Capturing and Sending Nudes: moral twists, pleasures, and dangers of producing and exchanging erotic images online

Abstract

Abstract: In this article, I reflect on some aspects of the polysemy involved in the registration, sending and circulation (authorized or not) of nude digital photographs. I propose that the practice (as well as the discourses it entails) should be thought both in terms of “a new twist in visuality regimes, a transition towards new ways of seeing, living and symbolizing one’s own and others’ bodily nudity” (Sibilia, 2015, p. 42) and as an articulator of the “limits of sexuality” (Gregori, 2016), flexing the social classifications that organize sexual normativities between acceptable and reprehensible, involving a complex dispute for the expansion and restriction of boundaries between consent and abuse, norm and transgression, legitimate and immoral, healthy and violent.