Loving the Skin You're In

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Let's be grown up folks for a bit and talk about nudes. Not nudes in a perverted manner, not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm an advocate for that. But nudes for body positivity.

The other day at drinks, some girlfriends and I got into a conversation about taking nudes and the difficulties in getting creative and/or sending them out. One margarita too many (DO NOT TRY THE ONE AT ART CAFE LAGOS) and I was showing four girls explicit pictures of me on my phone. *SIDE EYE*

You don't have to judge me, I already judged myself when the painful realization of what I had done hit me the next day together with the blissful headache of a hangover. However, I do not regret it. Coupled with the compliments I got, it just shows me the progress I've made in learning to love my body

Anyways, I got into taking nude pictures of myself to boost body positivity. Believe it or not, I have struggled with my appearance, despite many people complimenting my appearance. I never liked my boobs, thought they were too big. I never liked my height, thought I was too tall especially when shorter men tended to be the dominant players in my market. In fact, I wouldn't wear heels as much or even want to hang out with my short friends because it reminded me so much of how tall I am. Now? I wear heels everyday to work and many of my friends are half my height and it doesn't bother me. Plus, my last two flings were shorter than me. So yaaaay to overcoming body negativity. 

Back to nudes. I started taking nude pictures of myself to boost my confidence and only that alone *ahem*. With time, I got creative about it and I absolutely love it. It's so empowering finding new angles to take nude pictures of myself, solely for my pleasure. I can tell you confidently that I love my body and its expanding waistline mostly because with each new picture, I shake off those demonic voices trying to whisper body shaming into my ears. 

There are a number of articles and testimonies out there that show that taking nudes does increase your confidence as well as looking at your naked body in the mirror and speaking positively to it. And trust me, if you don't have a healthy relationship with your body, you could have the most perfect body according to everyone's standard and still find something to criticise in it. If you've never gotten into this, I encourage you to. A little healthy narcissism never hurt anyone. 

However pro tips to protecting your privacy and private parts in these trying times

• Have a strong password on your phone

• Turn off iCloud for your phones as celebrity nudes scandals have shown us the disaster this brings

• Don't show your face or any identifying features on your body

• Consider using an encrypted photo app to store your preciousssss 

Having said all that, does anyone else find nude pictures empowering?