The nudity experiment

How a few nude selfies boosted my self-confidence

There was a time when I had some serious body image issues.

I was an adolescent in the 80s, a decade which did nothing to improve my screwed-up body image. I didn’t look like the 20 Minute Workout chicks (Ann, Bess and Laurie) or the Solid Gold Dancers, nor did I aspire to look like them. I also didn’t look like the preppy girls in high school.

When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t like what I saw. Feeling awkward, plain and boring kept me introverted and shy, which in hindsight was unfortunate.

It didn’t seem to occur to anyone to redirect my wayward, prepubescent thoughts toward self-love and self-acceptance. Nobody ever called me pretty or beautiful. Not that it would have worked; things were different back then. If you’re GenX, you understand this.

One day, a family member compared me to an aunt who wasn’t particularly well-liked. The speaker’s voice and body language telling 16-year-old me I will probably end up looking like that aunt when I grew up plunged me into the depth of despair.

“No boy will ever look at me now,” I convinced myself and went on a rampage, ripping out posters of The Outsiders from 16 Magazine, which I plastered all over my bedroom wall. These boys weren’t going to reject me; they weren’t real and I could spend all night fantasizing about them. That was the coping mechanism I came up with that helped erase the image of my middle-aged, dumpy-looking aunt I never wanted to be compared to ever again.

The posters on my wall enraged my then unemployed father. He yelled at me for making other people rich by buying these magazines and lusting over them. I didn’t care and bought more. That’ll teach him, I thought.

Good times.

For the next two decades, I considered my body mostly functional and hid it behind wide sweaters and large sweat pants. I did not feel beautiful or desirable.

By the time I turned 50, I had enough. I was tired of being invisible and wanted to be seen, desired, wanted. Hunted, even. Which wasn’t possible for all the usual reasons. So I devised a devious plan. One I executed shortly after my milestone birthday.

I planned to take some nude selfies. I repeated my newly crafted mantra:

If not now, when?

But first, I had to overcome the fear, the apprehension, and the trepidation. How does one do this? I wondered for a while and then did what we all do in those instances: I turned to social media.

Through social media, I saw how many people, not just the young, but also women my age, were taking photos of themselves and posting them for the world to see. I was both impressed and appalled. How self-absorbed does one have to be to post selfies, especially nude or semi-nude ones? It was a little perplexing.

Still, I was curious. What would happen if I took some selfies just to say I did it? It’s not like I was going to post them to social media; I really just wanted to see what I looked like naked on a screen.

Finally, I threw caution to the wind and made the inevitable decision. I hid my phone in the pocket of a fluffy housecoat, locked the bathroom, and took a shower. Afterwards, I spend a very long time snapping endless pictures of my nude body in various positions.

I discovered many things about myself that day in the misty bathroom with the foggy mirror. Here’s what happened:

Nudity is normal

To be naked is normal and natural. The more you look at yourself in the nude, the more normal and natural it becomes.

Love yourself

No matter what your body looks like, seek out the parts that you love. This is key to get started.

There is always something to love about your body. Take a good look in the mirror: do you like the curve along your hip? What about the way your neck slopes when you turn sideways? Does adjusting your posture make a difference in how you view yourself?

I experimented with all of this that day in the bathroom and learned that I can accept, even love, all of my body. Even that distracting c-section scar.

Angles

The position of your phone camera matters regardless of whether you’re taking a regular selfie or a nudie. I didn’t know this until I played around with various angles. Taking a shot from below made me look like a dumpy old aunt; but taking a shot angled from slightly above my head made me look taller and slimmer. It didn’t distort the image so much that it screwed up reality, but it made me love myself a little bit more.

Ask yourself: if you don’t love yourself, how can you expect someone else to love you?

Positions

Standing like a school girl grinning from ear to ear with both arms hanging along my sides did not make me look erotic. Face it, it was erotic imagery I was after… I may not have realized this at the time, but as I continued to take photos of my body in various stages of dress or undress, I understood just how much I was attracted to erotic imagery.

I experimented with a few positions that enhanced my posture and minimized my weak spots (such as my lower abdomen at my c-section scar) by using certain props, like the wall which I leaned against, or the counter I faced slightly hunched over.

Filters

Every smartphone has a selection of filters you can use to adjust your selfies to your heart’s content. I tried some of them and ended up liking one of the black and white filters best. It not only made my skin look smoother, it added or subtracted shadows in just the right places. This enhanced the erotic feel of my selfies, which boosted my mood and my self-confidence.

Delete

Most selfies I took on that first day ended up trashed. I used that delete button religiously until I found the right pose, the right posture, the right expression. It took a while, but I got to a point where I began to like myself.

Self-love

From that moment on, I never looked back. Out came the lingerie, the boots and the heels, and I got creative with my selfies. Not all of them were nudies; sometimes, erotic photography isn’t about exposed genitals at all.

Over time, I learned to love my body and myself in ways I never thought possible simply by looking at my selfies.

Final thoughts

My intention with these selfies was not to post them all over the internet. A lot of people are doing this (on twitter, for instance); I’m not judging them. If they consent to sharing their photos with someone, or the entire internet, that’s their business, not mine.

My experiment with selfies, and later with the nudies, helped me gain the confidence I had always sought from other people for most of my teen and adult life. The photos taught me to accept my body and changed my perspective in how I saw myself. Partly, this experiment lead to my stint in erotica writing (initially under my pseudonym Cassandra Lincoln) which gave me an additional outlet to explore fantasies I never dared to acknowledge before.

My main reason behind the selfies was body positivity. I found a method that worked for me.

Storage

One important consideration is where to store your erotic photos. Many people keep their naughty selfies in their phones; if you do that, it might be wise to lock your screen and lock the app you save them in. Apply a facial recognition or finger print lock to your phone for double verification security.

Remember: what you do with your selfies is your business; only you can consent to sharing them. Make sure they don’t get accidentally hurled into the internet abyss.

One final note

Don’t forget to empty the trash bin after you delete unwanted photos.