“And now comes ‘toothing,’ where strangers on trains and buses and at bars and concerts hook up for clandestine sex by text messaging each other with their Bluetooth-enabled cell phones or PDAs… According to the Beginner’s Guide to Toothing, the online FAQ written by a man who calls himself Toothy Toothing, toothing is ‘a form of anonymous sex with strangers — usually on some form of transport or enclosed area such as a conference or training seminar…. Users ‘discover’ other computers or phones in the vicinity and then send a speculative message. The usual greeting is: ‘Toothing?”” — Wired (US)

PervScan commenter extraordinaire hludens sent in some material on “toothing” a few weeks ago, but now with the appearance of this Wired article toothing will no doubt go mainstream.

What is toothing exactly? Essentially it is the text-messaging equivalent of cruising. People with Bluetooth-enabled devices such as cellphones or PDAs can probe the crowd around them for others with similar devices and also similar illicit urges. What seems to make it work is the anonymity of the initial contact, which allows one to probe the crowd without getting slapped in the face by a complete stranger. (If a target doesn’t want to tooth, s/he simply ignores the opening salvo.) Also, Bluetooth wireless only works over a small area, and though to a purely geek mind this might seem like a liability, it’s an obvious advantage when cruising. What’s the point of trying to pick up somebody only to find out that s/he is half a continent away?

The Wired article portrays toothing as the vice of the commuter, a way to kill the boredom of waiting in stations and riding on trains. It’s a commonplace that flirtatious eye contact occurs in these situations, and now toothing basically provides a safe and convenient way of finding out if there is anything behind the meaningful glances.

If you were to bet on the likelihood of technology fads either taking root or disappearing, you would probably do pretty well to bet on toothing becoming an entrenched, albeit illicit, phenomenon. Unlike some other fads, like flash mobs, which were doomed by their own pointlessness, toothing will be driven by lust — and as anyone can tell you, there’s no shortage of that around. Invent a car and you simultaneously invent “parking.” Invent a new communications device and inevitably you invent toothing or something like it.

In case you’re interested — and probably you are, you devils — here is the Toothing FAQ.

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