Artist Era Tangar had always had a problem with how her body looked. Until recently that is. If you follow Tanger on Instagram (@blindlyfloating), you will be wowed by her sketches, but also her recent posts on body confidence. In one of her posts, she shows off her bare back; in another, she stands in front of a mirror with bare legs; in yet another, she faces the camera wearing a jacket with nothing underneath, her breasts camouflaged by a few illustrations

Tangar, a UP girl who is now based out of New Delhi, put the pictures out and has been flooded with both kinds of messages - lewd ones from men, and congratulatory ones from women who are inspired. "There`s a picture in which I face the camera - it`s one I didn`t even like. It showed me in a way I had never seen myself before. The look in my eyes and my body language were all alien to me. But there was this energy in the picture, and so I put it up. I realised that the positive messages mattered to me more than the bad ones. So, I really don`t think I care about what people think. This one`s for me"

Tangar is just one of the many uninhibited people on Indian social media sites, or dating apps, who are not shy about sharing their nude or semi-nude pictures. No wonder #sendnudes is a popular meme topic and an often asked question in the beginning of a relationship or a one-night stand. Instagram users in India would have also seen a steady rise in ordinary (and by that, we mean, non-celebrities) people putting up more revealing pictures of themselves, for a multitude of reasons, some of which are freedom of expression and body positivity. It`s become the order of the day

A New Delhi-based writer, 28, tells us that sometimes people have even refused to take forward a conversation with her on a dating app if she refused to send a nude. "It`s okay as long as you don`t show your face. You are anyway planning to get naked with this person, so it`s okay to give them a sneak peak"

A 27-year-old pilot, who flies between Dubai and Mumbai, often sends d*** pictures to women he meets on dating apps, but only after he has gotten to know them a little better. It`s all good, he says, in the world that we live in now. "My d*** pictures also have parts of my upper body because if one has a good body, why not flaunt it?