we'll one day wish we had learnt. There's a big ole time-travel paradox in the way of that!

It might also be the case that once you think all of this through, there just isn't a community out there that has what you need to feel comfortable with it.

(Side thing: My understanding of tumblr's attitude to "nsfw" from people using it and sex workers on there is that it seems kinda hopeful, since changing ownership, that they might be quietly repealing the ban they instigated a few years ago. So hopefully this is an example of their moderation shifting focus rather than sucking... but we'll see how it plays out over the next couple of years!)

[alriune]

i mentioned this on reddit and someone said that there *are* guys out there who like to get girls off and that's kind of been my fuel for this since hearing that. i just keep wondering where on earth i would find these guys and if i'm even willing to risk looking for them

[Nicole]

Hi alriune,

When you say that you’re willing to risk looking for them, what do you mean?

When it comes to trading pictures online, there is a huge uncertainty where those pictures could end up. There are people who claim that they are trustworthy and would not share or repost initiate pictures but may end up doing so anyways. I know Jacob already mentioned considering risks, but I just wanted to add my two cents here!

[alriune]

hi nicole, sorry for the late reply.

by "willing to risk looking for them" i mean i don't know if i'm willing to risk a negative or humiliating experience while looking for a decent person.

[Sam W]

Hi alriune,

Thanks for clarifying that! I do think that if the chance of running into a bad or humiliating situation feels like a risk you're unsure about taking, I'd table this for now just because it can be tricky to ever fully minimize those risk. Too, as Jacob mentioned, it may be that you end up eventually encountering an online community where taking those kind of risks feels much safer because of the rules, set-up, or people who make up that space.