Put those pictures in the hands of those that will appreciate it most
Jayde Atchison (she/her) // Opinions Editor
Cameron Skorulski (he/him) // Illustrator
After getting out of the shower and while picking your outfit for the day, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror wearing a cute matching bra and underwear (because you finally did laundry). Your hair is in that nice wet-but-not-too-wet phase and you realize you’re having a good self-confidence morning. You quickly grab your phone off the bed and snap a couple of photos—who wouldn’t want to show off their hottie moment of the day?
There’s a moment of contemplation of who to share this with, if at all. That fling you sometimes see but are kind of over? The cute guy you just started chatting with that you haven’t even kissed? An ex?
None of these options are going to hype you up the way you truly deserve. Who always has the nicest, most flattering things to say about the stuff you post publicly online? Hands down, there is no greater cheerleader than your girlfriends. The girlies who post fire emojis under every Instagram post even though they helped take, choose and edit the lighting in said picture. They are the real MVPs of helping validate how hot you should feel at any given time.
So I say it’s time we start platonically sending those tasteful nudes to our girls instead of any romantic interests. One of my friends recently asked me if it was weird that she didn’t send nudes to the guys she was seeing, and I told her no—it was probably for the best because you never really know someone you aren’t committed to.
There are too many people out there who use those nudes they so desperately asked for as revenge porn if things go wrong in the relationship. There’s also no way of knowing if they are showing the pictures to their buddies to show off their latest conquest.
At the time, I made a joke that it wasn’t weird that she wasn’t sending them to men, but it was weird she wasn’t sending them to me. If she has pictures she feels good about and there’s the desire to share for some instant validation, I want to give that to her! Plus, it’s cool to see how creative people get with their nudes—maybe we can inspire each other to have the kind of photos we want to look back on when we’re 80 and admire how sexy we were “back in the day”.
Obviously, we never know what people might do in the future with our photos, but it feels a bit safer to send off some sexy selfies to a neutral girlfriend who won’t insist on more layers to be removed or identifiable features to be shown. It’s reassuring to know that they will take a look, think “damn, my friend is feeling and looking good today and I’m going to let her know that.”
This feels less threatening than men who might not appreciate it as much. They might not appreciate the effort that went into taking the photo, how confident you must be feeling at the time, or how risky it feels to risk sending something like that out.
Platonic nudes should become more normalized amongst friend groups. Hell, doing a home photoshoot to immortalize our younger selves should become the norm. Get your besties together, put on a set that makes you feel like a million bucks (or nothing at all) and help each other feel utterly confident. Life’s too short as it is—make those memories while you can.