How to Be the Kind of Person Who Can Be Trusted With Naked Pictures
Do you want people to send you hot, naked pictures? Here’s some etiquette tips on how you can be trusted to have them.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for my fellow men and AMABs about the etiquette of sending pictures of your dick to people online. The short version of it boiled down to this: Don’t do it unless the other person asks you to do it first. It’s a painfully simple point, but unfortunately one that needs to be made.
But just as important is the etiquette on the other side of that exchange: How do you behave when you’re flirting with someone online or through text, and they send you naked pictures of themselves?
I’m not talking about the creepy, nonconsensual nudes that I focused on in the last piece. This time, I want to work on the assumption that the person getting the nekkid pictures is interested in seeing them. Most people love the fantasy of some willing hottie texting or emailing naughty pictures to them. Unfortunately, far fewer know how to handle the reality with the grace and courtesy that it deserves. If it turns out that you’re lucky enough to have someone sending you their sexy pictures, here are a few tips to help you be worthy of that enormous trust.
Sexy Pictures are For You — and Only YOU
This is the linchpin of everything else: Whatever happens, don’t share someone’s naughty nudes without their permission. Especially online.
At first glance, this seems obvious. For most of us, it’s Sexual Ethics 101. But while most people get it in theory, there comes a point where many start to invent excuses why it doesn’t apply to their particular situation.
So consider this to be one of the commandments of sexuality, carved in stone and written in letters of blazing fire: No matter how badly your ex screwed you over, no matter how deep the hurt goes, no matter how certain you are that they’re evil and wish plagues of suffering on them and all their offspring, trying to shame them by sharing intimate photos or video is not an option.
This is a genuine test of character. It’s not just about what happened between you and your ex; it’s a sign of how you’re going to treat future partners, and how much you can be trusted to respect their boundaries and limits. Doing the right thing when the honeymoon is on and you can’t keep your hands off each other is the easiest thing in the world. It’s what you do after things go to shit that shows who you really are.
It seems a simple rule, and yet it’s the one that gets broken most often. When someone shares dirty selfies with you, that’s one of the most intimate forms of trust that they can give, now more than ever. Be worthy of it.
Naked Pictures are Awesome: Show Your Appreciation
This is another way of acknowledging and repaying the trust that someone gives you with their nudes. Nearly all of us feel deep insecurities about our bodies. There’s no way that we can match the well-lit, well-fed, photoshopped beauties in the professional media. Stripping down and shooting selfies with those images lodged in the back of your mind means making yourself enormously vulnerable. Bare skin is only the most basic level of nakedness that’s being offered in those pictures. Acknowledge that. Tell your friend or partner how much you like their shots, and what you like about them.
This is another one of those things I feel like I shouldn’t have to write down. To me, it feels kind of like someone reminding me that I have an ethical duty to put chocolate syrup on my ice cream. The conversations after getting the pictures, where I let the person know how much I like their shots and what I like, can be so richly intimate and erotic that it’s hard to imagine not doing it. Among other things, it’s a great way of overcoming those voices that we all have in the backs of our heads telling us there’s no way that we can match up to the hawtness that is the latest photoshoot by Christina Aguilera or Chris Hemsworth.
At the same time, this is a place where you need to be very careful and attentive about what your partner wants to hear about their body, and how. I’m directing this especially at my fellow men who like to have sex with women. The blunt truth is that it’s very easy to weave misogyny into sexy talk without even meaning to. What sounds hot to you might sound creepy as fuck to a woman. It’s very easy to accidentally use words that evoke thoughts not of red-hot eroticism, but of the catcaller who followed her down the street, or the leering co-worker with no respect for boundaries.
This is a hard issue to get around, because people have different desires and different limits. One person’s fetish is another person’s PTSD trigger. But two rules of thumb provide a good start:
1) Try to be specific enough about what you like about their pictures. If you’re too generic and vague, you run the risk of sounding like a horny teenager who’s just happy to see any bare booty shots.
2) At least at first, try to avoid language that sounds like it’s out of a porno film or a locker room. If nothing else, the cliche of it can be a massive turn-off. But also, you want to take some time to learn what they really like to hear. One of the first things that I learned when I started to explore BDSM is that boundaries can be very unpredictable. One person might get incredibly hot at being told what a “filthy slut” they are, then totally freeze up when they hear the word “bitch”; another person might respond in the exact opposite way. Whether you’re looking at naughty pictures or negotiating a scene, it’s worth it take some time to listen and get a feel for where the hot buttons and land mines are.
The Naked Person Sets the Boundaries
When somebody puts themselves on the line enough to trust you with their homemade porn, respect where they draw the line. The person who’s making the pictures gets to decide what they’re willing to show and how much.
For some people flashing a peek of nipple under the edge of their t-shirt is bold and daring; others are going to be perfectly fine stripping down to bare skin and flashing their naughty bits at the camera. Some are going to show their face; others will go to great lengths to hide any identifying marks at all.
Wherever your partner is on that spectrum, don’t try to push them past their limits. This is yet another point that’s an excellent principle to keep in mind whether you’re corresponding from coast to coast or about to get out the floggers and cuffs in a dungeon. It’s one thing to gently make suggestions about what you’d like to see or do, but once your partner says “no,” back off. The more you try to turn a “no” into a “yes,” the more it starts to feel kind of creepy. If you go far enough, it can become a real violation of trust and consent.
For me, doing such a thing also ruins the point of trading homemade nudes. At their best, sexy selfies are hot not because they match the aesthetics of professional porn, but because they’re a chance to see a partner’s authentic vision of their own eroticism. It’s a chance for them to show you how they want to be seen, and how they think of their sexuality. If you can give them tips or encouragement on how they can bring their own sexual vision alive, then by all means, do it. But never use it as an opportunity to try to push them into remaking themselves to suit your vision.
Do you have any tips, criticisms, or experiences with getting or giving selfies to partners or potential partners? I’d love to hear them in the comments.
