I was driving down the Oregon Coast when she sexted me a beautiful photo of her backside. Jeff Sheridan

Comments

1
Unreadable.
2
Really? I thought it was kind of sweet.
3
Great story and well told. Glad both women saw the humor in it.
4
It is underwhelming that a professional teacher of writing would begin a sentence with this:
"Which brings me to my subject."
In fairness to Mr. Smith, The Stranger uses the pronoun-and-determiner "which" as a universal pronoun. Can it be long until it's used in a piece about the Seattle hipster Wicca scene?
5
I could feel it, as my heart raced within my chest, that I was ready to hit the follow button immediately on this guy’s profile. But as I debated this, I kept shooting between having a disgust low liking of this guy to a full on lady boner upon reading the beginning of his article. I mean this guy was so open, and I mean way open. It almost seemed as if he were fishing for sticks in the Great Lakes and expecting them to actually bite the bait. In other words, he sounded way desperate. Too desperate? I asked myself as I read on, the words flying off of the bright lite screen of my laptop in my lap, the blaring sounds of X-Men seeming somewhat annoying now as I tried to focus on what he was actually getting at. I could feel my conscious Lizzy McGuire yelling at him through the screen, picturing him wearing a smug smile as he leaned back in a chair, radiating sex and kicking his feet up on a desk. A somewhat holier than thou attitude as he laughed in my face about the state I had grown up in and wished all my life to escape. But isn't that funny, you hate your state, wish to all mighty powers to escape its inbred ugly demeanor only to feel somewhat defensive when someone calls it for what it is, even though he was obviously getting his states mixed up. Maybe it’s the wording, seeming as if he were describing everyone in the state. My lady boner protesting in an agonizing jealous way as I read on. I could just hear him droning on about his sexting habits and his boring vanilla sex as he stood in front of a class and laughed at his own jokes, mocking everything that I looked for in a man. Don’t get me wrong, he was amazing with words but rather unrefined in a sexy kind of way. His sexting game was slightly off as described in the article, but when you’re a writer all you need is your imagination to set the words on fire. I could read the signs of a man who could be a dick but why would I start listening to those now, seeing is I had a history with countless Dicks and I guess you could say this time I had actually fallen for the words of a Dick (His name literally means Dick). Even though my Grandpa’s name meant the exact same, but who was I to judge over one silly article. I read on almost with a small smile and a sense of relief as I had thought all my years that I had been late in the sexting game. One minute he was making me laugh and the next he was making me want to nut punch his arrogant writing voice in the balls. The lack of sexual knowledge radiating from this sexual being of arrogant conundrum of Dicks. If it were a friend and I sitting in the front seat of a car road tripping, you would bet your ass we would have been first: laughing our asses off at the dick pic we were passing back and forth on a cellular device, second: conjuring up silly little things to comment back through another fit of laughs and third: riding out the whole sexting convo with the minds of two girl’s dirty imaginations while multitasking another conversation about where the bars were in the town we were heading to. Finally he had gotten to the point of his article, after explaining a long drawn out dis on the state he had taught in and talking about fucking his students, he had finally come to the point where he would fuck us all in the ass with his words that somehow seemed intelligent but lacked any kind of knowledge to prove he were a Professor. I wondered, as the words formed on the screen and my eyes scanned their grotesque form to a grimacing degree, whether he was proud of his article. Of basically sending us all a dick pic in the form of words. I could also feel my vulgar self coming out to meet his, which in all honesty felt pretty damn good. I drew on his words, reeling in their masked sense of humor and realized that he had gotten what he had wanted. Someone’s attention, and the prompting force to get others to write. With a smile and a realization that this man was somewhat of a genius I came to the end of this article, many emotions flooded my being, a cross between frustration, wanting to nut punch this man in the jewels or fuck his brains out in any way shape or form. I guess in a sort of sense, we all go through this when dealing with a writer. Particularly one who writes articles like these. ;)
This is in no way supposed to offend anyone. I apologize if it does. I just wanted to write my reaction to this article. It was a great article and I enjoyed every bit of it. Its like getting a peek into the mind of a man.
6
Article was a fantastic read and the first 5 comments were almost elemental in representing the variance in Internet commenting.
7
This article is literally terrible. Let's talk about consent and coercion in the internet age. This is half a step down from a revenge porn mentality. Also, if someone feels bad about what they did maybe don't call them up to apologize, not to ask them if it's okay to publish a story about the shitty thing that they did. Literally, your only options are to fuck your students or your former students? This author should consider getting over himself. Male privilege, rape culture, and self obsession are the tired themes of this article. Same boring prospective, in the digital age about writer bros broing out at the expense of women.
8
The car in the story is manual. The car in the illustration is automatic.
9
I just think it's very cool that you were riding in a car with Holistic Harry. (Don't bother googling it, kids. Apparently, there isn't a single image of him on the entire internet.)
10
Bioavailable, I drew a manual stick and it didn't convey that it was such. It was distracting and not immediately identifiable. So I drew an automatic. I'm sure that you can submit your own rendition to the friendly folks over at your mom.
11
I enjoyed the article, the illustration and the comments. That is all.
12
I wonder what the pioneers on the Oregon Trail would've made of this scene.

best line.
14
My favorite part is how some nw seattle highly-educated progressive writer couldn't bring himself to interact with regular people in his new town.
15
http://critiquemydickpic.tumblr.com/

Come on, article writer, if you're getting hot pics from your friends at least put some effort in and learn to take some of your own.
16
wtf lol
17
This article is not only obnoxious but offensive to the midwest. I grew up near Warrensburg, Missouri, in Sedalia, Missouri. You call Warrensburg a "Monsanto bean field." It is a small town with a state university that apparently gave you a job. Aren't you a little embarrassed to be writing about "sexting" as a college teacher? Tho I don't want to move back there, Missouri has good people and the agriculture there feeds the US and the world. I'm sure by now you have met some people who are worth knowing. I'm not sure you are worth knowing. The Stranger is more and more out of control and you are a good example.
18
@17

Sedalia! That's fancy. I grew up in Belton, MO, and did my undergrad at MU. I have zero qualms with offending the midwest. This place could use some ribbing, frankly.

By calling Warrensburg a "Monsanto bean field" I was a.) joking and b.) not really joking because there are tons of Monsanto bean fields here c.) letting the town off lightly--I could just as easily have called it a field of rampant intolerance and humidity. Furthermore, the university did give me a 9-month gig, and I thank them for that. The town did not. So I don't.

No. As a college teacher I'm not embarrassed to be writing about sexting.

Your description of the way agriculture works here is...generous and idealistic. I know a lot of farmers who would say that such a description obscures the fact that they're writhing under the thumb of Monsanto and Tyson. As a person from Sedalia, you should know that.

And of course I've met the three or four people here who are worth knowing. You should hear what they have to say about the town.

19
So your friend was into it at the time, or at least game for the ride, so to speak – how does he feel about it now?
I think there's a real conundrum here, too, in the consent realm – yes, you want to honor the erotic energy and bravery of the person sending you the image at the time they send it to you, and I'm glad these women didn't feel violated after the fact, but I might have...
20
I agree 100% with @7. This article is wholly misogynist garbage that was formed in the mind of someone so oblivious to the effects of rape culture and coercion, especially in the digital realm, and operates total lack of consent (in the moment, when it really counts - not afterwards as a cheap apology wherein really, the writer just wants a good story and knows he has to first come clean) that I can't believe the Stranger just hired this ignorant asshole "writer and poet" to be on staff.

I'm also unsurprised. The venerable Rich Smith's of the world aka the Male Ego, continues to wank itself off and be lauded, applauded, and promoted in this fucked up world.
21
Also, I want to point out the ease and grace in which misterrichsmith responds to decries against the midwest yet casually ignores responding to any comments about sexism, misogyny, consent, etc.

"I can make fun of the midwest, I'm from there!"
"I can subjugate and abuse the trust of women who were intimate with me for my own professional (??) benefit because I also identify as female and with female experiences!"

oh wait.
22
It’s gross that we have to listen to his endless humblebrags about his dick pics or how he generously, nobly decides not to fuck his students. It’s gross that he can take up space in a publication with lines like, “I wonder what the pioneers on the Oregon Trail would’ve made of this scene,” or, “past the firs that melted into ponderosa, the ponderosa that melted into dwarf pine…” But none of that’s very surprising given Smith’s other work—what surprised me is that The Stranger published something so offensive. I really like this paper, and this piece made me want to throw up and cry.

More things that are gross:

It’s gross that Smith pretends shame while simultaneously publishing this for thousands. Smith didn’t call those women to “confess” or “ask forgiveness,” he called them because he wanted to write this story, and not before. It’s wasn’t a guilty conscience, it was an idea for a (really stupid) article. Though I’m sure the “forgiveness” did feel good inside when it allowed him cease any niggling self-examination.

It’s gross that the reluctant reactions of these women are what Smith uses to recuse himself. When one woman says that the “risk” that a photo or sext “can be shared with others” “comes along with the territory of engaging,” it doesn’t exactly sound like a, “Hell yeah I’m so down,” it sounds like, “I guess it was kind of my fault for trusting you.” Someone saying that not knowing the voyeur “makes it easier,” or, “If you’d told me at the time you wanted to have a sexting threesome, I would have been a little shocked,” seem like pretty hesitant retrospective consent. And even if they were 100% into it and totally down, retrospective consent is NOT consent, and shouldn’t be glorified in some vapid boy’s thinkpiece about his dick. I wish this had contributed to a discourse on how digital culture has changed the way relationships play out, but Smith was too mired in his self-centered narrative. It’s gross that I wouldn’t listen to this story at a bar, but it’s published in The Stranger.

It’s gross that he calls it a threesome, which is something in which all parties are aware they’re partaking. It’s gross that this reads more like bro’s high-fiving over an Eiffel tower, or, like @5 said, revenge porn. It’s gross that Smith actually asks his friend’s consent, of all people, and seems a lot more interested in his “bromance” with the elaborately-epigraphed “him, her reader, interlocutor, platonic Lucky Pierre, my friend and navigator, Adam.”

Nothing screams “myopic straight white male writer with nothing to say” quite like a male bonding story that uses interchangeable nameless women as building blocks for the male protagonist’s useless bildungsroman, especially when you throw in some cliché bucolic musings. Jesus Christ.

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