So I don’t consider myself to be a true exhibitionist, but I am a woman who as “dabbled” in exhibitionism firsthand for about a year now, and speaking for myself, I definitely lean towards the vulnerable / embarrassed side of the spectrum. The idea of being seen terrifies me, so when I practice exhibitionism, it’s always in a way such that there’s “technically” risk, but that risk is mostly imaginary. I pretty much only get naked in public in the dead of night when the rest of the world is asleep and in locations secluded enough that it’s extremely unlikely I’ll bump into someone else so late.

I think there’s a lot of factors that could influence how exhibitionists feel about public nudity and exposing themselves, especially for women since the history of sexualization / objectification is so much deeper for women than it is for men, but I think one’s stance on public nudity largely depends on their early impressionable experiences with sex. 

In my case, I was very patient and overly cautious with my relationships. I was in no rush to find a partner growing up and to this day, I’m very adamant about not letting my partners see me naked until I know I can trust them not to hurt me, physically or emotionally. I’m also lucky enough to have grown up in a very supportive family with 2 parents who actually love each other for who they are. All of this together shaped me into a person who doesn’t consider sex to be “the most important thing” in a relationship, and what that means is that the act of sex and nudity carry a special emotional significance for me, they're not things to be taken lightly. 

So, when I practice exhibitionism, the idea of being seen terrifies me because my body is for my partner’s eyes and their eyes alone, I’m not getting naked in public to proudly show myself off to others, I’m doing it because it’s a turn on for me and I believe it’s okay to indulge in your vices in moderation. Over time, I’ve come to realize during my time engaging in public nudity that while I wouldn’t call myself an exhibitionist, I definitely have a kink for exhibitionism. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with having a kink, I’d wager most people do, but kinks are usually something you should keep to yourself.

If I didn’t have the impressionable experiences I did though, if I had been more fast and loose with dating as a teenager, if I had come from a broken home that didn’t raise me to be responsible and to think about the consequences of my actions, I think it’s very possible I would have fallen on the opposite end of the spectrum and would enjoy unabashedly flashing my parts to strangers, because to that hypothetical version of myself, nudity wouldn’t have the same emotional weight it does for me currently. 

I’ve met women like this, some of them are close friends of mine even: Women who are big into hookups, short term relationships, one night stands, polyamory, etc… and it’s telling that they tend to be far more comfortable with showing themselves off and sending topless pictures to each other than I am. I think it’s because they’ve desensitized themselves to it all, nudity and sex isn’t as special to them (relatively speaking), it’s just… normal. I should mention I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, by all means, people should be allowed to live the way they want if it’s making them happy (so long as they don’t need to hurt anyone to do so anyways…) 

Objectification is another big thing that I think influences one’s stance on exposing themselves, but I can’t say much about it because I’ve fortunately never really been objectified in any meaningful way by anyone I’ve cared about, likely due to how overly cautious I was when selecting my partners. For those women who do get turned on from being seen, I do think there’s an element of “owning” their sexual agency, like they’re reclaiming it by proudly showing themselves off on their own terms, but I could also see objectification having the opposite effect too… someone might repress their sexual agency after being objectified since they have a history of being taken advantage of when they put themselves in an emotionally vulnerable position, IE being naked. 

Overall, really good conversation starter, I had a lot of fun thinking about this!