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Our correspondent gathered that this new fad is a common practice among youths, especially in tertiary institutions. The reason why youths do this range from their desire to keep their relationships to mischief. During the week, a soft sell magazine published semi-nude pictures of a young actress which a friend of hers circulated over mobile phones without her knowledge. Although she expressed regrets that it was published during an interview with an evening newspaper, she insisted that it was common..

A 26-year-old student of one of the federal universities in the South West, who pleaded anonymity, said, “My current relationship is about one and half years old. Though I have never sent my girlfriend any nude picture of myself, she sent me hers. I had a nude picture of myself on my phone which she saw. It was after that she sent me a nude picture of herself.”

“The final year Political Science undergraduate also admitted sending her sexually explicit text messages. According to him, ”If we are not together, we need to make each other happy. Texting nude pictures and suggestive SMS is a way of keeping the relationship going.”

Another student of a state university in the Eastern part of the country said she went along with the sexting tradition to please her boyfriend. “My relationship is about a year old. Though we have never sent nude pictures to each other but we do text sexually explicit messages. My boyfriend started it and I went along to make him happy.” The final year computer science student however admitted that sexting was among girls. “Most of them do it to keep their boyfriends happy.”

Twenty-nine year-old student of another federal university in the East, who also pleaded anonymity, said, “I am not currently in a relationship but in my last relationship, I sent my girlfriend sexually explicit text messages. I did it each time I missed her, kind of like an emotional eruption.”

Very few, it seems, consider the fate of the nude pictures when the relationship goes awry or the phone gets stolen as was in the case of the scandal last year where some nude pictures of a couple working in a major telecommunications firm was published on Facebook. There is always the danger, of course, of such pictures going into the wrong hands like the case of Natasha Obetan, a Port Harcourt ex-beauty queen whose nude pictures made the rounds.,

“I don’t know of any guy who used his girlfriend‘s nude pictures against her. The only person I know of that did something akin to that, his ex-girlfriend wasn’t even aware of what he did. She thought he had deleted all her nude pictures but he had one left. It was his friends that got to see it,” the student from a federal university in the South West said.

A psychiatrist at the Federal Psychiatrist Hospital, Yaba, Dr. Oladapo Adepoju sees the practice as a reflection of the moral decadence in the society. “Sexting is a social ill. It just shows that young people have taken romantic involvements to another level. I cannot call it a sexual disorder, except if it causes the person to harm himself and others too. On the other hand, however, deriving sexual satisfaction from viewing nude photos is a sexual disorder.” Disagreeing with the idea that sexting keeps the flame of love burning, he said, ”Sexting does not promote faithfulness in the long run. The danger of sexting is that both parties are likely to get sexually aroused. By the time this happens, they will want sexual satisfaction. If your partner is absent, the person might then resort to masturbation or engage any willing member of the opposite sex to achieve that sexual satisfaction.”

A concerned parent who didn‘t want to be named said, ”I have a teenage daughter in school. I would be very sad if I find out she is doing something like that. You really don‘t have to send amorous text messages or nude pictures to keep any relationship alive. There is a time for everything. All sexting does is to distract the parties involved from what they should actually be doing which is studying.”