Spin the bottle? Seven minutes in heaven? That’s so last generation.
This year’s teen courting ritual is “sexting” – sending nude photos of yourself to a boyfriend, girlfriend, crush or casual acquaintance from your cellphone with a raunchy text message attached.
A nearly naked 15-year-old Manhattan girl bent over in front of a mirror, put a camera between her legs and, click, sent a photo of her nude backside to her boyfriend – who then had no problem forwarding the pics to The Post.
Alex, 19, of The Bronx, received his first “sext” from a girl he met at a party. Instead of calling him the next day, she sent him topless photos.
“I didn’t even know what to think,” he said. “I was confused.”
Twenty percent of 13- to 19-year-olds admitted they’ve messaged explicit images of themselves over the phone and e-mail, and 48 percent said they’ve received sexually suggestive e-mails or text messages, according to a national study published last month.
More than 50 percent of the girls who “sexted” did so under pressure from boyfriends, according to the survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
“Trust me, a lot of couples do it,” said a 15-year-old high-school sophomore from New Jersey, who confessed to firing off 40 naked pictures of herself to her ex-boyfriend in a failed attempt to win him back. “It’s just like another form of sex.”
Facebook and MySpace are crawling with groups with names like “I’ve Sent Naked Pictures of Myself Over the Phone,” “People Who Take Naked Pictures of Themselves with Their Phones,” and “Practicing Safe Sexting.” The latter group advises, “Don’t do it in school” and “Don’t do it with a minor.”
One 16-year-old from New Jersey described the pressure to follow the trend: “[My ex-boyfriend] kept asking me, and it was annoying,” so she finally did it.
Luckily, her photos never went public – but many do.
Mike, an 18-year-old from Great Neck, LI, received explicit photos of a 15-year-old classmate he barely knew.
“By the time I got the pictures, there was no need to forward them because mostly everyone had already seen them,” he recalled, estimating they cycled through 400 cellphones.
Bad reps might be the least of the worries confronting teen who sex-message.
Six high-school students from Greensburg, Pa., were hit with charges of possessing, manufacturing and distributing child pornography this month after nude pictures that had circulated around their school were confiscated from a male student’s phone.
scahalan@nypost.com