Sexting Acronyms And Why They're Overrated

Acronyms are overrated in general. Mass media - the kind older people consume - tend to latch onto these obscure lists of bizarre codes as if they were the secret of the DaVinci Code... oblivious to the fact that 90% of them are made-up and used to fool the kind of reporter who comes to your nightclub and asks for sexting acronyms for a story he's doing.

Why you should avoid acronyms for the most part:

1. You can't count on everybody knowing them. Unless they're very common, they'll just waste time and bandwidth when you have to go back and explain them anyway. IAASTO,IUI (If An Acronym Sounds Too Obscure, It Usually Is).
   
   
2. They make you hard to understand. Using more than two in one line is practically speaking in code.
   
   
3. They make you sound immature. Even the most seasoned veteran of test communication uses them sparingly. It's the "newbies" who always hunt down a list of 50 acronyms and then try to cram every one into every conversation. This lasts a week.
   
   
4. They tend to make your regular writing more illiterate. When you find yourself writing to your boss "OMG! ROTFL! WTF? BBQ!", it's time for intervention.
   
   
5. They get ambiguous quickly, since many acronyms have more than one meaning, especially in different subcultures.
   
   

Now that we have that out of the way, here's some acronyms that are quite common:

420 - Pot and other illegal street drugs. Not really useful in this list, but it does come up.

ASL? - A question, meaning "age/sex/location"? Seen in chat rooms. Canonical response is for everyone to type in their stats in the format of "M/26/Cali" for "male, 26 years old, California". Sometimes you'll just see it shortened to "AS" for "age/sex?".

B4N, BFN - "Bye for now" I'm leaving, see you again soon.

BBQ - Short for "bar-be-que", a method of cooking, but in this context it's used for parody effect to punctuate a sentence that was a string of acronyms, or to make fun of someone who talks entirely in acronyms. It's a way of saying "slow down, we're using way too many acronyms to be comprehensible here!"

BDSM - the realm of all things kinky. It's a three-acronym combination: "BD" is "bondage and domination", "DS" is dominance and submission, and "SM" is "sadism and masochism". Please do not take just this line and determine to call yourself a "Master", "slave", "Dom", "sub", sadomasochist, etc. when you just heard about this phenomenon for the first time right now. And watch out for people who do.

BRB - "Be right back". Probably the most common one of all.

FB, BF, BFF - "F*** buddy", "boyfriend", and "best friends forever". "FB" is also occasionally used for "Facebook", the social network.

FML - "F*** my life" - Please do not use this to punctuate every report of the slightest inconvenience unless you want to sound like a self-absorbed, spoiled rotten brat who wants to murder his parents for not getting him an iPad for Christmas.

FTF - "Face to face", let's meet up.

FYI - "For your information".

GIFT - "Greater Internet F***wad Theory", which states that "Idiot + anonymity + audience = an offensive idiot who would get punched in the face if he tried to do anything in real life that he does online." The explanation for why we have trolls in electronic communications.

GLBT - The realm of non-heterosexual sexuality. "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual". Sometimes expanded to "GLBTQ" with the added "Q" standing for "gender-queer" for those whose gender identity is even less easily explained (example: a male who only dates females may identify as a female and their partner think of them as more of a lesbian female than a hetero male).

IRL - "In real life". Also "RL" for "real life". As opposed to cyberlife.

K - Acknowledge, as in "OK". Sometimes seen as "kk". The equivalent of CB radio's "10-4".

LOL - "laughing out loud". Please do not use this to punctuate every sentence, unless you really want to sound like a 40-something soccer mom who drinks wine out of a box. Its cousin, "ROTFL", means "rolling on the floor laughing".

LTR - "Long term relationship". Married, engaged, committed, etc.

M4W, M4M, W4M, W4W, MF4WW, etc... This is a shorthand code with "M" for "male", "F" for "female", and the "4" meaning that this person is looking for this person for whatever activity. More of a message-board usage than sexting.

NE1 - "anyone", as in "NE1 in the Boston area?"

NSFW - "Not safe for work" Used to mean things like "My photo contains nude tits, and you'd better not have it full-screened on your computer when the boss walks by", but generally applies to any adult-oriented content which you don't want seen by your kids, your spouse, your fellow commuters on the subway, etc. Please do not overuse for every possible communication, because then it means nothing.

RM - "Roommate".

RU - Short for "Are you..." as in "RU free?"

SAM "Smart-assed masochist". Common in BDSM culture, this is the kind of bottom who likes to provoke punishments by teasing and joking. When you knew you were going to catch hell for it, but you just couldn't help yourself...

SSC - "Safe, sane, and consensual". The all-important credo of all sexting and all adult activities in general. "Safe" for being sure your imaginative sexual stunt doesn't get you killed, arrested, or in the hospital, "sane" for being free of the influence of drugs, alcohol, mental issues, and other things that would blur your judgment, and "consensual" meaning it happens between two fully alert, freely participating adults, or it doesn't happen at all. While it is important to practice SSC yourself, please do not go online screaming that everybody who practices a kink you don't like is "violating SSC". Some people can engage in really scary stuff if they have the medical training and equipment to do so.

SO "Significant other". Spouse, girl/boyfriend, etc.

STD - "Sexually transmitted disease", the kind of thing you're avoiding if you're sexting.

TMI - "Too much information!" Used as a rebuke when somebody shares something you didn't want to know.

TPE - "Total power exchange". The more advanced, deeper, more committed version of kinky play, where whoever's on top controls the bottom down to the minutest detail, such as when they can use the bathroom and how they can talk. The bottom obeys the top without question, even at extreme pain and inconvenience to themselves. Very rare.

WTF? - "What the f***?" Please do not use this as your default response to every single communication, unless you want to sound like a fat, neckbearded basement troll who's been brain-damaged by being fed Ritalin since babyhood. Equal to "OMG", which means "Oh my God" and you should all stop using it for any reason, immediately.