22 Easy Steps to Rethinking Your Whole Relationship Through Late-Night Nudes

Congratulations! You are in possession of a body and a person who thinks that bod is real hot. You also have access to a camera-equipped phone, and maybe a rad sex toy or two. The time has come to merge all those things and send that person some cool and consensual nudes!


Step 1: Set The Scene

Send your pal a series of media featuring your very naked body in very naked positions. Really tell a story! Start with a post-masturbation photo, very modest, featuring a small bit of your chest and the bottom part of your face, to show how red your chest got from touching yourself to the thought of them coming. Maybe follow up with a photo from the moment you were thinking of the way they taste. Or take it to the next level with one of those live photos, angled a short distance from and slightly to the left of your body, shivering to the beat of the Hitachi, squirting just a bit — you know, for showmanship. These messages are your stage!

Step 2: Show Off With A Video

Then, the climax: not you climaxing, but an 18-second video inspired by them and the way their lips part and their body moves against you when you’re fucking them. 18 seconds of the comedown, of you gently touching yourself and licking your fingers in that way you know they like, in the format they like, too — they sent you a video like this a couple of weeks ago.

Step 3: Practice Sexting Aftercare

Cleanse their palette with a full-body shot from above. Experiment with a lot of effort and angling and various body positions. Be sure to make your booty the centerpiece. You want them to spend hours thinking about how much they wish they could have been there with you for this, aching to pull your body close to theirs and feel the way you grind your butt into their groin.

Young woman in bed hugging a pillow

Step 4: Say Goodnight

Text them “going to fall asleep dreaming of fucking you. xoxo” just before falling asleep, possibly still mostly naked and on top of your comforter.

Great work! You did it! You’re so hot and cool!

Step 5: Ready Yourself For Praise

They’re gonna love the work you put into your sexts. They’re going to admire your commitment and very personal touch just for them. Think of how they’ll respond in the morning to tell you that this was the exact wake up call they were hoping for, or how hot you are, or how badly they wish you could be fucking them.

Step 6: Wait

They’re going to text you any minute now. Try not to look at your phone so much. Put it in a drawer, then take it out a few minutes later, in case it doesn’t get a good signal in there. Try not to think about it. Turn it on and off airplane mode. Wonder if it’s broken. Text a friend and frown when the message goes through.

Pop art of woman taking a sip of coffee and looking at a smartphone with an eyebrow raised

Step 7: Wait Longer

Today is a busy day for them. They’ve been moving the stuff of someone they love from one place to another, because that person lives far away and can’t be here to do it with them. You know today is hard, you don’t expect much. Four in the afternoon rolls around and they text you “sorry I haven’t responded! still moving!” That’s okay! No expectations! It’s cool it’s okay everything’s totally okay.

Step 8: Is That Insecurity In My Pocket Or Have You Just Not Texted Me Back Yet

You can feel the insecurity creeping in, but you want them to know you understand they’re having a hard day, and that you appreciate them even making sure to contact you at all to let you know they saw you and they were sorry they couldn’t make the time for you. You want to make that space for them! Who cares that your body is on display, unnoticed.

Pop art of whites of eyes appearing in the hole of an open sewer, but funny

Step 9: Insomnia

Scan through the last couple of days in your texts, wondering if you came on too strong or if they lost interest somewhere along the way. Pick apart every word they said and you said. Stare at the photos you sent them and be mean to yourself. Has your stomach always rolled that way while you fuck yourself? Has that freckle near your butt always been there? How did it get there? Was it cute?

Did they hate it?

Do they hate you?

Step 10: Check Your Phone Again and Again and Again

It’s been over 24 hours. Maybe THIS time you’ll pick up your phone and see their name on the screen, with a few texts to apologize and praise you and make you feel wanted and desirable like they usually would. They don’t owe you that of course. No one owes that to anyone. But generally, if you ask for nudes and receive them, the polite response is to at least take the time to say “U R SO HOT.” Have they eaten a snack? Have they peed? How hard is it to fit typing “U R SO HOT” into their day anyway?!??

Step 11: Tell A Friend

Your friend might yell furiously about your situation over wine. Your friend is right! You still haven’t heard anything about those nudes. Your body is right there in their messages, sitting there, waiting for them, asking for them. They left it there and it’s starting to feel undesirable and weird and invisible and stupid. That they reached out to tell you they’re still moving feels empty now, an excuse you’d use to get out of cleaning the bathroom or going on a tinder date you’re not excited about.

Step 12: Text The Only Thing You Can Think Of

“Can’t believe you’ve slept on these for so long.”

You’ve had two glasses of wine, and you know what? You can’t.

Step 13: Fight!

Your text was… not well received, and you are more upset than you were before. Just a few days ago they told you they didn’t understand why people constantly tell femmes they’re “too much.” Now they’re telling you that you’re expecting too much from them. Your vulnerability and insecurity and discomfort are an inconvenience and taking up more space than they want to give you. They don’t “have the time” for you, don’t have the literal minute it would take to view what you sent them. Your expectation of receiving some human decency, let alone appreciation, in response to requested nudes is unfair.

Step 14: Fall Asleep Angry

Let those tears roll off your nose onto your flannel sheets.

Step 15: Torture Yourself By Remembering A Better Time

Last week you sat at the bar together for six hours, unable to pause conversation long enough to even wait for each other’s bathroom breaks. It felt like you were both on the same page. It felt like you just understood each other. It felt fun and vulnerable and like it could never be enough, let alone too much. You didn’t want to stop talking once the bar closed and you ended up in their bed with the ramen they just made you, and you burrowed into their chest and talked until neither of you could keep your eyes open. They brought you coffee in bed the next morning and joked that you needed to start keeping that thin mint coffee creamer you like at their place. They offered to get some for you the next time they go to the grocery store and you felt so drawn in by their small gesture of adoration. You felt so sure they wanted you around long enough to keep things you like around their place.

Pop art of cupid heart with bandaids on it

Step 16: Let Them Make You Feel Like You Fucked Up

The morning after your wine rage, they tell you they see a dynamic in which you are investing more time and energy into them. They want to be able to feel like things are progressing naturally, because if they feel pressured they’ll pull away, and they don’t want that! They want to have fun with you.

Why can’t you just have fun?

Why can’t you just be fun?

Why are you so much?

Step 17: Let Yourself Believe That You’re The Problem

Now your vulnerability is something you need to fix, because otherwise they’re out. Your insecurities are being read as an exertion of energy they don’t feel like they’re matching, so you need to tone those down, okay?

Silence all your feelings surrounding your discomfort because those feelings are getting in the way of them receiving exactly what they need from you without having to recognize your needs, too. Remember them telling you that they’d never erase how you feel. Remember them telling you you’re too much. Feel tired of being too much.

Pop art of sad robot looking at a smartphone

Step 18: Minimize

Try to be less.

Text novels back and forth, and minimize how you feel throughout despite the fact that a friend is texting you “FUCK THEM. HOW DARE THEY MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR VULNERABILITY ISN’T VALID.” Once again, your friend is right. But you want to resolve this because maybe you are more invested. Or maybe you just think you’re having really incredible sex — some of the best sex you have ever had — and you don’t want to let it go.

Step 19: Try to Accept How Little You Mean To Them

Read your text exchanges like you’re peering over your own shoulder. Watch them continue to put everyone and everything else ahead of you. You knew all along you weren’t a priority. You just didn’t realize how little of a priority you were. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe you did read too much into that night of chatting until the sun started to rise, the first night you spent together without fucking. Maybe you read too much into them making distant plans, talking about summertime and camping trips they wanted to take with you, discussing what your dynamic with each other might look like once their love returns a few months from now. Maybe you saw it as more. Or maybe they made it more, and you followed along in the way your friend warned you that you shouldn’t.

Step 20: (Even More) Self-Doubt

Maybe you body isn’t enough for them.

Maybe you made an idiot of yourself.

Maybe you’re just being a weirdo.

Maybe they’re gaslighting you.

Maybe you hate them.

Maybe you’re falling for them.

Maybe they don’t spend any time thinking about you.

Maybe you’re to blame.

Maybe you’re too much.

Step 21: Or Maybe You Are More Than Enough, And They Just Didn’t Take The Time To See You

They once sat across from you at Florida Room and said, “Can I say something? You’re a really good listener.” Maybe you should’ve been listening better, or you would’ve heard where they decided everything was on their terms and none of it was on yours.

Maybe in the not-so-distant future, you’ll try to make it work for longer than you should, because you aren’t always good at letting people go. Maybe they’ll burn you again. Maybe they’ll make you feel so crazy you end up storming out of their house over seemingly nothing in the middle of the night, cursing the fact that you decided giving it another chance was a wise idea. But you know what! Maybe you learn from this. You’re worth so much more than that. You are so hot, you are so smart, you are so thoughtful, and you deserve to be praised by hot babes. You aren’t too much, you never were. You learn and you grow and you leave that situation for good, feeling sad for the loss of that connection and honestly, for the loss of that great sex you were having, but knowing they were never going to be able to give you what you deserved regardless of the situation.

Step 22: It’s 102 Hours Later

And they still, not once, have acknowledged the series of nudes you sent.

Can’t believe they slept on those.

Pop text that reads "game over"

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Courtney

Courtney is a budding sex educator, performer, and writer based out of Portland, Oregon. She spends her time slinging sex toys at the local female-owned queer-friendly sex toy boutique, being a dutiful intern on the podcast Sex on the Brain with sex educator Amory Jane, singing at the nearest variety show, writing way too personal things for the internet, dancing at the queer party down the street and buying lots of cheese. She can be found tweeting about tinder and astrology @courtneykist. She just wants you to have a good time.

Courtney has written 10 articles for us.

23 Comments

  1. Oh man.

    I once was in an LDR in which person would not text me for like, 48 hours, (which for me is a long time) until I sent them something smutty, at which point their response time would cut down to like, 2 hours.

    Also, this is incredible and about so many things not sexts, but actually really great encapsulation of certain shit dynamics, & also I feel for past you.

  2. As per usual, Autostraddle advice/analysis comes at the perfect time for this insecure, vulnerable, consensual nude-sending young woman. This could mean one of two things:

    1) Every Autostraddle writer has access to my texts and camera roll.
    2) Many parts of the queer experience are universal.

  3. So glad I decided to skim through this because then I realized had to go back and read it fully. Amazing.

  4. Mkay gonna curl up in a ball underneath my cubicle alternating between sobs and shudders while eating an entire loaf of bread now.

  5. This was not what I was expecting when I clicked the link. Hilarious and amazing and so wonderfully honest.

    (Also I kind of feel like I should apologize on behalf of my fellow avoidantly attached people?)

  6. so much this:

    “Silence all your feelings surrounding your discomfort because those feelings are getting in the way of them receiving exactly what they need from you without having to recognize your needs, too.”

    oh how elequently you put into words the exact problem in my relationship rn. i’ve never actually sent nudes, but this article was about so much more anyways that i can totally relate.

  7. this is incredible! love the way it makes fun of all those played-out ~fun guides to sending nudes!~ and explores the way sexting can play into internalized body-shaming and misogyny, and just the overall dissection of these types of fucked up misogynistic dynamics.

    special s/o to them dwelling on how they “see a dynamic in which you are investing more time and energy into them” in a way that furthers this dynamic – sadly classic…

  8. This is really good. Ppl (esp women & trans ppl, goes double for those who’re both) who send nudes are far braver about it than I’d ever be. This is how I feel just when I send her a text. The first bits anyway, she does reply just takes longer than I’d like.

    On nudes. All I do is charcoal pictures of how I’d look if I was amab. And they’re idealised and for my eyes only. Not actual nudes either just sexy pictures. But I feel like it serves a similar purpose. Also I’m not showing her them cos cis het men send dick pics in a misogynist/unwanted way all the time so I’d hate to feed into that & I’m shy. Even though it’s pure fantasy.

  9. This was a little amusing, but I’m sorry for anyone who’s going through something like this. Thank god my girl and I are glued at the hip/phone/any electronic device!! ^^

  10. It just kept getting better as I read on. Step 10 is the first one that sold me though. I’ve never sexted but I’ve definitely gone through the entire thinking process that step 10 follows. Most recently when my easily distracted partner took nearly 3 hrs to prep and pack for staying over st my place for the weekend and I wasn’t sure exactly when they’d be arriving.

  11. This piece made me a tiny bit glad 19 year old me had the experience of being harshly critiqued on the state of my body and came to the decision to never send nudes ever again.
    Pics of toys or rumbled sheets, stress free and can’t be used against me.

  12. This is something I absolutely needed to read this morning. Thank you for this wonderful piece <3

Comments are closed.