- General FAQs
- Certification FAQs
- Privacy FAQs
-
Photo FAQs
- Do I have to post my nudes here?
- Do I have to include my face in my nudes?
- What appears on the Site Gallery?
- Why can't I feature my photo on the Site Gallery? NEW Jan 5 2024
- Can I include other people in my photos?
- What is considered "explicit" in photos?
- Are digitally altered or 'photoshopped' pictures okay?
- Does this site prevent people from downloading my pictures?
- Forum FAQs
- Chat Room FAQs
- Shy Account FAQs
- Technical FAQs
General FAQs
Why was this site built?
This site was developed as a response to growing uncertainty as to the future of available social networking sites for nudists and exhibitionists to use. Back in 2018, Tumblr was put under pressure and they banned all NSFW users from their platform. In 2020, Pornhub also fell victim and deleted 80% of all user content on their site. In 2021, Onlyfans almost fell victim to the same scheme: there is a group of anti-porn prudes who are systemically combing across the Internet and trying to get the very concept of porn and nudity banned from online.
Alongside that story, there is growing uncertainty in general about the future of free speech and "safe harbor laws" for social network service providers online. Depending on how it shakes out, it may become risky for sites such as Twitter and Reddit to remain online if the service providers become liable for content uploaded by their users. It seems likely that one day Twitter and Reddit will chase NSFW users away like Tumblr did and it may be risky for any new startups to fill that void (Onlyfans and most adult sites have switched to requiring photo ID to verify your accounts!)
When a site has random unverified users able to post random content, you end up with some awful things being posted - which traumatizes site moderators and provides hooks for the anti-porn brigade that took down Tumblr to come for your site as well. This website was designed for this modern environment, and intends to keep on top of things from day one.
What makes this site different?
In the context of the modern Internet we live in, this site does things a bit differently:
- Only real people may join this site. No faceless, anonymous throw-away profiles. Everyone needs a face picture on their profile and to submit a "verification selfie" holding a sheet of paper to prove their picture is them. You don't need to have your face and nude body together in a picture, but a face pic as your default profile picture is mandatory.
- Only self pictures are allowed. You must be featured in a picture to post it. No "porn blogs" of random content you found online!
- Unlike some other nudist websites, exhibitionist content is permitted here. You are allowed to post erections, hole pics, masturbation or sexual content (within reason - nothing illegal or grossly offensive). We only ask that you tag your photo as explicit so that nudists who don't want to see that stuff can filter it away. This site is "nudist friendly" by default -- opt-in to see explicit content if you like that stuff!
What do you define as an "exhibitionist?"
"Exhibitionist" may not be the best word but the way I define it is basically "sex-positive nudism," or in contrast to the common sentiment that some nudists have that says you must "keep the sex out of nudism." For example, many nudist websites don't allow pictures that contain an erect penis at all.
I don't know a better word for it, and "sex-positive nudist" is a bit of a mouthful. Some exhibitionists are all about getting their rocks off from being sexual in inappropriate public places, 'flashing' poor unsuspecting strangers. This is not what I'm about, at all! Consent is sexy, and your displays of sexuality should only be for consenting audiences who like to see that stuff. That's why on {{PrettyTitle}}, you may upload that hot content but just mark it as 'Explicit' so others may have some choice in whether they have to see it.
Why does {{PrettyTitle}} permit sexual content?
Some may find it interesting that a "nudist" website allows this stuff at all, when so many others frown on it. It may help to describe some of my [the site founder's] background and my own journey into nudism, and this question can be answered in two parts:
-
I got started into nudism through the path of "taking nude photos and sharing them online" and the initial goal I set out for was to "get a picture of everything I possibly could do while naked," from doing mundane household chores to getting into fully sexual/porn type of content. So, when I was going to build my own nudist social network, of course it had to allow for people like me. There's a whole "sex-positive nude world" on the Internet (we were on Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, and everywhere) as a whole parallel community to the anti-sex nudists ('classic nudists' or 'prudists' for shorthand).
As a nudist and an exhibitionist, I can behave myself fine when in the company of 'classic nudists.' I can go to a nude resort and not be weird or inappropriate at all, and I am 100% on the same page as you when I find it creepy and awkward when somebody at such a place is being inappropriate. I have accounts on some 'regular naturism' sites and post only my mildest nudes there. But I do feel a little constrained or like I am walking on eggshells sometimes in that kind of environment.
-
Secondarily, simply for being a gay man I would not be welcomed by much of the mainstream establishment nudist community, such as AANR in the States. Many of such nude resorts have a "no single men" policy and they consider a gay couple to be "two single men." I understand that they want to avoid creepers and gawkers who show up just to ogle the women, but this inherently homophobic policy that the mainstream naturism communities holds means that, if I were to build a 'classy' nudism site, I would be catering to people who would not even have me as a member themselves.
If you are looking for a prudist site, there are plenty of other options you can look at. But {{PrettyTitle}} is unapologetically a sex-positive nudist site and we are all consenting adults here who can share our naked journey with like-minded individuals online.
Keep in mind, the default website experience is that the 'explicit' content is gated away and is opt-in to see it. Members mark their 'explicit' photos as such, and you opt-in to see explicit photos and forums in your settings. This way we might strike a balance and be able to support nudists from both sides of the spectrum. But if you find it uncomfortable to know that exhibitionists even exist on this site, then we may not be right for you, and we wish you good luck elsewhere.
Certification FAQs
What does certification mean, and what is a "verification selfie"?
This website requires all members to be "certified" or proven to be real human beings on the other side of the keyboard. A "verification selfie" is where you take a picture of yourself holding onto a hand-written note on a sheet of paper to prove that you are a real person (and not just catfishing with somebody else's stolen photos).
Certification helps protect our members from harassment by anonymous trolls or automated spam robots that plague other similar sites.
Do I need to send a "verification selfie"?
Yes.
Certification is required before you can gain access to the greater community on this website. Pre-certification, you may only access your own profile page and settings, but can not browse the member list, see the site Photo Gallery, or participate on the forums until your profile has been certified.
Your certification photo is only seen by site administrators and does not appear on your profile page.
Note: there's no need for this to be a nude pic, either. Just your face is OK so we can see if it looks like the face pic you're presenting on your profile page.
Why the hard requirement to certify?
I didn't set out to build "just another social network" that allows for random, faceless, anonymous people to sign up - you can do that literally anywhere else. This website was designed specifically to get ahead of what happened with Tumblr, Pornhub and other sites in recent history. It wasn't just a random whim of Tumblr when they kicked all of the nudists and other NSFW users off of their platform -- they were pressured to do so by a vocal minority of anti-porn prudes who have been working their way across the Internet and trying to make sure that nudists, exhibitionists, porn stars and sex workers have no place at all to exist online.
I have been watching how these groups operate. They throw out wild claims that a website like Tumblr or Pornhub is running rampant with illegal content (such as child sexually abusive material, human trafficking, revenge porn or so on) and use that as a scapegoat to put pressure on a website via the banks and advertisers into either bending the knee or shutting down completely. Tumblr elected to just blanket ban all NSFW users from the platform, Pornhub deleted 80% of all user content from their site, and Onlyfans nearly fell as well (before they decided instead to require government-issued photo ID from their members, which I do not want to do).
This group wildly exaggerates statistics and misrepresents their finding to push along an agenda which is really just anti-porn, period; but the fact of the matter is that any wide open public website that allows random people to just sign up and start posting things will always technically leave room for those kinds of claims to be thrown around. If a website doesn't require a user to verify their face, you'll get bad actors who sign up blank, throwaway accounts (probably hiding behind a VPN, too, to conceal their location) and start spreading god awful things on a site and it becomes a game of whack-a-mole for site moderators to keep on top of (not to mention the trauma it causes for moderators who need to deal with all that shit). I don't want any of that nonsense on this website.
The certification requirement should help curb a lot of that and bring some other nice benefits besides for the other members of this site:
- It will deter blank, faceless profiles from signing up and then sliding into your DMs and getting all pervy and weird on you. This happens so freaking often on other nudist websites and nobody likes that - we are here posting our nude pics out in the open and don't want random anonymous creepers who won't reveal themselves in an equally meaningful way.
- It will help keep automated spam robots at bay; a non-certified account will have a terrible time trying to discover any user here that they could send their spam to, as the Forums, Member Directory and Site Photo Gallery are off-limits to non-certified users.
- It will keep members accountable: I don't expect anyone would dare upload illegal content here when their certified face picture is on file.
I understand that certification may be inconvenient for some members. I know there are plenty of people for whom it isn't a concern at all. I may be able to work with you on an alternative method for certification; see the next section, below.
What can non-certified members do?
Before you have an approved certification photo, you can mainly only access and edit your own profile page, and upload a few pictures while you await approval. Your pictures won't be shown to members on the Site Gallery until you're certified, and most of the website's features (namely, the Forums, Site Gallery and Member Search Directory) are gated behind certification.
Certified members may, at their own discretion, be able to find your profile page by browsing the Member Directory. They may send you a friend request or reach out to you. Or, if you happen to know a member's profile URL on this site, you (the non-certified member) can view their profile page and photo gallery (depending on their privacy settings), send them a friend request or direct message. But basically, it will be difficult to discover users to interact with until after you are certified - and this is intentional to help guard against spam bots and creepy people.
Privacy FAQs
Can my Profile Picture be kept private?
You may set your Profile Picture to be "Friends only" or "Private" visibility if you wish to be more discreet about your face pictures.
-
Friends only
:
your profile pic displays as a yellow
placeholder image for people who are not on your Friends list.
-
Private
:
your profile pic displays as a purple
placeholder image for everybody except for people that you had
granted access to see your
private photos.
{{if .CurrentUser.IsInnerCircle}}
-
{{PrettyCircle}}
:
your profile pic displays as a gradient
placeholder image for members outside the inner circle.
- Note: only {{PrettyCircle}} members see this info on the FAQ page. Members outside the circle will see the gradient avatar, but be told that it means "Private."
{{end}}
Note that it is required that your default profile picture must include your face, but with the visibility settings you may limit who will see it if you need to.
If you find a member's gallery where they have no face visible in any of their pictures, it may be that their default profile picture is just not visible to you, and a notice appears at the top of their gallery page if this is the case.
If you find a member whose profile photo you can see, and it also does not include their face, please report their profile to the admin.
What are the visibility options for my profile page?
There are currently three different choices for your profile visibility on your Settings page:
- The default visibility is "Public + Login Required." Users must be logged-in to an account in order to see anything about your profile page - if an external (logged out) browser visits your profile URL, they will be redirected to log in to an account first.
- You may optionally go more public with a "Limited Logged-out View." This enables your profile URL (e.g., {{if .LoggedIn}}/u/{{.CurrentUser.Username}}{{else}}/u/username{{end}}) to show a basic page (with your square profile picture and display name) to logged-out browsers. This may be useful if you wish to link to your page from an external site (e.g. your Twitter page) and present new users with a better experience than just a redirect to login page.
- You may "Mark my profile as 'private'" to be private even from other logged-in members who are not on your Friends list. Logged-in users will see only your square profile picture and display name, and be able only to send you a friend request or a message.
How do I delete direct messages (DMs)?
You have two options for deleting your private one-on-one chat messages.
You can delete your own messages by clicking on the "Delete" button that appears below them. This deletes your message from both of your threads, and (if unread), will not notify them that they had an unread message.
You can delete the whole thread by using the "Delete whole thread" button at the bottom of the conversation. This will remove both of your chat history with one another and make it like you never exchanged a DM before at all.
How does blocking somebody work on nonshy?
If somebody on {{PrettyTitle}} is bothering you or you just do not wish to see their presence or content around the website anymore, you may "Block" them by going to their profile page and clicking on the Block button.
When you block somebody, {{PrettyTitle}} draws a hard line between your two accounts and will make it so that you two do not see each other anywhere on the website:
- You will not see them on the Member Directory, you will not see them in the Forums (their posts and comments will be hidden), you will not see them in comment threads on peoples' photos, or in their "Likes" lists, or anywhere.
- If you had any Direct Messages with them in the past: your conversation threads will be hidden from view on both sides. If you unblock them later, you will be able to see your old conversation threads again.
- On the chat room: you will not see each other in the "Who's Online" list and you won't see any messages sent by each other in chat.
- This block applies in both directions: you will not see them, and they will likewise not see you either.
The idea is that if you block somebody, it should look as though they may have just deleted their {{PrettyTitle}} account completely and you should not see them anymore and they should not see you either.
If you find any corner of the site where this fails to happen (and you see somebody who you have blocked), please report it as a bug to be fixed.
Photo FAQs
Do I have to post my nudes here?
You should be comfortable with doing so, but it isn't a hard requirement. On some other nudist social websites, many nudists have lamented to me about how often they get messages by anonymous, faceless profiles who slide into their DMs and get all pervy and weird on them. While {{PrettyTitle}} only requires a face pic and verification selfie, other members will feel more comfortable if you post some of your own nudes as well.
It's kind of like nude beach etiquette: no nudist at a nude beach enjoys it much when people arrive who refuse to get naked and they're just there to gawk and be a peeping tom and perv out over all the naked bodies they see. If you don't want to post any nudes here, at least don't act weird or creepy with people here.
Do I have to include my face in my nudes?
You don't have to! I know many nudists are not comfortable with their face appearing in their nudes. You are free to post "headless torso shots" or leave your face covered or censored. But you should have at least one face pic (as your default profile pic) - it can be a G-rated selfie!
If you're only comfortable with posting like close-up dick pics, please mark those pics as "explicit" -- many nudists prefer to see the whole nude body and don't want to see just dick pics everywhere. And don't set those as your default profile pic!
What appears on the Site Gallery?
The " Gallery" link on the site nav bar goes to the Site-wide Photo Gallery page. Here is shown all of the public photos uploaded by all (certified) users, if those pictures are also opted-in to appear on the Gallery in their settings.
If you have friends on here, you may also see their "Friends-only" photos on the Site Gallery. This way, you don't miss any updates if your friends add a new picture (so long as they allow their picture to appear on the Gallery).
When you upload a picture you may opt it in or out of the Gallery by checking a box on its settings page. For example, you can upload a Public photo but opt it out of the Gallery -- it will then only appear on your profile page.
Why can't I feature my photo on the Site Gallery?
In January 2024 we have added a rate limit on how frequently you can upload a new photo and have it appear on the site-wide Photo Gallery in order to cut down on "spam" when a new member would sign up and immediately upload all 100 of their photos to their gallery page.
We don't want the Site Gallery to be dominated by large swaths of only one person's photos that go on for pages and pages, so you may only feature up to 5 photos per day on the Site Gallery. When you have 5 or more photos, uploaded within the last 24 hours and marked to share with the Site Gallery, you will not be able to add additional photos to the gallery until you wait a day OR edit one of those recent photos to remove it from the gallery.
If you have been throttled from sharing new Site Gallery photos, your options are:
- To come back tomorrow and upload your new photo if you want it featured on the Site Gallery.
- To edit one of your 5 most recent Site Gallery photos and un-check the Gallery box: this may free up room so that your new upload can be shared with the Site Gallery if you really want to feature it now.
- To upload it anyway to your personal gallery, even though it won't be featured on the site-wide gallery. If you want to upload all 100 of your nudes as soon as you get your {{PrettyTitle}} account certified, go ahead! You just aren't allowed to spam the Site Gallery with all your uploads all at once.
Our recommendation: take it slow! Share a few pictures per day on your gallery until you eventually fill it out. This is also a better way to get engagement on your photos: your friends are more likely to "Like" and comment on your photos if you drip feed them slowly vs. if you upload your 100 photos all at once.
Can I include other people in my photos?
It can be acceptable to include other people in your photos here - for example pictures of you and your partner together or you with a group of your naked buddies. However, please observe the following rules:
- Be sure you have the permission of everybody pictured to upload their photo here. I don't want any "revenge porn" type content uploaded without somebody's consent!
- You all must be in the same photo together - that is it must be a "normal picture" taken on a camera that caught you all in the same frame. Do NOT upload a "split-frame" picture where you simply combined two wholly different photos side-by-side into one image: it is not clear from such a picture whether you two even know one another and it's not a precedent I want to see set on this site.
What is considered "explicit" in photos?
On this website, I make a fairly common distinction between what's a "normal nude" and what's an "explicit" photo:
- "Normal nudes" are completely non-sexual in nature. If there's a penis, it's not erect and it's not being grabbed. "Normal nudes" are not close-up pictures that focus on the genitals, but tend to be full body shots of a non-sexual nature.
- "Explicit" posts are everything else: if it includes an erection, or you're grabbing your junk, or flashing your various holes, or masturbating or engaging in a sexual activity, these all fall under the "explicit" umbrella. If one would reasonably consider it to be porn, it's explicit.
You are permitted to upload explicit content to your profile, just mark which pictures are explicit to help the rest of the community in case someone prefers not to see that. You can enable a setting on your profile if you are comfortable with seeing explicit content from other users -- by default this site is "normal nudes" friendly!
Are digitally altered or 'photoshopped' pictures okay?
In small doses, modified pictures may be permitted if you consider them to be artwork inspired by your real photos. For example, the founder of this website likes to create "clone pictures" featuring multiple copies of himself around a scene together. Some guidelines to follow when it comes to Photoshopped images include:
- You must have several not modified photos on your profile page as well, that shows what you really look like. If every picture on your page is digitally altered, you look like a fake profile and you may have your account deleted.
- You should not use image manipulation to improve or falsify your look. This includes Instagram or Snapchat "beauty filters" or using Photoshop to change the shape of your body and promote a false image of unrealistic beauty.
- You should mention in your image caption, if it is not obvious, that the picture has been digitally altered so that nobody is confused.
Some examples of acceptable use cases for Photoshop include:
- Changing or removing the background of your photo (e.g. for privacy purposes)
- Minor touch-ups to cover pimples or small blemishes - but do not "air brush" and repaint your whole skin tone or smooth over all your wrinkles and present an unrealistic image of yourself.
Does this site prevent people from downloading my pictures?
This website does not go out of its way to prevent people from downloading pictures, and nor will it pretend to. This is actually a very difficult problem to solve in the year {{.YYYY}}.
I could add some JavaScripts that prevent right-clicking on my pages so you can't just "Save image as," but this would only deter desktop (mouse & keyboard) users and is easy to work around. I could place a transparent image over top of all your pictures like Instagram does and if you try and save it, you just get a one-pixel transparent GIF; but this is trivially defeated by any novice web designer by just right-clicking, "Inspect element" and deleting it from the web page to get at the photo it was protecting.
And people can always just screenshot the whole web page - and a web page can't do anything at all to prevent that. With mobile phones this is an especially easy and common thing to do. Any mild measures this site could take to deter downloading would only provide a false sense of security, which is worse than having no security.
There are risks inherent with putting a picture on the Internet. This website does provide some controls you can utilize as to who will see the pictures you upload:
- You can mark pictures as "Friends only" and only approved friendships you make on this website will be able to see those pictures.
- You may mark some pictures as "Private" and you grant access to your private photos on a per-person basis, and can revoke access to one or all at any time.
- This website also chooses utterly random URLs for each and every picture, with no correlation between the square cropped and full size versions, so users should only be able to discover pictures through the normal front-end of this website, subject to your privacy controls.
It is against the site rules to repost other members' pictures without their permission. If you know that a member has reposted your nudes, please report them and let us know!
Forum FAQs
What do the various badges on the forum mean?
You may see some of these badges on the forums or their posts. These are their meanings:
- Explicit - on a forum it means the entire forum is "NSFW"; but individual topics within an otherwise non-explicit forum may also opt in to the Explicit tag if its content is border-line. You will not see any Explicit forums or posts unless you opt-in to see explicit content in your settings.
- Privileged - only a forum's moderators can create new topics in a Privileged forum (such as the forum for Site Announcements). Moderators include the site admins, the creator of the forum, and any additional moderators appointed by the forum creator.
- Pinned - these forum posts are pinned to the top of a forum, appearing above regular posts on the first page of the forum.
- No Reply - topics with this badge can not accept any new replies. Some types of announcement posts may start with this badge from the beginning; other threads that are locked by a moderator may gain this badge if the conversation was going off the rails.
Can I create my own forums?
This feature is coming soon! Users will be allowed to create their own forums and act as moderator within their own board. The forum admin pages need a bit more spit & polish before it's ready!
Some related features with managing your own forums will include:
- You'll be able to make your forum "invite-only" if you want, where only approved members can see and reply to threads.
- You'll be able to choose other users to help you moderate your forum. As the forum owner, you'll retain admin control of your forum unless you assign ownership away to another member.
Chat Room FAQs
Who can access the chat rooms?
The chat room is available to all certified members who have public photos on their profile page. Shy Accounts who have private profiles or keep all their pictures hidden are not permitted in the chat room at this time - but they may get their own separate room later where they can bother other similarly shy members there.
The chat room supports webcam sharing and so we only permit non-shy people into the room so as to put our minds at peace - that whoever is watching your camera at least has a public face picture on their page.
What are the technical requirements to use the chat room?
The chat room seems to work the best on the following combination of devices and web browsers:
- Firefox and Chromium-based web browsers on all desktop-like operating systems including Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Chromium-based browsers include Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave or others that are based on the open source Chromium browser.
- On Android devices, all Firefox and Chromium-based browsers are generally working quite well.
The chat room and video sharing generally works well on the above devices. Below are some that are known to have issues with the chat room at this time:
- Safari on Mac OS X usually works for the text chat portions (entering the room and chatting), but webcam sharing doesn't seem to work (either broadcasting or viewing others' cameras).
- iPhone and iPad (all web browsers) have difficulty logging in to the chat room at all. Chrome or Firefox do not work on iOS, either - because under the hood all web browsers on iOS are just custom wrappers around Mobile Safari, which doesn't like my chat room right now. So unfortunately, Apple mobile devices can not use the chat room.
I can't share or connect to other peoples' webcams
First, verify that you're using a known supported device when accessing the chat room. Generally this means you're running a Firefox or Chromium-based browser on a desktop computer, laptop, or Android device. Webcam sharing does not work at all in Safari on Mac OS, and portable Apple devices such as iPad and iPhone do not work with the chat room at all.
If you are on a supported device, check out the following information about how webcam sharing works:
-
When you click on the "Start webcam" button, your browser should prompt you to
share your webcam and microphone and then you should see your own camera feed
on the page above the chat history panel.
-
If you do not see your own webcam, check your web browser settings
and verify you gave permission to
chat.nonshy.comto access your camera. - Any device with a camera should be able to at least get far enough to see your own camera feed on the page if you give it permission to access it.
-
If you do not see your own webcam, check your web browser settings
and verify you gave permission to
-
For sharing your webcam to others (for them to open your camera, as well as
for you to open somebody else's camera and watch them), this currently requires
a peer-to-peer connection between your device and the other party's.
- This uses a technology called WebRTC and it usually works in most cases. Even if both you and the other person are behind firewalls on your respective networks (e.g. behind a home WiFi network that performs Network Address Translation), you can usually establish a peer-to-peer connection and share video regardless.
- Sometimes, the network conditions on either end of the connection do not permit a peer-to-peer connection. This can happen in some corporate or school networks which filter and block unauthorized connections.
A couple of steps you can try and troubleshoot this issue include:
- Try logging on from a different web browser. For example, if you are using Firefox and you can't open somebody's video, try switching to a Chromium browser and see if it works better there.
- If there are many people online, try opening somebody else's camera. It may be the case that the person you were trying to see is behind a network that doesn't allow you to connect in, but it may work to open somebody else's camera instead.
If all else fails, it's unfortunate but at least the text chat functions should work at least. Some big video apps like Zoom or Jitsi Meet tend to work better because, if you can't establish a peer-to-peer connection, they will fall back on using a proxy server to transmit your video through to the other party. The {{PrettyTitle}} chat room does not have such a proxy server -- because the bandwidth can get expensive to carry video across! Only peer-to-peer video sharing is supported at this time.
Where can I learn more about the chat room?
Please also see the Chat Help page which gives a tour of the chat room interface and some additional information about how to use the chat room.
Shy Account FAQs
One of the things that {{PrettyTitle}} wishes to avoid is the dreaded "blank profile" that slides into our DMs and gets creepy and weird on us. You are encouraged to participate on this site and share at least one public photo with the community. You may opt to have only "G-rated face pics" on public and nudes on private, or keep your face on private and share some body shots with your face cropped out on public - but share at least one good picture on public.
When your profile page or photos are all set to Private or Friends-only, you will be considered to have a Shy Account. A Shy Account can still interact on the forums but will have limited options to interact with non-restricted ({{PrettyTitle}}) members.
What restrictions apply to Shy Accounts?
The limits placed on Shy Accounts are:
- The Site Gallery will only show you pictures of people equally as shy as you are. That is, you may see your own pictures and those of Friends you have added, but you don't see public shares of {{PrettyTitle}} people who aren't your friends.
- Messages: you may slide into the DMs only of other shy members but you can not initiate DMs with a {{PrettyTitle}} one who is not on your Friends list. At their own discretion, they may initiate a chat with you and then you can reply to them.
- You can view anybody's Profile Page but you can not see a {{PrettyTitle}} account's Photo Gallery unless they are your Friend or have shared their private pictures with you.
- You can not join the Chat Room. You guys may soon get your own chat room, though. Many of us {{PrettyTitle}} nudists would not enjoy our webcams being watched by blank profiles.
The idea is to keep the shy members isolated from the non-shy ones. We nudists are sharing what we can and we don't want creepers to be ogling our nudes and not sharing anything in return. If all your pics are private, you look like a blank profile to us - and you will be kept with the other blank profiles until you choose to participate.
What can Shy Accounts do?
There are still a lot things you can do with your certified but Shy Account:
- You can still participate on the Forums and meet new friends that way - by contributing to discussions, ideally.
- You can send a Friend request to anybody and if they accept you can see their Photo Gallery and pictures appear in the Site Gallery.
- You can send DMs to other shy people like yourself, and reply to DMs that were sent by anybody who messages you first.
- You can browse the Member Directory and view public profile pages and send friend requests to whoever.
How do I fix it?
Leaving Shy Account territory is easy:
- Don't have your profile page set to private. Only logged-in, certified members can see your page, anyway!
- Have at least one public picture to share with the class. Ideally, it will be your profile picture that shows your face, but we'll settle for a good headless body shot. We're all sharing our nudes here, we'd like it if you participated as well.
If you are new to all of this, here are some ideas how you can manage your photo gallery to have at least one public picture to share:
- You could have a single, "G-rated" face pic as your Public profile picture, and have the others on Friends-only or Private.
- You could upload all your "G-rated" face pics as Public, and have nudes (with your face cropped out if you need) on Friends-only or Private.
- You could have a non-public profile pic along with "anonymized" nudes on Public, full nudes w/ face on Friends-only, and sexual stuff on Private that you unlock on a per-person basis.
- You can opt-out of the Site Gallery by un-checking the Gallery box on the upload page. Your public photos then would only been seen if somebody clicks through your profile page to see your gallery.
Technical FAQs
Why did you build a custom website?
Other variants on this question might be: why not just run a Mastodon instance? Or why this website and not a Discord server or MeWe group or insert off-the-shelf free software or hosted web service here?
It certainly would've been simpler to just use an off-the-shelf open source app such as Mastodon (a decentralized, Twitter-like app) or similar. These apps though have a scalability problem: users with their infinitely long timelines will upload infinite photos until your server runs out of disk space and not enough of them may donate to cover the costs. And the Fediverse feature (Mastodon is like e-mail and users from all servers can like, follow and comment on one another across the entire network) is a double edged sword too: all my members would need to tag even their "normal nudes" as NSFW or else other servers would ban ours (meaning we have to follow rules imposed by the wider Internet community), and conversely it is difficult to moderate incoming content from other servers showing up on my users' timelines. It's not a good fit for the vision I had in mind.
And on just using a service like Discord or MeWe to host my community: that's still putting us in the hands of a corporation which can one day decide to ban all NSFW users. Many people run nudist Discords and MeWe groups, but I needed something whose fate is kept in my own hands.
Is this website open source?
Yes! The source code for this website is released as free software under the GNU General Public License. It is programmed in Go and the source code is available at code.nonshy.com/nonshy/website. If you're a developer and would like to contribute bug fixes or new features to the website, see details here.