Faced with the challenges of communicating online, it can be difficult to get your point across at the best of times, without the added pressure of turning yourself — and someone else — on. You always think you’re worse at it than you probably are, cringing about a thought you had that somehow suddenly became un-sexy as soon as you typed it out. And then, there’s the fear you’ll send your sext to an especially conservative relative, so much so that you might even manifest it into reality.
But sexting is fun, and it serves a different purpose for all of us. Some, in long-distance relationships, use it as a way to feel a sexual closeness to a partner that is far away. Others find it helps with body-positivity and sexual openness, breaking down the awkward barriers of indulging our kinks with someone else.
We already know that 60% of millennials love a good sext session, but we also know that it can be a seriously tricky form of communication. Flirting is a whole art-form in and of itself. There is a serious market out there of people that want to learn how to flirt better. Books have been written, podcasts have been made, workshops have been created and now, as the New York Times has dubbed it, “flirt-tech” is evolving in new ways.
Case in point, a new piece of technology called Slutbot.
Slutbot is a free, interactive service that allows you to practise the art of sexy talk over text with a bot. Slutbot caters to everyone; men, women, straight, bi-sexual, gay, non-binary and trans.
“Created in collaboration with sex educators and erotic fiction writers, Slutbot is a safe space to practice dirty talk and provide sexting examples as inspiration,” the platform says of its purpose.
To start, you need to enter your age, gender and sexual preference and it’ll ask you if you want “hot & sexy” or “slow & gentle”, depending on your experience and comfortability with sexting. It’s direct, respectful and kinda hot.
According to users (I haven’t had a chance yet, but trust you, I will), Slutbot gets pretty explicit, but never feels tacky or vulgar, which is an impressive achievement considering that the internet seems to always find a way to make sex feel tacky.
There’s also a built-in safety feature. The safe word is “pineapple” and you can use it at any moment if you feel uncomfortable. You can also just type “slutbot” if you’d like to start afresh with a new conversation and bot, and you won’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
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