Hear me out: Sending nudes to an ex isn’t that bad

“It turns out, as with any situationship, it’s all about the power dynamic.”

I know what you might be thinking – absolutely not, never in a million years. Usually, I would agree and be of the mind that exes are exes for a reason and should be Ctrl, Alt, Deleted. One of my exes very much took that approach, a mere half an hour after we broke up. Our photos had been deleted from his Instagram, I’d been blocked on his socials and a knife had been well and truly wedged into my heart. 

This meant when I endured my last proper breakup, I wanted to keep things civil and respect the fact we were part of each other’s lives. I wanted us to ‘remain friends’. I certainly didn’t expect us to accidentally settle into a rather unorthodox, exes-with-benefits situationship almost a year later, but that’s what happened. And it wasn’t a total car crash.

Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.

For context, we broke up as he moved to another country. Subsequently, so did I and now we live on opposite sides of the world – me in Sydney and him in New York. I knew at the time we weren’t right for each other in the long run. Although we got on like a house on fire, weirdly we had almost nothing in common. This made for relentless bickering about stupid things, like why he had to spend so much time watching NFL, it’s so boring. 

The glue that held our relationship together was sex. We lusted after each other a lot. We’d have so much sex to the point that it’d be physically painful (on reflection I should really unpack that because that’s hectic af). The six months leading up to him leaving London were chaos: we’d broken up, become friends-with-benefits, broken up again, and got back together again all in the name of getting laid. Self-respect is overrated anyway! 

Fast-forward a couple of months post-breakup and we’ve both moved away, physically. Some turbulent texting proved the dynamic took the clichéd path of girl-initially-very-upset-but-gets-over-it and boy-didn’t-know-what-he-had-until-it-was-gone. You’d think neither of us had ever watched a romcom. 

A true soldier in the trenches, it was time for me to enter the monotonous cycle that is deleting-and-re-downloading Hinge and Bumble. I thought, okay, here we go again – let’s see what Sydney has to offer. It’s safe to say I was disappointed. Compared to my dating experiences in London, I found Australian men to be lazier and even worse communicators. And it’s not like London had set a particularly high bar.

Initially, a lot of on-app courting consisted of  “come over” on a Tuesday evening. The thought of an awkward, sober, pre-meditated one night stand, on a school night no less? I’ll pass, thanks so much though! 

As time passed, so did my emotional hangover and feelings towards my ex. Then he randomly started sliding into my DMs, more and more. On one drunken outreach, I caved to the attention and the whole affair became a bit chaotic. We were both single and as a result, the conversation started to take a friskier turn. We ended up sexting and sending each other nudes… a few times.

In my (sort of) wholesome era, I’ve no interest in sleeping with random people, but a girl still has needs. I found this situation, admittedly odd, gave me sexual enjoyment and validation when I craved it. Since I no longer had hard feelings towards him, it felt consensual and I trusted our correspondence wasn’t being shared.

Though my behaviour was frowned upon by friends who had to hear about the ongoing breakup saga, I, driven by delusion and a high sex drive, saw it as a bit of fun to enjoy with someone you trust – is it really such a big deal?

It turns out, as with any situationship, it’s all about the power dynamic. I didn’t see it as a massive deal, because while in theory I would still sleep with him, I knew I’d never seriously date him again. But as you traverse the emotional balancing act, when one goes up, the other goes down. I’d moved on, but he professed he was still in love with me. He wanted to fly me to New York to try give it another go (okay, delulu king). I confess, I felt very smug hearing this, but it takes the fun out of it when you know you might be leading someone on – even if it is an ex. 

So, would I recommend sending nudes to an ex? I’m no expert, but I can safely assume it’s not the healthiest, or most successful way to get over someone. But, if you can honestly say you’ve moved on from the pain of the break-up, it can certainly serve a purpose. I came away from the experience unbothered and unscathed. I can’t say the same for my ex though. If you do happen to find yourself in a similar situation, just make sure you’re on the right side of the emotional balancing act.  

For more on situationships, head here.