I could recognize my best friends’ nudes by just one body part: the mouth. (If the pics include the face, that is.) Belinda—all the names are changed, by the way, so my friends remain just that—always has a slight pout. Rachel goes for a surprised, mouth-slightly-agape grin, as if to say, Can you believe these are my breasts?!
Maybe you find it surprising that straight-women pals send each other their R-rated photos in a totally nonsexual, friendshipy kind of way. Photos that one would assume are normally taken for men. To that I say, consider which gender gives better affirmations: men or women? (Sorry to uphold the patriarchy, but it’s true.) Sending sexy pics is just another thing we once did primarily with men that, as it turns out, is a much more gratifying experience with female friends. Like visiting the restroom or mourning a recently deceased parent.
I can personally attest to this, having sent my fair share of boudoir photos to heterosexual men in the halcyon days of my youth and even, occasionally—because I’m absolutely terrible at learning my lesson—in the year 2023. (Sorry, mom!) Just months ago I sent a cleavage-y picture to the man I was seeing, right before I took a midday nap. I was scarcely employed at the time, which tends to increase both my sext and nap frequency.
I woke up to discover he had “hearted” my photo. Not an emoji heart, which I suppose would’ve been slightly better. At least that requires using the keyboard. No, he pressed the text-app heart button. He followed up hours later with a “Can we bump dinner to 7:30? Have to finish up a few things still.” That was it.
The experience of sending a nude to a man can be … how can I put it … thumbs-down (text-app menu) button? This is pretty much why my friends and I started sending pics to each other instead of our significant others. The first time I saw a friend in all her glorious sexiness was as a tiny square in a screenshot showcasing the lackluster response her husband had to said glorious sexiness. It became kind of a bit on our text chain. Look how this man I married responded to my picture.
Sending sexy pics is just another thing we once did primarily with men that, as it turns out, is a much more gratifying experience with female friends.
One of the first screenshots that ignited the bit featured a smoldering photo of Belinda perched on a hotel bed, in a very tiny, very sexy bikini. Her signature pout was on display. Her husband wrote back, “That’s how I feel too. Exhausted.” I’m not joking. He wrote that. Not maliciously! He honestly didn’t know better. At first we found it funny. The utter cluelessness. Then, at some point, we just cut out the middlemen. The middlemen being the men who happened to be in the middle of our beds at night.
In case you think I’m not giving men enough credit, I’ll re-appropriate the hashtag they used during #MeToo and say: Not all men. Really! Not all men are terrible at responding to nudes. I’ve gotten very nice responses from men before. (Sorry to sound like Trump.) Especially after I’ve said, “Hey, next time I send you a hot picture, can you do more than press the heart button?” Sometimes they’ll respond “Wow!” or even “Gorgeous.” Which is an A-plus, when you’re grading on a curve.
Unfortunately, the men who tend to be really good at compliments—or at least on par with females—tend to be either unstable, certifiable Lotharios, or both. Which is not necessarily the kind of person you want to have possession of your nudes or even date, for that matter. Unless you’re O.K. with coming home to find him naked, painting the wall, and hanging out with a coyote he “adopted” as a pet. (True story.)
To be clear, we’re not a bunch of 40-year-old-ish moms sending each other close-up beaver shots all day. That would be wild. Also a good Netflix series. The pics are coy. Pretty. Face and a lacy bra. Topless or be-thonged, but artfully staged. The kind of pics a 22-year-old boy would see online and pass over for something more hard-core. Basically: the kind of pics women like.
By now, my friends and I have a sort of shorthand. In between the daily flurry of texts about jobs and kids and books and annoying people we went to college with, every so often someone will text, “Send a pic!” Sometimes no prompt is needed. One of us just feels kinda hot and sends away. The response is … ridiculous. In the best way. There’s usually a “Holy shit” to start us off. Then a “LAUREN” in all caps. Followed by a cascade of praise so poetic yet specific it’s hard to imagine any man, even Shakespeare, being able to compete.
Because that’s the point of sending a photo in the first place, right? Sure, maybe sometimes it’s to entice a man to have sex, but there are other, less risky ways to do that. For the most part, you send a pic to feel “so insanely fucking beautiful.” (Direct friend quote.) Yes, it’s basic. And yes, womankind has rightly put in 10 billion collective hours to be above it, but sometimes a little external validation is nice. Insanely fucking beautiful, even.
Lauren Bans is a television writer living in Los Angeles