Welcome to Butt Week, friends! An entire week dedicated to butts and butt-adjacent stuff: how-tos, thoughtful essays, original art, pop culture critiques, music and more! You are absolutely not ready for this and yet it is happening to you, right now. Today Vanessa will teach you how to take a perfect ass selfie!

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A butt selfie is a special gift. Butts are so good, and to capture your own via the trusty lens of a smartphone camera is a true accomplishment. All butts are perfect for selfies, and all butt selfies are to be celebrated. But(t) — even the most dedicated selfie photographer can struggle with getting the perfect butt shot. That’s what this guide is for. We are here today because we’re gay, and also because we’re going to learn how to take a perfect butt selfie together in honor of Autostraddle’s Butt Week and your perfect butt.

I’ve written quite a bit about taking photos of oneself and feeling hot as a personal journey. A couple of years ago the whole team weighed in on How to Take a Winning Thirst Trap and I gave my input. Last year I instructed you How to Choose Dating App Photos That’ll Have Babes Swiping Hell Yes, and I shared How I Claimed Being Thirsty as a Personal Lifestyle and Learned to Live My Dreams. One of the Autostraddle posts I am most proud of writing is my You Are Hot, Yes You manifesto: Your Homework For 2019 Is To Assume Everyone Thinks You’re Hot, I’m Serious. And just this past March, Molly and I told you that Selfies Are Gonna Save The World. I bring all this past work up to say, as always, my number one tip to taking a great selfie, of your butt or otherwise, is confidence. This list is going to address the nitty gritty of how to pose or angle your camera to achieve maximum butt goodness, but as cliche as it sounds, a butt selfie is best when you are feeling yourself and your butt. So slap your own ass and let’s get down to business!

1. Use a Mirror

It’s challenging to see your own perfect ass, so of course it’s tricky to get a full blown selfie of it. When it comes to butt selfies, a well placed mirror is your BFF. You can take a casual mirror shot, where you stand in front of a full length mirror and angle your camera so that you can see your face and also a hint of your butt, like, oops wow look at that my butt just snuck into this selfie of my face! You can also take a more pointed specifically ass-focused shot, where you pose your butt in the mirror exactly how you want it and angle your camera so your butt is center stage, up close and personal.

If you’ve got a mirror you can move around – like it’s not nailed to your wall or bathroom cabinet – you can actually put the mirror on the floor or lean it against a chair to achieve the exact height you want to reflect your butt at. And it can’t be overlooked that for this purpose, a floor-to-ceiling mirror – whether it’s at your gym, in your dance studio, in your lover’s bedroom, or perhaps in your very own home! – is ideal, the literal dream.

2. Invest in a Tripod

A mirror is an amazing tool when it comes to capturing your butt on camera, but sometimes you don’t want to rely on a reflection. In this case, I am a big fan of a tripod, or for those of us who simply are not going to buy a device to take photos of our own butts, a makeshift situation that mimics a tripod!

The benefits of a tripod are that you can move it wherever you desire, so you’re not relegated to taking your butt selfies to the bathroom or to the only room in your house with an appropriately situated mirror. This is particularly useful if you live with other people and the ideal mirror exists in the common space (unless your housemates are very supportive of butt selfies in which case, fun group activity! And also, get excited for step 5!). You can also take a tripod outside to get perfect lighting, and if you’re feeling adventurous and really want to grab a butt selfie next to a waterfall or amongst a field of wildflowers, a tripod allows you to do this! The other main benefit of a tripod is that most come with a little remote control clicker for your phone/camera, so you don’t need to be holding your phone for the photo and are free to pose your hands however you desire.

Like I said, if you’re absolutely not going to purchase a tripod for this purpose but still want to make use of some of these perks, a makeshift situation works just fine. I’ve been known to lean my phone against a pile of pillows on my bed to get the perfect ass shot, or simply lean it against the place where the floor meets the wall for poses where I’m kneeling or crouching. You can do this in nature too – who hasn’t balanced her phone against a tree stump or a perfectly smooth rock to get that ass-in-nature shot? – but be mindful that if your phone falls it won’t be tumbling into a body of water, lurching off a cliff, etc.

3. Experiment With Different Poses

Whether you’re using a mirror, a tripod, or simply your own flexible arm, experimenting with different poses is the key to achieving the perfect butt selfie.

It must be noted that depending on the size and shape of your butt, your ability to photograph it at certain angles is going to be easier/harder/etc. That’s why experimenting is so important! I can tell you what works for me, but I cannot guarantee it will work for you. What I can guarantee is if you go into this venture of taking the perfect butt selfie with enthusiasm about the project and enthusiasm about your own butt, you’ll have fun and you’ll definitely succeed.

To get you started, here are some poses that work for me:

• Stand up, bend one knee, and shift your weight so that you pop the opposite hip. Stick your butt out a little more than you would if you were standing naturally.
• Lie down, experiment with flexing your butt muscles vs. relaxing your butt muscles.
• Lie down, push your butt up a tiny bit so you’re not really lying down naturally but you’re also not really on all fours, you’re just like, lying down with your butt in the air a little bit.
• Lie on your stomach, one leg extended the other bent and pulled a little high, with your back arched – it makes your booty look extra big and round (this hot tip comes directly from Dani!).
• Kneel on the ground and rest your butt on your heels.
• Kneel on the ground and don’t rest your butt on your heels.
• Get on all fours, spread your legs out, and really stick your butt in the air.
• Sit on the ledge of something (a swimming dock, your coffee table, etc).
• Stand up totally relaxed and chill but put both your hands over your butt to draw attention to it.

4. Consider Your Butt Selfie Outfit

I think it’s a misnomer to assume a butt selfie has to be inherently thirsty or slutty, and I think a major way to make it clear if your butt selfie is For Cruising or For Wholesome Light Flirting or perhaps even Just For Fun is through the outfit you choose to cover your butt with.

Imagine a butt selfie where the butt is clad in denim. Hot and fun! Now imagine a butt selfie where that denim back pocket is flagging a red hanky. Hot and sexy and potentially cruising! Now imagine a butt selfie where the butt is not covered at all, but is lightly framed by a perfect pink velvet thong? Hot and extremely thirsty!

Your outfit can also come in handy if you’re a little shy about taking a butt selfie. Wearing a skirt that you can hike up a tiny bit to show the very bottom of your butt cheeks and nothing else is a great way to dip your toe into the world of butt selfies (and very hot, in my opinion!). If you’re really confident in your ass but kind of shy about posting photos of it, you can model a hot new bikini and post a butt selfie like, “oh look at my cute bikini!” And of course, if you’re sending deeply sultry thirst traps to a crush or a pal and you want to spice up your bare naked ass, fancy lingerie, skintight pants, or a particularly slutty short skirt all work great.

5. Ask a Friend for Help

This is controversial, but I don’t ever feel like a selfie needs to be taken all by yourself to qualify. Sure, the term selfie literally means a photo you take of yourself, but when I learned self-portraiture in high school photography class our teacher let us know that if we didn’t have a tripod and a remote for our manual film cameras, it was perfectly acceptable to set up a shot exactly how we wanted it and then ask a friend to push the button. I feel the same way about selfies. Asking a friend for help isn’t cheating – it’s community!

(This portion of advice assumes you are taking COVID precautions into account. Try not to hangout with friends outside of your pod indoors, to take butt selfies or do anything! Wear masks, stay outside, avoid large public gatherings, etc.)

It’s totally fine to ask a pal to help you take the butt selfie of your dreams; if they want some butt selfies too you can return the favor and give feedback about what’s working and what could be improved! I find it helpful to model exactly how I want the shot; I have my friend act as “me” and pose so I can take the photo and frame it perfectly to my liking. If you don’t have a pal who you trust to actually take the butt selfies for you, you can still ask for your friends’ help – text them your favorite butt selfies and ask for input and feedback and compliments, duh.

And finally, a great way to ask a friend for help in this venture is to take a butt selfie with your pal! The only thing better than one butt is two butts, so why not take some fun butt selfies together? Nothing says “queer community” like a group butt selfie!

Feature image shows Vanessa’s butt and Nikki’s butt.

Have you ever taken a butt selfie before? Are you going to take a butt selfie now? What’s your favorite way to take a butt selfie? Are you going to send a butt selfie in for our A+ Community Butt Gallery, publishing this very Friday, in celebration of BUTT WEEK? (How many times can I say butt selfie?!)

If you would like to be included in our butt gallery, which will feature anonymous butt selfies from our very own community and which will only be available behind the A+ paywall and is only open to readers 18+, email me – vanessa [at] autostraddle [dot] com – with the subject line MY BUTT by WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21. No additional info needed, all butts will be anonymous, simply send me a high-res photo of your butt. Nudity absolutely not required; if you do decide to be nude you may include your crack but no holes please! HAPPY BUTT WEEK!

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