Lights, Camera, Action: How To Make Porn - And Keep It Private

Whether you're interested in spicing up your love life or seriously considering a porn industry career, there's more to taking sexy pictures of yourself than sticking your phone down your pants.

But we live in a digital age: It's tough, and getting tougher, to prevent your oh-so-very private images and videos from accidentally going public - or being exploited by people who might try to use them for their own gain.

If you want to make porn that's just for you and/or your partner(s), you'll first need to understand and accept a few things:

1. Pornography is explicit sexual material created by and for consenting adults ONLY. No exceptions; no ifs, ands or buts.
2. There's no way to distribute anything digitally while keeping it 100 percent secure. In other words, getting naked in front of a camera is inherently going to carry some risk of accidental exposure. (The key word here is "accidental." If someone to whom you send your sexy pics/vids shares them without your consent, that's revenge porn -- and it's a crime in many places.)
3. Consent is revokable at any time for any reason. And consent is necessary for more than sex itself! If you're shooting with other people, remind them that if -- at any point -- they are no longer comfortable with the content being online, they can revoke their consent to have it posted or otherwise distributed.

If you thoroughly understand the above and still want to make movies or snap pictures that'll make you look and feel like a porn star, these basic tips will help reduce the possibility of exposure:

1. Shoot Your Body, Not Your Face

Think very carefully about what pictures or videos you plan on taking and what you intend to do with them, because even novice porn stars' best-laid plans can go astray.

Simple though it may sound, an effective way to keep yourself out of the limelight is to shoot your body, not your face. To further obfuscate your identity, you might try adding a mask and covering any distinct piercings/tattoos.

2. Obscure Your Location

Your filming location can also say too much about you.

If you're filming on a device with internet access, like your phone, tablet, laptop or computer, begin by turning off your phone's location services.

Then, do your best to remove any identity identifiers from your set. This could include diplomas, sports jerseys, family photos and location-specific items such as posters or banners. If you have the means, you can streamline this process by checking yourself into a comfortably generic hotel rather than shooting in your own house or apartment.

After you finish shooting, carefully examine every shot to ensure nothing too revealing slipped through. If anything did, delete the file or edit it out.

Another word of warning: If you're editing your video using an internet-based platform, any clips you upload -- even the ones you edit out -- will live online, in some capacity, forever.

3. Choose the Right Camera Angle

Most smartphone cameras today will do the trick for enthusiastic porn amateurs. But finding the right angles can be tricky! Thankfully, a good-quality selfie stick or adjustable mount with a Bluetooth remote trigger is a great tool for making you the center of sin-ematic attention.

Ideally, your phone should be positioned wherever it can capture the most of you and your sexy nakedness and the least of everything else. Your bed frame? Not a great idea -- it'll probably rock and roll along with whatever sexy activities you'll perform. Better to fix it on a tall chair or bookcase to avoid making wobbly porn videos.

4. Set Up Your Sound

For amateurs, high-end microphones can be more trouble than they're worth: They'll cost you a pretty penny and they might pick up unwanted sounds, such as squeaky bed frames or someone's footsteps in the next room.

So, unless you plan on regaling your audience with an erotic story or two, you won't need a wearable mic; your camera's built-in one should do just fine.

If you're keen on making some audio porn, that's a different story. Just don't forget mics pick up a lot more than your voice; try to avoid any unnecessary moving around.

READ: A Guide to Audio Erotica.