Jon Holato

It’s after midnight, you’re leaving your favorite nightclub, but you’re alone. Riding high on the energy of the night — and probably a little booze as well — you suddenly realize that going home and hitting the sack is exactly what you do not want to do. In a desperate attempt to fill this void of loneliness you decide to start text messaging random members of the opposite sex in your address book, hoping that someone will heed your call to shack up for the night.

Up until recently this has always been referred to as a “booty call,” as in order to coerce someone into spending the night — or allowing you to spend the night — you actually had to make a phone call. However, in this digital age in which we are living the preferred method of contacting these people is no longer a phone call, but rather a text message. Enter: sex messaging.

An About.com poll this week found that 17% of mobile phone users mostly use text messaging as a way to arrange sexual encounters, while 28% said they mostly use it to communicate with family members, 32% said they use it to keep in touch with friends, and 15% said they text mostly to exchange messages with a loved one.

Reasons why this sex messaging phenomenon has exploded and continues to grow are based mostly on convenience and the lack of any rejection embarrassment. For example, there’s no need to reply if you get the message. On the phone there can often be the awkward moment where one party wants to but the other one really doesn’t want to. But in a text message no feelings are hurt, as unanswered text messages are a common and normal occurrence. A second reason is that it invokes a sense of anonymity, not between the two parties, but between them and everyone else. If you’re at a party and you are making phone calls to arrange a booty call, people will notice and overhear you. But if you’re text messaging you’re being private and not making your business known to the world. And a final reason, according to the study, “what is more enticing than getting an unexpected erotic message from a friend?” I’ll leave you to ponder that last one.

Given the high ratio of the number of people you have to text before getting a positive response, it’s a blessing for many that most carriers now offer unlimited text messaging plans.