It’s dicey for adults, and worse for teenagers. Four words: Just don’t do it.

by Susan Reinhardt . photo by Rimas Zailskas

True story: I was in the tub, cell phone on the floor, enjoying a hot bath, when I heard the ding.

Oh, a text. Hmm.

Uh-oh.

It was from a friend from the past. A guy. And he was telling me all the delicious—and disgusting—things he planned to do to my naked body.

I didn’t answer his sext. Then came another ding. More salacious messages about doing shots on my breasts and other lady parts I won’t mention. Ten minutes later, he realized his huge mistake. He’d sent his horn-dog sexts to the wrong woman. I’ll never feel the same about him. He makes that Anthony Weiner cat look like a monk in meditation.

The thing is, sexting is not rare. I asked my 18-year-old son about it, and he said most of the girls at his school had sent pictures of their breasts with naughty messages attached. The boys also send photos of their…well…winky dinks. Sometimes these sexts go to the right person. And then sometimes, they don’t. That’s when chaos takes flight.

My friend Joseph got a frantic call from a woman asking that he please delete the naked photos she meant to send to her Army husband. “I never got any photos,” he says, “but she kept calling not believing me. It was funny at first until she kept accusing me of lying.”

Here’s another case of sexting that’s downright scary. My friend Carmen said her then 13-year-old son began receiving photos of a girl the same age showing him all God had given her sans clothing. He responded by revealing his own “gifts” and Carmen took his phone away for an entire year.

Sexting can be funny, embarrassing or absolutely terrifying. It can also cause anguish and even arrests. My friend Sandee from Asheville decided a few years ago to get reacquainted with her old high school sweetheart. “He was stationed in Iraq but was able to call me almost daily from there,” she says. “We had many intimate conversations at night when he could sneak time to talk or message. I could not wait to get my hands on him.”

But then, the kicker: Sandee purchased a new touch-screen phone and changed her address book and added numbers. Under the contact list, she accidentally added the wrong number and labeled it with her boyfriend’s name. The number actually belonged to an older gentleman who was an instructor at a community college, very straight-laced and Southern Baptist—the kind of guy who might only have sex in the dark. “I texted my boyfriend throughout the day. Things like, ‘When I get my hands on you, your clothes are coming off,’” she writes. “I’ve wanted you since school,” she says. “I even referenced, ‘I hope you have a hard-on most of the way home.’” She never got any response back, but you can bet that if the old codger did get all those messages, his Pacemaker probably short-circuited.

More on mistexting next month. Send your love and relationship questions to Susan Reinhardt at susan@susanreinhardt.com. Remember: your identity is safe with us. We won’t use your name, and we’ll only publish the details you say are okay to run.