The room was bright and pure white. Sky, the photographer, instructed me to take off my clothes before stepping outside. As I stared at the camera rigs on the ceiling, I felt a flash of doubt: Am I really going to strip down for a stranger?
I had just turned 25, and I was about to pose for a sensual photo shoot in front of a woman I’d just met. Not boudoir-chic like Sabrina Carpenter, but boudoir as in no clothes. And it had been a long time since someone had seen me naked naked.
The first time I had sex, I was 22. It was with a guy I met at a bar—and it was disastrous. Back at his apartment, he seemed not to notice that his wandering hands made me uncomfortable. While consent is obviously nonnegotiable (and I’ve since learned there are ways to make it really sexy), that night I felt like I couldn’t say no once we started. Only when the pain became overwhelming did I tell him to stop.
Afterward, I couldn’t bring myself to date. I needed to explore sexuality on my own terms and find a way to forgive myself for not speaking up sooner. I started asking myself, What actually feels pleasurable when I masturbate? What would make me feel safe during sex? This went on for more than two years, and in that time, I learned about how women are often conditioned to comply with unwanted sex. I realized I needed emotional intimacy and conversations about consent to feel comfortable with a partner.
When I got a boyfriend, he fit that bill, and I liked having sex with him. And then…he cheated on me. After being betrayed by the one person I had felt safe with, I wasn’t clamoring to meet more men. I returned to celibacy and realized I felt just as fulfilled in his absence as I did with him.
Celibacy is having a major moment. A staggering 37 percent of Gen Zers surveyed by the Kinsey Institute said they were intentionally celibate. (In some circumstances, millennials are much more likely to be getting it on than my generation.) And despite all the hand-wringing about incel guys, Gen Z women are more likely than their male counterparts to say no to sex. In the unending quest to decenter men, millions of young women grappling with the perils of dating continue to take #BoySober journeys and talk about them online.
For me, not having sex was less about decentering men and more about understanding what I want sexually and how to ask for it. I was happy to be abstinent, but I was hardly asexual. Much like the growing movement of self-identifying “celibate sluts,” I still masturbated and fantasized about “I need to have you right here on the table” sex. I still cared about sex, I just wasn’t interested in doing it with someone who didn’t feel right.
A month after I ditched my cheating boyfriend and took a self-imposed sex hiatus, I saw an Instagram ad for Nuovo Artistic Studios. The Manhattan photography studio was booking “self-love” shoots: nude and semi-nude sessions that encourage women to focus on their feelings while posing like goddesses draped in sheer fabric.
As someone who has never seen myself as sexy, I instantly loved the concept—although I recognize to some it might sound corny or worse. When I was growing up, my mom discouraged clothes she deemed slutty. Even with my ex, I never felt completely comfortable with my body, especially when he wanted to take naked pictures of me.
Well, he was gone, but I—and my body—was still here. After scrolling through several slideshows of stunning women with brightly colored fabric flying behind them, I clicked on the ad, hoping to prove to myself that after having spent most of my sensual energy on my ex, I could feel sexy all by myself.
I was nervous during my consultation. I emphasized that I wasn’t okay with my images being used for promotional purposes and wanted the studio to delete the photos after my shoot. Still, the images would live on my phone. What if it got hacked? Plus, what if I didn’t like how I looked? I had a few good angles I usually hit in pictures, but I couldn’t do that here, where the photographer would be guiding me through preselected poses.
Many women might only pose nude to share the photos with a partner for Valentine’s Day or a birthday. But for me, someone celibate and exploring sensuality, it seemed like a way to feel sexy—without expectations of sex.
According to five photographers and experts I spoke with, a growing number of women are doing nude or boudoir photo shoots not as presents to partners but as a form of self-love during a lull in their romantic lives. Women in their 40s lead this charge, but many studios report that more and more Gen Z women are signing up to pose nude while on a sex sabbatical.
Considering we came of age in the #MeToo era only to see reproductive rights crumble during the Trump administration, it’s no surprise we ended up here—deeply disillusioned with our often disappointing encounters but still hoping to take pleasure in sex and sexuality.
The mainstream right worries about Americans marrying later and laments the declining birth rate, while the left argues the affordability crisis is driving people away from dating and raises concerns over the loneliness epidemic. Meanwhile, my cohort and I are just desperate for something intentional and affirming (and trust me, I’ve never felt lonelier than when I was having sex and dating without knowing myself).
The boudoir photography trend is an unexpected (and wholly sex-positive) outcome of the #BoySober movement. While millennial women fought for the right to fuck as freely as men, Gen Z is claiming the power to choose exactly how and how much sex we desire—even if it’s none. These photo shoots show that the panic surrounding the so-called Gen Z sex recession overlooks how celibacy isn’t a puritanical pause button. For many Gen Z women, posing naked in sex-positive spaces where we can be fully uninhibited with zero obligations only increases our desire.
That was true for Sierra Bertone. A year ago, while she was celibate and stripping in Reno, Nevada, the 22-year-old did her photo shoot at J’adore Boudoir Photography. She’d never really seen her job or recreational sex with men as fulfilling. The experience was one of the most meaningful times she connected with her sensuality.
“When I was celibate, I had no interest in men romantically or sexually because I feel like that’s what a dildo and a vibrator are for,” she told me. Her dad was financially supportive yet emotionally absent during her childhood, and that taught her to view men largely as a source of money. This led her to sex work, but she disliked the “objectification in performing for men.”
Her photo shoot, on the other hand, was just for her. “In this context, you’re with a woman who built her profession on giving women an experience to connect with their sexuality,” she says. “Women see you in a fuller way, so I could let my true, primal sexuality come out without feeling ashamed.”
One reason her shoot felt revolutionary was that social media has pushed Gen Z to focus on how they’re perceived—the look of a highlight reel or the angle of their face in photos—rather than how they feel. “We’re taught to put on a show rather than learn what sexy looks like to ourselves,” says Ilana Grines, a sex, marriage, and family therapist in Los Angeles. Although it may seem paradoxical, posing for these nude photo shoots prompts reflection on what sensuality can be without, as Grines puts it, “self-monitoring.”
They also show that sexiness doesn’t have to include penetration. “Movies and TV usually only show penetrative sex,” says Grines. “This isn’t conducive to a conversation about what really feels good and creating the safety to feel good.” She wants more women to ask, “What is sexiness as a feeling?”
This is the question Fanny Lelorrain and Juliette Capdevielle—the zillennial cofounders of Scandaleuse Photography in Toronto, Canada—are trying to answer through their woman-centered boudoir photo shoots. “We were tired of the typical boudoir photo, always in lingerie. There’s nothing wrong with that, but some people don’t feel sexy that way. So we remove the pressure to be stereotypically suggestive,” Lelorrain says. Instead, each woman unlocks what sensuality means to her.
They encourage clients to bring outfits or meaningful props to tell the story of who they are, such as beloved coffee cups, homemade cosplay outfits, game controllers, and fur coats. Authenticity is paramount. “We don’t edit the bodies; we just do color correction on the face to match. People will see their body the way it is,” says Lelorrain.
Offering photo shoots to women on a hiatus from partnered sex is personal for Lelorrain. Five years ago, she chose to be celibate because dating and hooking up had become a negative spiral.
“I got to a point where I needed a break because sex with men was less and less pleasurable,” Lelorrain says. She describes her former partners’ behavior as often selfish or disturbing. One man commented during foreplay, “You’re so thin, I can break you!” While she was showering with another man, he said, “You know, if I wanted to rape you, I could.”
She decided to take a yearlong break from sex. After two years, she didn’t miss sex, but she did begin questioning her sexuality. “I started to feel like I became not sexual anymore. It wasn’t true, but it was how I felt,” she says. “I realized that I had developed sensuality to please men and have them be attracted to me, and when I stopped that, it was like, ‘Who am I?’”
To figure this out, she had Capdevielle take sexy photos of her. She loved exploring movement during these shoots, and seeing the pictures helped her recognize a new kind of sexuality that didn’t rely on men.
“Before, sexuality was just something fun to give me an edge,” she says. During this time, she wore tight dresses and heels to attract men, even when her feet ached. She dated around just to have stories to tell at parties. “Now, I consider sexuality as something sacred,” she says, and until she finds the right partner, “I have a dildo and toys.”
This experience counteracts the misconception that celibate people feel no desire, Grines says. “Celibacy is women choosing where to direct their sexual energy, not whether they have it or not,” she says. “Choosing not to have sex with a partner doesn’t dictate whether you still want to be wanted. It’s creating space to figure out how you want to be wanted.”
For some women—like Leah Donatelli, a therapist from Asheville, North Carolina—figuring this out means starting with yourself. During a women’s retreat in Sicily, Donatelli did a shoot with photographer Emily Rowe and spent most of her time tapping into how she felt. “When the pictures are for another person, the focus is on desirability and viewing yourself like an observer,” she says. “But I was totally immersed in my experience.”
At the time, Donatelli was in an emotionally abusive relationship with her ex-boyfriend that left her little space for herself. But the morning of her shoot, she woke up before sunrise and relished the silence. She started her photo shoot in a flowy green dress and stood barefoot on ancient Italian tiles. “As I progressed to taking off the dress and wearing just lingerie, I started living in the erotic, and by the time I was nude, I felt complete freedom,” she says. She is now single and hasn’t been in a serious relationship for seven months. She says that exploring her own desires is a way of “rebuilding my attunement to myself and my trust with myself and my body.”
Back in the studio for my own nude photo shoot, I took a deep breath and unzipped my jeans. My shirt went next, followed by my underwear and socks. I wrapped myself in a sheer green cloth and then knocked on the door to tell Sky to return. She led me to a shallow alcove against the back wall. For my first pose, she helped me drape the cloth against my chest and prop my foot up off the floor. Then Sky took the shawl from me, and I folded my arms across my chest.
“Oh, you don’t have to cover up between takes,” she said.
You’re right, I thought. I lowered my arms and rolled my shoulders back. Sky guided me through a few more poses in the alcove, including one where I stood completely naked on my toes with both arms raised on either side of my head, hands flat against the wall. There was no hiding in this position, and I remembered a teacher who once told me that if you’re nervous, you should physically take up more space and assume a “superhero” stance.
As I focused on holding the position and allowing myself to inhabit the space, I was aware of the sensation in my thigh muscles and the smooth wall under my hands. For once, I was fully present in my body but not self-conscious. I wasn’t performing sexy; I was sexy.
Getting to this point took me two and a half years without sex, then a relationship, and then six more months of celibacy. Throughout this time, I’d often reflect on my desires, trying to figure out what I wanted my sex life to be like.
During my early sexual experiences, I struggled to trust my instincts. But celibacy showed me I have the agency to make choices—like this photo shoot—for myself. It also helped me assert my needs with potential partners. I now see speaking up not as something awkward but as an essential aspect of advocating for myself.
Looking at my photos five months later, I remember being in awe of myself as I posed in that shiny white room. I recall my palms on the cool floor and how it felt to arch my back because I wanted to, without caring how it looked. I remember letting my face soften to show the bliss I felt inside.
I’m holding on to that bliss as my new standard for sex. I hope I find it eventually, but until then, I’m glad to be fulfilled and sexy by myself.
