Get Naked With Me: Group Boudoir Shots Are Now a Trendy Thing

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Call it female empowerment; call it friendship; call it bonding… Whatever you call it, the newest trend in boudoir photography involves “getting your boudoir on” with your friends. Yes, according to the Today Show, groups of women are now stripping down to next to nothing with their besties for professional group boudoir photos.

Together. As in, “Hey, let’s take most of our clothes off and then huddle together for a group shot!” We’re not talking a group of friends in a bathroom mirror for an Instagram photo. We’re talking full on, thong or bare bottom, stilettoed togetherness. <cue the “bowm-chickee-bowm-bowm music”> Oh, come on-don’t tell me you weren’t thinking of that. 

skinNow, I love boudoir photography, and, I love my friends, but I don’t love either one enough to merge them. It’s not that I’m a prude. I’m not. I admire the human body; I celebrate it. I have learned to love every wrinkle, roll and dimple.

Okay, that’s a lie. I haven’t learned to love them; it’s more like all the flaws and I have come to a kind of mutual understanding over the years; they understand that I am not going to stop eating doughnuts and I understand that they will not hesitate to expand and multiply as a result of it. And I’m good with that.

All that being said, I wouldn’t mind stripping down for an intimate professional boudoir portrait. Soft music, warm lights, a lace covered bed, a giant t-shirt down to my knees, preferably with a picture of Rocky Balboa on it. That’s got “hawt” written all over it.

But getting sexy with my friends?

Oh, God, no.

A boudoir is a lady's private room. The word comes from the French word bouder, which means "to be sulky."
A boudoir is a lady’s private room. The word comes from the French word bouder, which means “to be sulky.”

Now, I get the whole boudoir concept. In the right hands and with the right talent, boudoir portraits can make a woman can feel brilliantly alive and sexy. These sessions, which start out with hesitancy and timidness, quite often end in an unleashed joy of one’s own body. I love that. I understand that.

Hewlett-PackardWhat I don’t understand is what’s so empowering about getting almost naked for photographs with your friends? Do I want to be skin to skin with my friends? I mean, we’re close, but let’s not get crazy. Do I want to shove myself into a corset and pose opposite my friends who have also shoved themselves into corsets? I can’t imagine that resulting in anything other than fits of laughter. And a need for vodka.

And who is the recipient of these photos? As women, we give them to our husbands, boyfriends, significant others, but what do you do with a GROUP boudoir photo? I’m still trying to figure that one out.

I am all for Girl Power, but can my friends and I not find female empowerment in other ways? Like discovering a clearance on shoes or eating an entire cheesecake together? Or staying up late to watch Nicholas Sparks’ movies. Surely, there are better, less, bootylicious options, options that don’t involve waving our junk at each other in front of a photographer’s lens.

In closing, I’m glad for any woman who finds female empowerment by taking Group Boudoir portraits. Seriously. As for me, I will continue to prefer my boudoir experience like I prefer going to the bathroom…by myself.


Image credits: sweaty-skin by Jo Andre Johansen, corsets by veritatem

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