How have/are the attitudes toward nude/topless photography changing?

Female porn is certainly different.

Emotions and/or new kitchen designs seem to be popular. ;)

In the 70s/80s glamour models went topless for newspapers/magazines. They were talked about by everyone (not just men). Some became household names and went on to careers in music and acting and were not frowned upon. Girls on holiday in the late 80s and early 90s couldn't wait to go topless, not to get gawped at by men but because they were proud of themselves. These days going topless on holiday seems to be frowned upon. When I first started model photography about 15 years ago, it was just portraits and fashion. Quite quickly I was in demand from girls wanting to have topless/nude photos of themselves. All TF! They wanted to be in magazines such as Nuts, not for the money but because they wanted to. Their friends (female mostly) followed my images on places like Flickr. I didn't ever ask and push boundaries. It would be questions such as "Pete, when can I go topless?" or "Next time I come can I go topless?" I don't think any regret it because they thought it was giving them a sense of freedom. I went through possible consequences before shooting and only one changed her mind. Talking to the occasional mother it was often "I wish I had had the guts to do that." Did this hold them back in life? Of course not. One married an admirer and they have three children who most of you have seen in posters and adverts for children's clothes. Three became Teachers. One tours the world with bands as a sound engineer. Do they regret taking their clothes off for free? No, I very much doubt it. We were born with the bodies we have and nature didn't intend for us to wear clothes.

I'm not sure about todays world, attitudes have very much changed. I mainly shoot fashion, portrait and editorial just for me these days. I don't think I really got the glamour thing but fashion nude I still really like to do, but rarely. Do people ask to shoot topless/nude TF these days? Not in the last 10 years probably. Social Media and smartphones etc have meant any photo can be sent to anyone and that is not liberating at all. Just judged negatively.

Sorry about the rambling long post. A rare post of length from me.

There's definitely been a shift in attitudes even in a very short period of time, and definitely in the last ten years. Maybe just slightly longer.

Topless or Nude TF just doesn't happen these days but I think Supply & Demand plays its part there. Models have cottoned on that they can earn from doing it on a platform like this.

I would be very surprised if there's more than a handful of models who would do nude or even just topless TF.

Now I've said that watch me be proved completely wrong! 😂

JME Studios said

Models have cottoned on that they can earn from doing it on a platform like this.

What? No! Surely not! With their tiny feeble female minds, they figured it out after all this time? Did someone tell them!?

"Cottoned on".... realllly? *sigh*

I'm quite sure there are models, friends, and random appreciative strangers still working TF at any level for creative projects that interest them or matter to them.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Unfocussed Mike when there's people willing to pay there will always be a market.

JME Studios said

….

I would be very surprised if there's more than a handful of models who would do nude or even just topless TF.

Now I've said that watch me be proved completely wrong! 😂

There are at least three on my portfolio, including a big name US model, maybe more. Sometimes for several days.

You just need reliability and something that isn’t freely available elsewhere. Access to off-road places most people can’t get to, or modelling with horses

in my case.

Sometimes decent headshots will do it in exchange shooting my nudes. One new model got an interview with Models1 in London from my headshots. Fair exchange I think.

BLBP (Badly Lit Bedroom Porn), maybe not so much. I’d expect be paid to model for that. ;)

I don’t think attitudes have changed, although I don’t know about generation- whatever where upto now - coming into the workplace. It’s more the social codes have changed. 

I tend to find whenever in in a new job etc, people are trying to suss each other out and if the coasts clear it becomes more of a 1970s office environment (well more the more innocent aspects of one) and that goes for both sexes. I find the younger generations have polarised into total debauchery or the other extreme. 

i think the attitudes towards amateur glamour photographers has always been negative in the UK, an episode of inspector Morse put me off! I sometimes find when somebody knows I’m into photography, they’re trying to suss me out and if the coasts clear then sometimes show me their female nudes, I had that once at a picture framers. The guy took me to his office which was a gallery of nudes shot in Nevada desert. 

Edited by Perception

Huw said

JME Studios said

….

I would be very surprised if there's more than a handful of models who would do nude or even just topless TF.

Now I've said that watch me be proved completely wrong! 😂

There are at least three on my portfolio, including a big name US model, maybe more. Sometimes for several days.

You just need reliability and something that isn’t freely available elsewhere. Access to off-road places most people can’t get to, or modelling with horses

in my case.

Sometimes decent headshots will do it in exchange shooting my nudes. One new model got an interview with Models1 in London from my headshots. Fair exchange I think.

BLBP (Badly Lit Bedroom Porn), maybe not so much. I’d expect be paid to model for that. ;)

I think ultimately the "high street honeys" glamour era is over, and therefore the actually small pool of models who would have posed TFP for that sort of work even then, doesn't exist now. I find it difficult to believe that truly many models did that more than a couple of times, but there are certainly fewer models here now in that niche because of OnlyFans.

Again, I struggle to be really bothered by this. I'd expect to either find an artistic collaborator (whether that is a model who wants to work on a particular piece, or whether it is some of my friends who have posed nude for me) or pay a model. 

I don't think a culture where we expect there to be a supply of models posing nude or topless is healthy, and it appears to have gone the way of the culture that expected new models to be willing to work for free generally, as a subset of it. 

Unfocussed Mike fair points. I'd almost forgotten about High Street Honeys. I was of Uni age at its peak - FHM came to one of the nightclubs in the city each year to scout contestants and of course Nuts and Zoo had their own "girls" too. FHM was just as tits & bums as the two weeklies but they kind of justified it with lifestyle and tech features, stories about ex-servicemen, even a kind of agony aunt section. But we'll never see a HSH type contest again. UK Calendar Girls is probably the closest we come to that now.

JME Studios said

UK Calendar Girls is probably the closest we come to that now.

Oh dear is that still going on?

That's the one that is basically a MLM-type scheme where contestants had to beg people to vote for them by premium text, agree to do marketing events for the promoter, and some of the photographers in the past have been guys banned from here, right?

Lingerie modelling in a nightclub in the daytime? 

There was a very enlightening thread about that competition, about five years ago.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Unfocussed Mike said

JME Studios said

UK Calendar Girls is probably the closest we come to that now.

Oh dear is that still going on?

That's the one that is basically a MLM-type scheme where contestants have to beg people to vote for them, agree to do marketing events for the promoter, and some of the photographers in the past have been guys banned from here, right?

Dunno about the banned photographers (you may be right, though) but you're right about the other stuff. And, yes - it's still going on. :( 

On a visit a couple of years ago to Pompei they had completed the restoration of a Roman brothel and on the walls were painting of female & male sex workers. My point is this is a human trait and always will be.

I had the pleasure of working with Terrance Donovan who shot a Pirelli calendar his view always was if the models were being “used” so was he in taking the photographs for a third party, both were being paid and both gained exposure to further there careers.

Those calendars mainly ended up on garage walls with at the time 100% male mechanics but they became icons and collectibles bought & traded by both men & women.

Finally if you have ever visited the Vatican and seen the wonderful art collections, sculptures etc you can hardly walk ten paces without seeing both female and male nudes hundreds of thousands of people see these annually and don’t think twice about it. Context plays a huge part.

Orson Carter said

Unfocussed Mike said

JME Studios said

UK Calendar Girls is probably the closest we come to that now.

Oh dear is that still going on?

That's the one that is basically a MLM-type scheme where contestants have to beg people to vote for them, agree to do marketing events for the promoter, and some of the photographers in the past have been guys banned from here, right?

Dunno about the banned photographers (you may be right, though) but you're right about the other stuff. And, yes - it's still going on. :( 

Replying to myself... Oops!

UK Calendar Girls... There was a thread about it some time ago. The opinion of the 'contest' was...let's just say... less than favourable. I remember one comment about it. It was along the lines of 'A bit like Readers Wives for the 35-45 age group, but with cheap underwear and shot in a 1980s glamour style'. 

That's what someone else said - or something along those lines. I'm not giving an opinion. 

Orson Carter said

Dunno about the banned photographers (you may be right, though) but you're right about the other stuff. And, yes - it's still going on. :( 

I think this was discussed in a lively thread some years back -- a certain sadly unforgettable ex-member was shooting for them back in 2019, and some pushback from here got him removed from the competition. 

I remember chatting privately to a model who had a fair bit to say about it and I believe there were others in the South who had extremely poor reputations.

I'm amazed it is still going on. Gives me the ick.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Orson Carter

One model on here features in next years calendar and she’s mid-20s and stunning.

Though the calendar images themselves are only so-so. There’s far better in her portfolio.