I saw somebody’s boobs the other night. I didn’t mean to; boobs don’t really do anything for me, erotically-speaking, and if I really want to see them for some reason, uhm, hello, I have a pretty amazing rack myself and I own a mirror. So I wasn’t trying to see boobs. They happened by accident when I walked past a fully-clothed person in a bar who was looking at a picture of boobs on their phone. It was an amateur photo, too, although I did think that the camera flash obscuring the face was a clever touch.

When I got back to my seat, I turned to my friend Mike and said, “I’m so glad that my high level of reading comprehension means I don’t have to resort to sending half-naked photos of myself to people’s phones.”

“Everyone does that now,” he said.

“What.”

“Yeah, it’s like a common thing. You can just ask someone to send you a picture of their boobs and it’s not a big deal.”

“You lie!”

“No, I’m serious. You just don’t know about it because you’re in a relationship.”

He went on to explain that in the past four years during which I have been in a relationship, cell phone technology and people’s desires to take naked pictures of themselves have grown at concurrent rates, and that these days, it’s not enough to casually stalk someone’s Facebook if you’re interested in seeing them socially. Now you’ve got to send photos of your boobs and/or genitals, depending on your comfort level, although I assume that if you’re already sending photos of your boobs to people who are practically strangers, then you can’t possibly have that much of a problem with sticking your phone down your pants.

So, yeah, I guess everyone does this now, and nobody thinks it’s a big deal. If someone wants to see your parts, you’re supposed to quietly excuse yourself to the restroom, take a picture, and just show them. And you’re not supposed to worry about it, either, like they’ll never use those photos against you or have to treat you like a human being in order to see them in person. What the fuck, people? Is this what I’ve been missing all this time that I’ve been sleeping with just one person? Is this really so normal now, or am I just talking to complete idiots about it?

You know what, no. I don’t need an answer to that. Me not knowing about how de rigeur this is has nothing to do with me being in a relationship with someone for four years, and therefore missing out on this brilliant advance in attention-getting technology. Instead, I think that me not knowing about this has something to do with the fact that I’m not fucking stupid, and that if I were single right now, any request to see my boobs via phone would be answered with “there are lots of naked chubby girls on the Internet, also never call me again.” Does this mean I’m kind of fat? Yes, a little. But it also means that I have some dignity left, and that holding onto it does not allow for gratifying some freakshow’s rude request for phoneboobs.

This is not to say that I’m a prude. I’m a 29-year-old modern woman with a Catholic upbringing and over 10 years’ worth of Savage Love columns in my background; clearly, I’ve fucked on the first date (also on no date, but I’m sure you already guessed that). And while I am open to the seductive potential of technology (meeting people online, telling them horrible perverted things about you that you probably wouldn’t say in person/public), I do feel that some things should be done traditionally. Stalk my Facebook? Fine. See my boobs in digital format before I take my shirt off in real life? Not fucking likely.

Get it together, girls (and Congressmen). Read some books or something. Play music/Scrabble/sports. Find something to occupy your imagination and relentless need for attention before the computers beat the zombies to the takeover of the world and then those boob photos will really be used against us.