EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER.

I don't care if he's on his death bed.

I don't care if he has a terminal illness and the only cure is your naked body, on his cracked Samsung Galaxy s7.

I don't care if a picture of your tits would unlock the Ark of the Covenant.

Under no circumstances should you ever, ever send nude photos.

Let's talk about the pros and cons of this fuckery.

Cons:

  • Nude photos take away your power. Someone else has free reign to do what they want with your body and likeness. Maybe they're a "good guy" and will "just" keep them in a folder with his other nudes. But what if he doesn't? What if you piss him off one day and he's not feeling so "nice"? Revenge porn is a real, devastating problem. And the only way to prevent it from happening? NOT FUCKING SENDING THEM.
  • It is the ultimate PickMe behavior. What did he realistically do to earn those photos? Flatter you? Ask for them, without even a first date? It's becoming toxically normal for guys to expect to see your goods up front, and guess what, you're not a 1999 Subaru Outback Impreza. He's not entitled to shots of the interior before he considers investing in you. Your body is not a commodity and your safety isn't something given up because someone shows interest. We leave that PickMe shit in the 2010s.
  • It's cheap as fuck. Nothing says "my value and worth are negotiable" like defacing yourself for approval from a man who probably re-wears his boxers between washing. "Man, giving Gary a shot of my snatch really advanced my professional career," said no woman ever.
  • No High Value Man would ask for them. No High Value Man would respect you for them. No High Value Man would send them.

Pros:

  • You get a temporary thrill from doing something naughty. That's it. That's the end of the benefits. Then he says "mmm baby", you never actually meet up with him, and you forget it happened until your second cousin is forwarding you your naked photos on Facebook Messenger asking when you became a cam girl. I'm not saying that happened to me but you know for damn sure it's happened to someone and that someone should NOT be you.

I used to be all about sending nudes. I thought it made me a Cool Girl. I thought it made me seem sexually free and fun. Guys liked it, and I liked guys liking me for it. I didn't need "respect", I had attention and when your self-esteem is in the basement, attention is a drug unto itself. I loved the positive reinforcement and feeling sexy... until my ex decided that he was angry enough at me for leaving him that he would send my nudes to my Facebook contacts unless I did what he wanted. You don't realize how much power you have given away until the most vulnerable part of you is threatened to be exposed to a thousand of your closest family, friends, business associates, and random middle school classmates by someone who never really cared about you to begin with.

I have a friend who was fired from her job because her photos were leaked and distributed without her knowledge or consent, but it reflected poorly on her company and the clients submitted complaints, so she was let go. It absolutely should not have happened, was deeply humiliating, and put her in a financially, emotionally and mentally damaging situation. I imagine we all know at least one person to whom this has happened, and the frequency is only increasing.

So why are we doing this? Why are we playing this game? Who benefits, besides men who get a cheap thrill for making a girl do free sex work for them? There are millions if not billions of pictures of naked women online, he specifically wants yours because it's a way to control you.

And before you LibFems bitch me out about "nudes being empowering", fuck right off. There's nothing empowering about debasing yourself for the Male Gaze. It's also not victim blaming to encourage my fellow sisters to not put themselves knowingly into stupid, potentially humiliating situations in the name of feminism. Sending nudes isn't feminist. It's trashy, it's stupid, it's easily exploited and it makes you look like a fucking clown.