CANUCKS IN HEAT

Short-message sex (Jack Kapica, Globe and Mail, February 15th, 2006)

It's no longer the telephone companies' dirty little secret: Cellphones are the newest sex toys.

Instead of playing coy by promoting their technological innovations, cellphone makers have embraced what they call the "textual revolution" and are actively selling their short-message service (SMS) as a sex aid.

Many cellphone companies have researched the market, and have been releasing their findings dressed up as Valentine's Day trivia: That texting, as an integral part of sex life, is hot, hot, hot.

Virgin Mobile Canada recently asked TV sex kitten Pamela Anderson to write a book called The Joy of Text, to be sold in bookstores and given away with a cellphone kit that Virgin calls its "Pleasure Pack." In it, Ms. Anderson talks about "textual intercourse" and offers Canadians advice on "how to spice up their text lives."

Vonage Canada breathlessly reported the other day that there are great advantages to text sex. About a third of their text sex users said they liked not having to get dressed up for a date; about one in five said they liked to do other things while exchanging moist messages, and one in 10 said it was because they didn't have to take precautions.

"The days of calling someone to ask them out on a date or sending a Valentine's Day card are so yesterday," reports Virgin Mobile Canada marketer Nathan Rosenberg.

Sex texting is even less "real" than its elder cousin, phone sex, which has reached such universal levels that more than half of Canadians confessed to Vonage that they engage in phone sex.

That seems awfully high until you remember we Canadians find talking to that sultry, automated female voice from Directory Assistance is a real turn-on.