It used to be that men only wanted me for one thing: my body. I didn’t have much to offer the world when I was in my 20s— just big tits, long legs and a certain willingness to make extemporaneous late night choices. Yes, I had my share of one night stands, which was perfectly satisfying in its own way. What wasn’t so satisfying was dudes that would text me late at night asking me to come on over for a no-strings attached romp. The sex was fun, but it wasn’t enough for me. Didn’t they ever want to talk? Go out to dinner? Do something fun? It was like they couldn’t see beyond my flesh. They didn’t see my brain or personality or my talents.

I’m 40 now and don’t look bad. I still have my long legs and big tits, though the latter aren’t so perky and the lines on my face and my thinning hair don’t exactly make me a magnet for dudes at the bar. Not that I spend much time at bars anyway. I’d rather be comfy on my couch at home Netflix and chilling with myself.

But as I lay on my couch and watch my tv shows on my iPad, I have found myself in demand with men in a whole new way. Now, instead of being wanted for my body, the cis het men in my life only care about my creativity.

I feel put upon for my skills as a sexter. My imaginative skills conjuring musky skills from porous skin are sought after regularly, though often without compensation. I wield my keyboard evoking lips, bedsheet indentations, and octave stretches of quivering silences: all for others’ pleasure. I give and I give and I give.

When I was a young woman, I thought if I ever got to the point where I had money and prestige I could use that to my advantage in the love-making department. That hasn’t really panned out so well. Instead, I have a cadre of dudes that ping me late at night hoping that I’ll be in the mood for sexting over various messenger apps.

Most of them are former lovers. There’s one dude with whom my relationship began as a foursome one night in graduate school when my classmates and I were bored. One person was kissing my lips, another person was going down on me, and another person was sucking on my breasts. I remember lying on the couch and thinking it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. To this date it remains as one of top three sexual experiences of my life, all those sensory modules getting tickled all at once.

Another time we had a ménage à trois experience in the shower. His wife and I kissed each other while I stroked his penis. One of them— I can’t remember who— fondled my breasts as the warm water fell down. It was lovely.

Three years later, when we were both divorced (surprise, surprise) and living in Chicago, he became a frequent booty call requester. We’d meet up at the Long Room, his favorite dive bar located underneath the L.

Back then, I’d be asleep at 3 a.m. and get woken up by the dude’s text messages often. They were quick, perfunctory. “You up?” Stuff like that. I didn’t have a car, so I’d bike over to his place— it wasn’t too far. I would never stay the night. We’d fuck until he came or he fell asleep. He had a huge cock which was great for penetration, not so pleasant for blow jobs, and there was no way I was going to put that thing in my ass, no matter how much he pleaded for it. I never reached orgasm myself. I was a hot and horny young woman, but not a very demanding one. I didn’t really know how to get men to do the things I needed in order to get off.

These days, we live in different cities, but he still messages me. Usually he is three sheets to the wind when I hear from him. I know this because that’s what he writes. “I’m three sheets to the wind,” he says.  I try to engage him in conversation. I ask him how he is doing. He never has much to say. All he does is work as a waiter and drink a litre of whiskey every day, so there’s not much to report.

When he gets in certain moods, he likes to reminisce with me about meeting up at the Long Room. “Wish we could have drink at the Long Room. Ah Memories,” he writes, or some variation of that.

When he writes, I feel the weight of anticipation in each message. There are not many words to go on, but even when he simply writes: “alas,” I know what he really wants. He wants me to tell him he is not alone. He wants to relish the pleasures of what has come before. He wants to glow in the tinted light of the past, when our tender bodies shimmered with the perfection of then.

In this lonely act of time transportation, he brings up that famous blow job I gave in the basement of the old theater building. “I told you I was gonna cum and you didn’t stop and you swallowed and just kept sucking,” he writes. “It was the best thing ever.”

When he’s done remembering about our past rendezvous, he wants me to collaborate with him on erotic scenarios. It’s not easy. It’s a process of imagining things, writing them out, responding to what he writes, and making sure you don’t jump ahead.

The writing has to make a kind of narrative sense. You can’t just jump from kissing to doggie style because it has to be sequential. He truly wants me to take him through it, like it’s virtual reality but instead of using technology, he’s going through it in his imagination, with help from me.

This one time we started right off with his cock in my ass, me squealing with joy. Of course I told him I was nice and wet. He told me I felt like velvet inside. From there, I tell him that I like to touch his back when he’s inside me, and squeeze his bum. I tell him I want to kiss him on his neck and shoulders and hips, and he asks if he can lick my pussy. Things move quite fast when you’re sexting. In fact, they can be rather illogical.

I don’t know if you have ever done much sexting, but I’ll tell you that it’s difficult getting off yourself when you are busy thinking up creative sex-making scenarios and typing them out. As I create a pleasurable experience for him, I don’t take care of my own needs. Not to mention he always requests ass-related content and honestly, imagining a man fucking my butt doesn’t get me going. It’s just not my thing.

I do my best to get him hot with my words and later, I quietly masturbate. I’m a quick masturbator. I don’t need a lot of imagery or stimuli to get off. I’ve found it’s just easier to get things quickly done the way I know how to do it.

There’s another guy that I dated for a few months maybe eight years ago. He was really into me, and gave super good head, but I dumped him when he didn’t introduce me to his friends. Now, we’re on the sexting relationship plan.

He lives across the world, and usually wants sex talk in the middle of the day, when I’m working. It’s not the most convenient situation. I do comply when I can, it’s not really that great for me.

He really guilt trips me when I don’t write him with the enthusiasm for him he desires. He wants to hear about how much I long for him, etc. I send this guy pictures, which he appreciates, but the words he wants are as if I was desperate to be with him. It’s hard to do that when I see him more as a mild diversion.

Look, I’ve seen this guy three times in the last two years. I have never loved him or even approached a feeling like love with him. But living in the Middle East, he has no connection to anybody from back home. I am guilted into making him feel desired out of pity.

This guy wants photos, and not photos I’ve taken in the past. He wants to know what I’m wearing right now, and then wants to see me not wearing those clothes. He wants me to write to him and tell him how hot I am for him at that exact moment at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday when I have a deadline.

Recently, I was madly trying to finish work stuff and he was trying to start the sexy talk with me. So, I sent him a poem. It was a recent sexy poem. It wasn’t necessarily about him, but also not necessarily not about him.

Oh, I might have stabbed him in the heart, because of course he knew instantly that it wasn’t specifically about him.  I had to spend that afternoon and the next one appeasing his ego with my words, dripping three word text messages in his direction to ease his loneliness. Dirty texts as antidote to tortured souls.

The loneliness of men is voracious. They want to know they are not alone, as they lay in bed in the middle of the night. It has somehow become something beyond sex, and much more nakedly insecure.

It’s not just an age thing either. I’ve experienced this with younger men also. There’s one millennial I’ve been sexting with since he was about 21 years old. It started out super hot— I met him at a bookstore. He asked me out, we went for a walk along the pedestrian street on the way to the bar, and made out on our way back, hooking up in his tiny apartment above the store.

Now we almost never see each other in person. Instead, he wants to video chat, or text, or talk on the phone. It’s just as well for me, because even when we do see each other in person, we don’t even fuck any more. He just wants a blow job and I get nothing out of it. At least when we are sexting I have the option of getting myself off.

This guy’s latest thing is he likes to do these fantasies. Recently I got a text from him: “I have a proposition for you,” he said.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” I asked.

“I wonder how you feel about cock worship.”

He went into elaborate detail about how I would need to purchase high heels and nylons, and that I would be one of several women who would participate in sex scenarios worshiping his cock. I was game. Sure, I will try anything once. But after having many conversations about it, I realized he had no intention of hosting these rituals at all. He just wanted to imagine them and send text messages to me about them. And then he wanted me to act out the character of his sex slave over text message.

This game constructed within patriarchy, but not explicitly about patriarchy, was audacious, but I consented because the translucence of his skin seemed reason enough. The fact of his youngness in proximity to my oldness carried its own satisfaction. That he thought of me at all, as an after thought when no one better came to mind, was a small, unthoughtful gift but given all the same.

It was fine, though I’m not cut out for sexting bondage, even for that beautiful man with the most sublime upright cock I have ever seen. We had one virtual session that went until four in the morning. But you know, a girl needs to be touched every once in a while. I have four lovers currently— give or take— and I’m not having sex with any of them. I am a sought after sexter who just wants to get banged.

Do I want to go back to the days I was wanted only for my body? Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Is it so much to ask to have a variety? I’d sure like to have sex AND conversation. What I want, and I don’t think this is so much to ask— is for someone to love me for my body and soul, to recognize my creativity and perhaps go down on me every once in a while. 

Annie James

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