Sexting

Well, that or they aren’t relying on their cellphones to conduct their naughty business. Remember, the study only takes into account sex and cellphones, which leaves out e-mail, MySpace, Facebook, chat rooms and — the list goes on. Plus, the study was conducted in late summer and early fall of this year, well after “sexting” hysteria in the media had reached its peak. Considering the extent of parental handwringing and the number of high-profile cases of kids being charged as sex offenders for sending explicit texts, they would have been smart to find another outlet — and teenagers are nothing if not smart about findings ways to do what they want without adults finding out. 

Well, as purity-pledgers like to say: The only 100 percent effective form of protection is abstinence. But no amount of horrifying STD slide shows or pseudo-scientific preaching about oxytocin will stop people from having premarital sex — and the same is true of porny self-portraits. Quite frankly, I’m sick of the finger wagging at starlets for being so stupid as to take nude photos of themselves — it’s a little victim-blame-y, no? Dirty texts and emails are simply part of how we have sex now, celebrities and non-celebrities alike, and thankfully there are safe alternatives to total sextual chastity.

Before we get to the technical nerdy stuff, a photographic pointer: Keep your face and any identifying tattoos or birthmarks out of the shot. Should someone hack your Facebook account, find those naked photos you sent your boyfriend and then post them on your profile for all of your friends, family and colleagues to see, you can at least claim with some plausibility that it isn’t a photo of you.

Now for the unsexy talk of good passwords, which might have prevented at least some Hollywood Leaks attacks, based on the group’s claims. A good place to start is making sure that yours aren’t among the most popular ones. Don’t choose words that are in the dictionary or use the same password for multiple accounts. For a great primer on how to make a strong password, check out this video, which explains how you can easily remember a seemingly random and nonsensical jumble of characters.

For starters, you’ll want to apply these beefed-up passwords to your phone, so that if it’s stolen, the thief will be locked out (and, again, dont use one of the most popular codes). “On most smartphones now, the phone will automatically erase information after a certain number of failed attempts to unlock,” Frederick Lane, a cyber security and computer forensics expert, tells me. He also points out that there are apps, like Photo Safe, that protect pictures with a password and sometimes even encrypt them. “Again, if the wrong password is entered multiple times, the content is wiped out,” he says.

Then there’s all manner of virtual accounts — from email to Twitter to Facebook. Not only should you apply strong passwords, but you absolutely must have a strong series of security questions. This likely would have prevented the recent hack of Rapper Kreayshawn’s Twitter account and the release of her topless shots. There’s also the case of a California man who stole X-rated personal photos by scouring women’s Facebook profiles for their email addresses and the basic information required by their email provider’s security questions. Also, you might recall that this is how a hacker got access to Sarah Palin’s Gmail account in 2008. Make the questions and answers so difficult that even your mom wouldn’t be able to answer them (not that she’ll be trying to snoop on your amateur porn, I hope). If you’ve ever shared dirty photos through email, all a hacker has to do is search through your sent mail folder for messages with photo attachments. As for your computer: Not only should you password protect that mofo at logon, but Lane also suggests encrypting and applying passwords to specific directories.

The next concern is malware. “Hackers have demonstrated in the past that it is possible for someone to access your smartphone’s content remotely, by luring smartphone users to corrupted websites and executing malicious code,” says Lane. “There are also some reports that malware producers are trying to develop apps to either send copies of photos to remote locations as they’re taken, or to give hackers access to all of a phone’s content. However, it’s unclear whether those apps actually exist.” The threat is even greater on computers: “The heightened risk for illegal intrusion into PCs stems from the fact that the architecture and software of PCs is much more well-known than phones, and the myriad programs and operating systems create numerous vulnerabilities,” he explains. “It is amazing how frequently people visit sketchy websites [and] download files their friends supposedly sent them.” (Last year, I wrote about a hacker who used malware to access dirty photos and videos on women’s computers and then blackmailed them into filming and sending more.) So be careful about what websites you visit and what programs you install, and get “both firewall and anti-virus protection,” he says.

Of course, most important is whom you choose to share your private photos with in the first place. If they don’t take the same security precautions — or if they just might turn out to be the sort of jerk that would post them on an ex-girlfriend porn website once you break up — then your ironclad passwords and malware won’t mean much; and, yes, it’s true that the only fail-proof protection is to not take nudie pics at all. Ultimately, after considering the risks and the many ways to reduce them, it comes down to a personal decision of which is greater: The threat to your privacy or the threat to your sex life.

So: What’s with the penis pics?

It might be that straight men are simply assuming that women’s desires mirror their own. Charlie Glickman, a Good Vibrations staff sexologist, points out that many straight men like looking at the female equivalent. “Larry Flynt’s empire grew in part because he showed the ‘split beaver’ shot,” he said. “Maybe straight men are projecting onto women that women like the equivalent.” Cindy Meston, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, agrees: “I think men think this would work because it works for them,” said Meston, co-author of the book “Why Women Have Sex.” (Hint: It isn’t because of crotch shots.) “Images of women’s genitals trigger availability — an explicit, immediate sexual cue, which turns them on.”

Speaking of evolutionary sexual cues, cognitive neuroscientist Ogi Ogas points out, “Men who send off penis pictures probably aren’t thinking at all, they’re responding to an unconscious, evolutionary urge likely inherited from our primate ancestors: male monkeys and apes routinely display their penis (usually erect) to females to indicate sexual interest,” he wrote in an email. As I reported in my interview about Ogas’ book, “A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire,” when browsing for Internet porn, men search for penises (i.e., “big dick”) nearly as often as they search for vaginas (i.e., “small pussy”), which he similarly attributes in evolutionary terms to the penis’ function as an indicator of aggression and a “sperm competition cue.”

It might also have something to do with our cultural view of men’s physiques. “The penis is the only part of the male body that is sexualized,” says Glickman. “In the last couple of decades, we’ve seen more of an emphasis on men’s abs or whatever, but they’re still not sexualized in the same way that women’s bare midriffs are.” The penis is “the only part of the male body that one can take a picture of and have a definitely sexual message,” he says. When women share sexy photos of themselves, though, it’s usually of their breasts, butt or a cute pose while modeling lingerie. Sex writer Susie Bright, author of “Big Sex Little Death,” told me by phone, “They don’t think of their cunt as the seat of their power. Guys don’t have to go through a consciousness-raising party for that. They just think: ‘Hey, it’s my dick! It’s the real me, the Titanic me.’”

Ironically, while some of the women I heard from expressed an interest in receiving a photo of a man’s chest (or, as one woman specified, “Send me shirtless Bradley Cooper”), it seems the penis is one of the last male body parts women want to see. The response to a call I put out on Twitter for women’s feelings on guys pointing a camera between their legs was one of total repulsion. Specifically, I asked whether these photos “do it” for them, and one tweeter responded, “If by ‘do it’ you mean ‘send me to the toilet retching,’ then yes, they do.” Another woman responded with “ick” and the hashtag “#thankgodimnodatinganymore”; and yet another tweeted, “Not at all. The penis is ugly. End of story.” In the penis’ defense, I have to note that plenty of women think it can be quite the opposite. (I’ll have to save the discussion of why disgust over the male member is so common for another day.) Rachel Rabbit White tweeted that junk close-up “should never be an opener,” but “if you already know and love the member in question, hay!”

Asking women how they feel about, um, Peter portraits — I’m running out of slang here — is kind of like asking whether they like giving blow jobs or watching porn. Some love it, some hate it — and opinions are often extreme in one direction or the other. Those that are fond of a penis shot typically prefer that it come within a sexual narrative of some sort. “It’s true that erect penises have beginnings, middles and ends — but the story they tell is all too obvious and not very romantic and rather self-absorbed,” jokes Toby Miller, a social scientist who focuses on sex and gender. “Many women prefer their narratives to take a wider form that include more people — and don’t always end up in an action-adventure climax. So to speak.” He says the fantasy men are entertaining by sending cock shots is one of women desiring “the ‘zipless fuck’ a la Erica Jong.”

Straight women aren’t the only ones who prefer that a penis pic come with some context. Josh, a 27-year-old gay man, told me, “A cock shot on its own, without context around it, would only make me laugh, and do nothing for me sexually.” He’s come across both cases on Grindr, a location-based gay hookup service. In that venue, he says, “it’s hard to be grossed out because it’s not like you’re expecting people to send you photos of their doily collection” — but unrequested penis shots usually come from “sketchy” sorts who are misreading social cues. (Although he makes an exception for a guy showing off that he has a “huge cock” rather than  an average-length member.) If you’re into a guy, though, “and he sends you a picture of his dick, proving that he’s into you, or horny or whatever,” he says, “it can actually be really hot.”

Whether one of these photos is hot or not, welcome or unwanted, threatening or alluring, all depends on the circumstances, which is true of all sexual overtures, right? A dick flash from a lover is a far cry from a wanking stranger on the subway or an unsolicited “sext” from a professional athlete. The cock shot phenomenon is not just an example of that yawning divide between intention and effect when it comes to sex, but also the importance of context and consent.