By Jess Reid
We're living in a funny old age. Much like every generation of teens and twenty-somethings before us, we're pretty convinced that we've invented sex. Despite our natural reverence for the past, we look back on our parents era, and their parents, and so on, as quaint. These were times when people were more moral, more religious, more ignorant. There was less to do. They didn't have the internet. They didn't have dating sites, or mobile phones. Or sex apps.
What they definitely did do, however, was fuck. Lots of extra-marrital fucking. There has never, in all of history (including the 'puritanical' Victorian era) been a time when everyone wasn't constantly banging someone. Sans mobile technology people screwed. All the time.
Despite humans' natural ability and inclination to want to fuck other people they meet organically, for a long time now the internet, and now app-developers, have decided that this is not enough. Our 'fast paced' lives leave us with little time for the good old fashioned casual-flirtation-leading-to-regular-shagging or I've-sex-eyed-you-from-the-other-side-of-the-room-and-now-we're-screwing-in-a-grubby-toilet. When you're 'out and about' who has time to actually engage in conversation with someone you might be attracted to?
No one, apparently. At least no one serious about getting laid. Feeling horny? Google Play gives you 'Sex Locater' , where 'your next adventure is just a click away'. Its description reads, "Simply download the app, upload a photo, and enter profile information to begin searching for hotties nearby. Send a text via chat and strike up a conversation with like-minded people closest to you, or anywhere you plan on traveling next."
Sexy. Much as it made me die inside, I downloaded the app to have a proper look. I had to make a profile, where I selected 'woman' out of gender options, which also included variations of couples. Nice. I also had to add a photo, and in the spirit of raging dishonesty took a photo of a girl in a magazine I found lying around.
In my local area (the Wirral) there were about 8 people using the app. One had named himself 'longandwide' and had a photo of a lad in a builders hat; another was called 'shinynuts'. That, my friends, is where my foray into sex-apping ended.
You could very easily accuse me of being closed minded and old fashioned. I'm also ignorant of the true statistics of these apps - heck, maybe everyone's using them. Maybe I'm clinging desperately to a bygone era, maybe people really don't have the time. Except, if anyone ever tells me that again, they can fuck right off.
No one lives in a people-free bubble. All of us meet people all the time, and unless you're a boring bastard you probably have friends you go out and get pissed with. Perhaps if all of us agreed to take our eyes off our screens for just a minute, and look at one another, we'd rediscover the joy of that immediate, mutual physical attraction, which - in my humble opinion - is sexier than anything anyone ca'lled 'shinynuts' could send you in a text.