Glossary Basics
Sending nudes
Also called · sending nudes · sharing explicit photos · nude selfies
At a glance
- In one line
- Taking explicit photos of yourself and sending them to a specific person.
- Usually looks like
- One or two phone shots, often late, sent inside a conversation already running.
- Gear needed
- A phone. A mirror, a lamp off to one side, and a plain wall do most of the work.
- Talk about first
- Whether they get saved, where they are stored, and what happens after a breakup.
This is making and sending images or short video of your own body to a partner. The range runs from suggestive shots that show very little through to fully explicit photos, and the effort involved varies from a quick phone snap to lighting, posing, and choosing which frame to send. Most people who do it do it with a specific person in mind rather than broadcasting.
Common variables are how much of the face is in frame, whether the images are requested or spontaneous, how often, and who is considered a safe recipient. Body image plays a large part: a lot of people enjoy being seen but dislike seeing themselves photographed, and the gap between those two things is where hesitation usually sits.
Trust is the other major factor. Sending images means handing over something you cannot take back, so the same person may rate this high with a long-term partner and near zero with someone new. A low score frequently reflects a considered judgment about permanence rather than any discomfort with the underlying exhibitionism.
What a score means here Sending nudes
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0
Hard no: no explicit photos of you exist and none get taken, regardless of who asks.
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1–33
1-33: might send one for a specific reason, but the storage question outweighs the appeal.
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34–66
34-66: happy to send inside a trusted relationship, often cropped or faceless, never on request from someone new.
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67–99
67-99: being looked at this way is an active pleasure, and photos go out without needing a prompt.
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100
100: a core part of how you engage sexually; being photographed is itself the appeal.
Rating it
A low score often reflects concern about where images end up, or dislike of being photographed, rather than prudishness; a high score means being seen this way is something you actively enjoy.
Common misconceptions
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Cropping your face out makes a nude anonymous.
In practiceTattoos, jewellery, bedding, light switches, and window views identify people routinely, and phone photos carry metadata unless it is stripped. Leaving the face out lowers risk; it does not make an image untraceable.
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If a nude gets leaked there is nothing you can do.
In practiceSharing intimate images without consent is a criminal offence in the UK, most US states, and many other jurisdictions. Services such as StopNCII generate a hash so platforms can block re-uploads without the image ever being sent to them.
Worth knowing
Images can be screenshotted, forwarded, and auto-synced to cloud backups, and faces, tattoos, jewelry, and room backgrounds identify people even when the frame seems anonymous.
About this item Frequently asked
Sending nudes — questions people ask
What does sending nudes involve, and why do people like it?
Sending nudes means taking explicit photos of yourself and sending them to a specific person, usually inside a conversation already running. The appeal is generally being looked at and getting a live reaction, which is why it works differently from being photographed by someone else - the framing and the timing stay with the sender. It sits close to sexting and often happens in the same thread, but it produces a permanent file rather than text, which is the reason people rate the two very differently.
How do you take a good nude selfie?
Light from the side, phone above eye level, and a background you have actually looked at. Overhead light and on-camera flash flatten everything; a lamp or window off to one side does the opposite. Mirror shots are easier than one-handed selfies for full-body framing. Points people tend to learn late: check what is visible behind you, take twenty and delete nineteen, and decide before sending whether the face is in frame. Turning off automatic cloud backup for the camera roll is worth doing beforehand rather than afterwards.
How do you send nudes safely?
The three real exposure routes are cloud sync, screenshots, and someone else picking up an unlocked phone. Concretely: turn off automatic photo backup or move the shots to a locked folder, strip location metadata (most messengers do this, AirDrop and email often do not), avoid putting face, tattoos, and an identifiable room in the same frame, and never send to someone you cannot name. Agree once, explicitly, whether images get kept or deleted. If one is shared without consent, that is a criminal offence in many places and reporting tools exist.
What is the difference between sending nudes and filming ourselves?
A photo is one moment you framed; video records behaviour, voice, and usually both people. Filming means a much larger file, a second person's consent for every recording, and something far harder to explain away if it surfaces. People who send photos freely often rate filming much lower for exactly that reason. The storage conversation differs too: a nude sits in one thread, while video tends to accumulate and sync, so who keeps the files and when they get deleted needs settling up front.
How do I score sending nudes if I like the idea but worry about the risk?
This score is usually about risk tolerance as much as exhibitionism, and both are legitimate inputs. On the 0-100 scale, 0 is a hard no - no explicit photos get taken, whoever is asking. Low scores often mean a specific person and occasion could justify it; the middle usually means cropped or faceless images inside an established relationship; high scores mean being seen this way is an active pleasure. Sending and receiving are separate items, so a low score here says nothing about wanting to be sent photos.
Appears on
This item appears on the Basics test — one vial each.