Why sexting can be empowering for women

In general, I am not a very assertive person on dates. Opinionated and strong-willed in general, I tend to take it a step down when I’m hanging out with someone for the first, or second, or third time.

This is particularly true in the bedroom. This is not my first time at any rodeo (except for a real rodeo – never been to one of those), so I pretty much know what I like, what I want, and how I want it.

As is pretty much common knowledge, the first few times you sleep with someone are awkward. I’ve found that I have a particularly hard time telling someone what to do, especially when I’m naked and already feeling like they might flee the room realizing they’ve made some sort of huge mistake.

The other night, I stumbled into a late night sexting session with a guy who I had seen a few times before. We had slept together twice, and our casual conversation slowly turned into flirting, which quickly turned into flat out sexting.

While the first few times we had sex I had pretty much let him take the lead, I began to become incredibly assertive via text – telling him exactly what I wanted him to do, how to do it, and asking for things I never would have the confidence to within the first few times we would have slept together.

I felt incredibly in control, and even though there are times when I get extremely fed up with guys trying to sext constantly, I found myself feeling really sexy. I felt empowered in a weird way, since I had no reservations in what I felt I could or couldn’t say.

One of the hardest things for me in asking for what I want is having to correct a guy, which tends to kill the mood a bit. Instead, I was able to ask directly for what I wanted. Not correcting or criticizing, but telling straightforward.

Sure, I’m positive there are some of you reading this and thinking that sexting has ruined actual sex, and that the reason I’m OK with telling a guy what to do via text is because I’ve been ruined by technology and fear real life interactions. To be honest, I’m not really trying to disagree with you.

But I’m embracing the fact that I have been ruined by technology when it comes to human interaction and I’m using the tools available to me to be assertive and empowered in other ways. Additionally, now, moving forward, this guy knows exactly what I want since I have detailed it out for him step by step. Hopefully, the next time we hook up, it’ll be killer.

And if it’s not? Now that I’ve pointed out what I want, I don’t feel as hesitant to re-iterate some of those things.

I do feel inclined to mention that by saying I can enjoy sexting, I am not in any way, shape or form welcoming un-solicited dick pics – those are the worst.