Dirty emojis are the ones people use to hint at sex without spelling it out: the peach 🍑 for a butt, the eggplant 🍆 for a penis, water drops 💦 for arousal. Flirty emojis such as 😏 or 🫦 send a softer version of the same signal. Either way, one emoji next to a few words of your own usually works better than a whole row of them. Woman’s Guide to Sexting, a program in The Coach for Her app, shows you how to flirt and sext in a way that sounds like you, with emojis or without.
Get my planThe same emoji can feel playful or very direct depending on the words around it, so it helps to know what each one tends to suggest.
If you’d rather let words do more of the work, try our flirty texts for him.
Emojis are quick to send and easy to misread. A few habits help yours land the way you mean them.
Emoji sexting works best as a small move inside a real conversation: your words carry the message, one emoji makes it sweeter or hotter, and his reply tells you whether to go further.
Woman’s Guide to Sexting has a lesson on emojis, GIFs and private codes, and others on teasing, building anticipation and saying plainly what you want. It starts with a personal plan based on your answers to a few questions.
A single emoji can change how a whole conversation feels.
Woman’s Guide to Sexting is a 16-lesson program in The Coach for Her that you read at your own pace. Emojis are one of the lighter tools it covers; other lessons help you put desire into words when you’re ready.
When an emoji, a GIF or a private code makes a flirty chat easier to start or to warm up, and when it’s better to leave it out.
How to reveal a little, hold back the rest and let him ask for more.
Six styles, from soft and playful to bold, and a way to check whether a message really sounds like you.
In The Coach for Her, you read the lessons whenever it suits you, and how explicit your messages get is always your call.
In a flirty chat, the peach emoji 🍑 usually means a butt, thanks to its shape, and the eggplant 🍆 stands for a penis. Together, the eggplant and peach emojis mean sex, sometimes as an invitation and sometimes as a joke. In a chat about groceries, they’re still just a fruit and a vegetable.
The water drop emoji 💦 is shorthand for wetness or arousal, and 👅 points to licking or oral sex. Next to a peach or an eggplant, they leave even less room to read the message as innocent.
When the emojis start turning into real plans, our ideas for new things to try in the bedroom can help you explore them together.
From a guy, the eggplant emoji is usually a sexual hint: he’s turned on, thinking about you that way or checking whether you feel the same. A peach from him most often means he’s thinking about your body. Less explicit flirty emojis from a guy, like 😏 or 🔥, tend to mean he’s interested without saying so outright. Context still matters: after a long, warm exchange, an eggplant is an invitation, while out of nowhere it may just be a clumsy joke.
How you reply is up to you. If you like where it’s going, match his energy with a line and an emoji, such as “Bold. Tell me more 😏”. If it feels like too much too soon, you can slow things down and stay playful: “Patience. I’m not there yet 😇”. And if you’re not interested, you don’t owe him a matching emoji or an explanation.
Our guide on how to sext helps you find the words when you want to answer with more than an emoji.
From a survey of The Coach users who finished their first four weeks:
Some days a single 😏 says it all; other days it takes a few honest words about what you want. The lessons cover both and help you find the style that comes naturally to you.
Women describe their experience with The Coach for Her in their own words.
“I am still in this journey but i am already feeling more aware and communicating better with my partner.”
“It was great information and has helped in soo many ways! We are closer and more comfortable that ever and I have a ton of confidence.”
“I recently started using The Coach (for her) and am so pleased so far. The information included is educational and also so fun.”
“The coach has awoken my mind to new sensations and ideas on a much deeper thoughtful level I am really enjoying it. Thanks”
The Coach works with clinical researchers, certified sex therapists and medical professionals, among them a urologist and an OB-GYN.
Dr. Jessica Yih
Urologist and director of women's sexual health and male infertility at UCI.
Dr. Kirti S. Patel
Board-certified ob/gyn and host of The Gynarchy, a women's-health podcast.
Dr. Justin Lehmiller
PhD in social psychology and senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute.
Dr. Paula Hall
Accredited sexual and relationship psychotherapist, registered with leading professional bodies in psychotherapy.
Natalie Goldberg
Certified sex and family therapist dedicated to improving intimate relationships and personal well-being.
Dr. Susie Gronski
Licensed physical therapist, certified sexuality counselor, and founder of a men's pelvic health clinic.
Dr. Gary Shlifer
DO, board-certified internal medicine physician specializing in preventative care, nutrition, and anti-aging.
Dr. Joshua Roland
MD, sleep medicine specialist, and clinical instructor at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA.
They’re the emojis people use to hint at sex or desire. The most explicit are 🍆, 🍑, 👅 and 💦, while others, like 😏, 🫦 or 😈, suggest the same thing more playfully. Much of what makes an emoji dirty is the chat it lands in.
Subtle ones are the easiest place to start: 😏 for a thought you’re keeping to yourself, 😇 for mock innocence, 🫠 when he got to you and 🫦 when you’re thinking about kissing him. Add a line of your own so he knows what you mean.
Yes, emojis copy and paste like any text, and most of them are on your phone’s emoji keyboard anyway. A pasted string won’t say much on its own, though. What he’ll remember is the line you wrote next to it.
The humor usually comes from timing: 🙈 after something bold, 🫣 when you pretend you didn’t just say that, or a deliberately over-the-top 🍆🍑💦 when you’re both clearly joking. A laugh makes a sexual hint easier to send and easier to answer.
Yes, especially as reactions. A GIF that shows how his message affected you, with a short line from you, keeps things playful. An explicit GIF sent to open a conversation is riskier, because it can feel impersonal or like pressure.
Don’t read too much into it. He may be busy or unsure how to answer a new kind of message, or he may simply have missed the hint. Try again another time, or say it in words if you want to be sure he gets it.
No. Emojis, GIFs and private codes take up one of its 16 lessons. Other lessons cover finding your own style, teasing, sexting in different situations, photos and privacy, and setting boundaries. Nothing in it asks you to be more explicit than you want to be.
