Sprawling across a queen mattress, Aditi balanced her weight on a throw pillow and lit a cigarette. Her boyfriend Praveen readied his camera and toyed with the light. She finished her smoke and trotted off to the bathroom, where she undressed, then emerged, naked and slouching. Her hand hung lightly, moving slowly across her pelvis to reveal her vagina.

Catching the twinkle of fairy lights and beaded curtains, a teal chillum sat atop a stool in the corner of the room, surrounded by half-filled bottles of Jim Beam and Antiquity Blue. The walls were red, and the curtains silk. “Our love nest,” Aditi* called it.

After a month of replies like “you creep” and “fuckboy,” I chanced upon Aditi’s profile. The captions on her photos hinted at a tinge of insecurity: “Does this work?” “Is this okay?” Two days later, she told me she didn’t mind meeting me for a profile.

This is noteworthy, considering the lack of accountability: most of the men on the forum are unverified—which means they haven’t sent the moderator an image of themselves nude or partly nude, holding a card with their username and date. Verification is meant to weed out users who post pictures of strangers. To find out whether the IndiansGoneWild was really as respectful and encouraging as it seemed, I began messaging verified profiles—mostly women—to ask them about their experiences in the community.

R/IndiansGoneWild is an adult subreddit that, surprisingly, has little of the toxic misogyny that pervades not only much of Reddit, but much of the Indian internet. The community, which has over 83,000 subscribers—mostly Indian men—was founded in 2014 for Indians to post nude photos. One would expect a high level of abuse, but instead IndiansGoneWild celebrates body positivity in a society that largely associates nakedness with shame. The moderator told me over email that he spends only about 20 minutes a week removing abusive comments.

In Bengaluru, I waited in a mosquito-ridden café for Praveen to pick me up on his bike. My mind raced. What does a polyamorous man who is comfortable with his girlfriend being naked on the internet look like? A man with an average height and build walked in, wearing a white shirt and holding a helmet. He shook my hand and stopped himself before he could tell his real name.

Aditi, 26, is a tax analyst and Praveen, 28, works as a construction contractor. They both live with their parents, but have rented a place for hook-ups. “We do our foursomes in our love nest,” Aditi told me. She invited me to join them for a photoshoot.

Before we met last October, Aditi explained that she is polyamorous, and has been with her boyfriend for nine years. “When we began hooking up with other couples, our relationship took a turn,” she said, “for the good of course.” Having only ever read about polyamory on the internet, I was slightly in awe.

We stopped in a quiet neighborhood, in front of a rusted iron gate. The apartment was up two steep flights of stairs. Aditi—slim, taut, with long hair—opened the door and looked dreamily at Praveen before swaying into the house.

As the bike snaked through small lanes in south Bengaluru, Praveen told me he was on r/IndiansGoneWild with his former lover for two years. Aditi joined last August, and was still opening up to the idea, though she and Praveen regularly met other couples for hook-ups through Reddit and Tinder.

We started chatting about her motivations. Aditi told me she wanted to know what strangers thought of her body. “You know, your boyfriend, the people you know, they all carry a bias. Of course they accept and love the way I look. What about the ones you don’t know?” she said.

We commiserated about college dress codes, having both attended conservative institutions. “No leggings for a month and all that. Regressive,” she said. Aditi told me that she, like me, used to be terrified of wearing shorts on the street. For her, r/IndiansGoneWild was the pinnacle of body positivity.

We commiserated about college dress codes, having both attended conservative institutions.

“It allows me to say ‘this is how I look, this is what I am, say what you want to say, I can take it,” Aditi said. At the same time, a photo that remains ignored while other women are upvoted can be a blow to this confidence. “When you begin to connect your self-esteem to it, you’re stuck in a downward spiral,” Aditi agreed. Outside r/IndiansGoneWild, she doesn’t seem overly concerned with her body—she doesn’t bother with the gym, for example. Praveen and Aditi carefully curate their shoots, picking only about four frames out of 25 for posting.