This is such a hard question Geoff. A pleasure to read your writing.

I don't think that the action of sexting is so different than the old methods. Maybe in the 19th century they would exchange dirty looks between them in the opera (see Woody Allen's Love and Death), or write dirty limiricks. Painters would paint dirty sketches which just never saw the light of day so they are not in museums. Perhaps it's more anonmized nowadays, but how personal is sex is a difficult question, today and in previous times.

I think the question is, as you are alluding to, who are we having the sex with? Are we having sex with our cell phone or with the person on the other side of it? And that's much harder to say.
People are clearly becoming digitzied themselves, and with it our physical relation to the world. If there was a whorehouse with robots instead of people, would that be a problem or would it be extremely successful and solve a lot of cleanness problems?
The digitization of humanity, our becoming robots, is a far reaching and has been going on for probably centuries if not millenniums only to get a strong push these days. Maybe we are ready to have sex with robots and give up our sexual relationships with our people. I'm not always sure what are people looking for in sex anyways.

Maybe the iPad is the perfect girlfriend/boyfriend - always there, always pretty, always willing to be touched and played with.

Interesting ideas Chris, I like your pinpointing of my question: who are we having sex with?

Maybe our increasing digitization represents a shift towards a masturbatory relationship with sex. Think about it. Isn't the trend of recent technology to match the experience of the user with the product? The app-model of the iPhone is one of perfect customization tethered to the life of the individual. Our egos rejoice. My technology is only so good as it can do what I specifically need it and want it to do. If someone stole my device, it wouldn't be optimal to their life because it's latched onto mine almost like a limb, unique to my own neural wiring.

The extent of the online porn industry is alarming. Not because it's inherently bad or reprehensible, but merely because of its supreme hold on society's imagination. Everyone looks at porn. It accounts for 25% of all internet searches. 40% of all downloads. 12% of all websites. What does this say about us? That we are sex-crazed? Maybe. But maybe some more. If we are searching online for porn then our idea of sex and sexual pleasure does not necessarily have to be located in another human being. There is no reciprocity in pornography. The pleasure comes vicariously.

With sexting there is reciprocity. Is it tangible though? Would we continue to do it even if the person on the other end wasn't real?

I think there's a depth to this topic that I'm not entirely sure how to broach...