Sex advice: I just play along with sexts when I’m busy

My boyfriend and I spend time apart because he works abroad. He wants us to keep our intimacy while away, so he sends intimate text messages. 

Sometimes he sends them when it’s inconvenient so I carry on what I’m doing and play along. I don’t want to crush him by rejecting him, but I feel guilty pretending to be all sexy when I am actually loading the dishwasher.

Don’t feel bad about multitasking while you sext. Everyone does it. A large proportion of the people standing at bus stops in the rain are tapping teasing words into their mobiles. Your boyfriend surely knows that everyday life interferes with your response to sexual provocation. After all, if he wanted to confirm that you really were naked in a bubble bath rather than, say, in Marigolds at the sink, he would use FaceTime.

There is obviously a right and a wrong time for sexting, but any grown-up couple who feel comfortable sending sexy texts to each other should feel equally comfortable letting each other know if “now is a bad time”.

Sexting is fantasy, not reality. What matters is that you are receptive and responsive, because you understand how important it is to sustain your intimate connection while he is away. Sexy messages are a reminder of the physical tenderness that you share. They are your way of being “together, apart”, a reminder that you are camping in each other’s heads. When you are in love but separated, your phone is your lifeline. It is the first thing that you check, sleepy-eyed and lonely, in the early hours, and the last light that goes out before you fall asleep. During the dull tedium of the working day, the ping of each message is like a starburst of colour and, over time, the narrative you and your boyfriend carve together in cyberspace becomes an integral part of your relationship history.

Sexting gets a lot of flak but it can be a great way for long-term couples to open up lines of communication about sex. Lots of people who find it difficult to talk in a straightforward way about their sexual likes and dislikes are able to be more explicit and directive when messaging.

Even couples who are not separated can find that sexting is a useful erotic nudge, a way of creating anticipation about what they would like to do. And when. Where. And how.

Having bigged it up, I am now, of course, obliged to point out that there are risks in sharing sexual messages and in particular pictures. Although most explicit imagery is exchanged in good faith, young men in particular can be susceptible to trophy syndrome, and the combination of heightened arousal and peer pressure can persuade them to forward private images to friends, who then choose to pass them on to a social network.

However, you are an adult, in an grown-up relationship, with someone you love and trust. Although there is never a guarantee that one of you won’t one day broadcast your intimate secrets to the world, it is a risk that many people take.

Having said that, the one question that you and anyone else who exchanges sexual imagery should ask themselves before they press send is: “does it pass the billboard test?”, meaning that it should be more suggestive than openly explicit. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we compromise our visual standards, but if an image looks more Gray’s Anatomy than Fifty Shades, delete, delete, delete.

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