One year ago I decided to give the gift of sexting to my husband.

Most of my adult life, I have been sensibly listening to the good little girl inside me. She said things like "Eat your vegetables" and "Don't stay out too late" and "You can't send him dirty messages." And she was right. His office has an open floor plan with huge monitors. Someone was bound to see anything I sent him. The good girl further reinforced her argument with the logic that he only had his work email and phone and certainly nothing risqué could be sent to those accounts.

Not to mention the fact that I had no idea what I would say to him. How does one "talk dirty" anyway?

But just before Valentine's Day last year, the naughty little girl inside me started stomping her feet and trying to get my attention. She threw herself on the floor in a tantrum screaming "You need to spice things up! You are a hot, sexy woman with needs and its high time you seduce your husband through some flirtatious emails."

While I was pondering how to balance these two voices, it crossed my mind that a separate email account would be safer and offer more control over where, when and who accessed it. Because God forbid if my journey into dirty digital communiqué resulted in a notification coming up on the family iPad while my 8 year-old was playing Minecraft... I mean, can you imagine?!?

And thus my secret identity was formed and my first message was sent.

Yup. I chose pseudonyms. Somehow the possibilities around role play and personas with a new account seemed too good to pass up. Maybe when I said sexting, you had visions of dick pics and boob shots in your head. If that's the case, I'm sorry to disappoint. But that wasn't what I was looking for. I was looking for seduction. I was looking for anticipation.

Our new "toy" has proved quite versatile over the last year. There were a lot of one-line back and forth sexts. These are fun and clever and definitely heat things up. We used it to tease each other before a date. Because dates are so much more fun when you start dinner so aroused you can't wait to finish. Other times we used it to thank one another after a particularly hot evening. In fact, those emails are some of my favorites. And of course there was the classic use-when-out-of-town technique, and after some practice, it became clear why that one is a classic.

This week, I feel like I had my crowning achievement in this brave new world. I messaged Mr. Smith to share a fantasy about something I'd been wanting to try. For me, there is a particular sexual act that I've never been too interested in, and when talking about that act with a friend, I realized there were several things that did appeal to me about it that I wanted to explore. Yes, I know... I have the best friends.

So, I wrote probably the longest note I had ever written to my husband. I was a little worried that I was overly specific, but... it was a huge success! It was one of our hottest nights in recent history, and we've had some pretty great nights. And both he and I tried something new which helped remind us how much mystery and exploration we still have left to do together.

So whatever you are planning for Valentine's Day with your lover, consider what you really want in your relationship. For me, the answer to that question was more eroticism, and it only cost me a free email account and a little risk taking to get it.

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If you are interested in exploring your sexuality, check out the books and websites listed at www.downtothere.com/resources.