My First Sexual Encounter Was Online

[kindofsquishy]

@ElleBelle I remember being sprung by my mum in a cyber chat room (remember MSN chat rooms before messenger was a thing?) SO AWKWARD ARGH I STILL FEEL AWKWARD ABOUT IT AND IT HAS BEEN YEARS  

[walk_on_walls]

@kindofsquishy wait…your mum was in the same cyber chat room as you??

[ElleBelle]

YES! My Dad walked into the room once while I had a big open chat window that said something like “Now I’m taking off your bra”. Awks.

[CloakOfAsh]

Yep. My Dad caught my friends and I oggling some shoddy porn movie we found online. He just pretended it didn’t happen and left the room. It was never spoken of.

[Kit]

Oh wow, parents in the same chat room would be….. :# hella awkward. It’s bad enough if you’re trying to hide messages on your phone!

[kindofsquishy]

Hahah no! She walked in behind me as I was on my computer. That would have been even *more* awkward and I wasn’t sure how it could have gotten worse so I guess thanks for making me feel better about it haha 🙂 @walk_on_walls

[walk_on_walls]

haha you’re welcome 🙂

[NickiPower]

Do you also think that the online world is being brought into the real world by people saying they’d swipe right when discussing others? I just wonder if this whole online thing is now creating a “standard” IRL which people are judged by. 

[Kit]

Yeah definitely @NickiPower. I think the two are clearly being mixed together but I also think there’s a perception that online things are not real – like they can hide behind a screen and say things they wouldn’t normally. I guess that can be both a positive and negative.
When you say ‘judged by’ are you referring to the face value judgement that apps like Tinder encourage? My thoughts are that this exists anyway but it’s the ‘pick up lines’ or conversation that follow that affect the interaction.

Disclosure: I’ve never used Tinder and don’t intend to

[NickiPower]

@Kit Yep, but you’re right, people would refer to others on face value, I guess I was wondering if it’s more apparent now since we can simply decide our next “partner” by a picture. 

[tea]

My first sexual encounter was online. I had a Motorola flip phone when the internet was first being introduced to mobile devices and they had some cool chat rooms you could get into. I think I was about 13 at the time, so my sexual curiosity was at its peak and I went into the chatrooms unknowing to what went on in them. I ended up in a chatroom with a much older man and began sexting them even though I didn’t really know what I was doing, I felt a rush doing it. I felt in charge. I felt like an adult.

I did this in secret and never told my mum. I stopped when the man tried to call me and speak to me. I guess I liked the thrill of it and the secrecy more than what was actually happening. I never realised how dangerous it was either. What if I did answer the call? What if the man wanted to meet up and I went? What would have happened?

Even in the digital age, and young people being more proficient and careful with how they interact online, sexting and the dangers that come with it are still prevalent. Sliding into someone’s DM’s, for example, is pretty much the same as those chatrooms back in the early 2000’s. How we interact online has changed, but dangerous behaviours and risks haven’t really.

[Author]

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