Sexting has been around as long as society itself … or at least the flip phone. I bet even in the 1700s, partners would send the occasional risky manila folder.

However, the taboo of seeing one another naked has been around just as long.

But where does it overstep societal taboo?

For example, nude photography is considered art. What is the difference between a nude photograph hanging up in a prestigious museum and one on your camera phone? (I’m going to guess a broody black and white filter).

And I would say that as a basic rule, no nudes are good nudes. However, I also contest that this issue is far more complex than can be summed up in one punny sentence.

While to some this may seem like a black-and-white issue, upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that there are at least 50 different shades of gray around this topic, and heavy-handed generalizations don’t suffice to tie up all the multifaceted aspects.

You see, we as people tend to get incredibly mixed signals about the social appropriateness of this act. Depending on (usually the age of) who you ask, you are likely to receive very diverse responses.

In fact, if one were to Google “sexting”, they would find the top hit is a campaign by Teens for America to stop teen sexting, the second hit a Wikipedia definition (for those of us who have yet discover Urban Dictionary) and third a Cosmopolitan magazine article detailing how to “send sexy texts.”

And sexting a significant other is clearly a different can of worms than sexting someone you met online and you only know by the screen name “Hugz.” That is less like opening a can of worms at all and more like knowingly releasing a barrel of snakes.

Sexting can most definitely have its ramifications, the most obvious being that one really doesn’t have any control over who sees the image. However, I argue that anybody who blackmails or teases someone about a naked picture of themselves, beyond simply being a terrible person, is a total ninny.

What exactly are you teasing that person about? Were you physically harmed by the photograph? Did the explicit sight of another person naked literally burn your sad terrible-person eyes?

The answer is likely no.

Beyond the possible emotional damage that could be incurred by a less-than-modest photo of your grandmother, nude pictures are not really that tangibly imposing. For all their purported power, it is actually rather difficult to be physically wounded by a naked picture.

Unless you manage to inflict a really bad paper cut that becomes grievously infected.

But now that everything is becoming digital, even that is becoming less of a risk.

In fact, if it wasn’t for societal taboo regarding nudity and the occasional chilly temperatures of Pullman, I personally could be saving a lot of money on clothes and have a lot more cash for the important things in life … like food … probably just food.

Besides, babies get to do it. Babies get to be naked in all the pictures that they want. Granted, their bodies basically all look like someone strapped rubber bands around a Ziploc full of pizza dough, but still, they don’t get judged.

And I’ll be darned if someone who has been in this world for like two months gets to do something that I’m not allowed to do.

While sexting can be safely considered not a very good idea, there are a lot of things in life (and especially college) that we accept as poor ideas and still partake in. Most would agree that when a college student goes for their fifth vodka pull of the night, it is not in the name of personal health and the good decisions. Unlike alcohol poisoning, however, this particular activity has a far less negative physical impact on a person’s body and well-being in the long run.