Nudity, sex, and the human body in general have been a reliable focus of art since humans were living in caves, and can you really blame us? There are few things as attention-grabbing to the human brain as an unclothed figure, which is why the maxim ‘sex sells’ continues to hit the mark. But there’s also something much more meaningful about our connection to nudes, the erotic, and the places we choose to bare our flesh. As photographer Matt Ford told Dazed earlier this year: “Some people write it off as just smut, but with the right intent, it becomes something so beautiful and personal.”

Many of the best photo stories featured on Dazed in the last year put the beauty and humanity of nudity in the spotlight, seeing it as something much more vital than the images of naked bodies used to market products, or those we might stumble across online. From the sexual transgression depicted in group projects like My Romantic Ideal, to the liberation experienced inside Tokyo’s love hotels, they access something deeper about what it means to be human.

Below, we’ve gathered ten of the best flesh-baring photo stories featured on Dazed in 2025.

SAM PENN, MAX

Max documents an on-again off-again relationship between New York-based photographer Sam Penn and the writer Max Battle, via 19 intimate photographs and an accompanying text by Battle. Their nude or semi-nude bodies are omnipresent, scattered across Paris and NYC, and seem to form their own kind of geography. “I’ve been thinking about the close-ups of bodies as different kinds of landscapes,” the photographer says, “that offer glimpses into the environments of the relationship.”

MATT FORD, VOYEUR2

“I keep returning to the kink community because I’m drawn to the raw, uninhibited personalities who push themselves outside what society expects,” says London-based curator and photographer Matt Ford. “I find those subjects empowering.” In VOYEUR2, the images push back against the “diluted” image of these communities in fashion, film, and broader culture, going beyond mere shock factor.

AMANDA CHARCHIAN, A VERY BAD MAN

A Very Bad Man is, first and foremost, a photo book about the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, a city that “creates space for radical reinvention, which is both exhilarating and disorienting”. Given the hotel’s glamorous (but also sordid) history as a place for secret liaisons and historic encounters, though, it’s a given that it’s going to feature the likes of Charchian’s sun-soaked nudes and snaps of discarded underwear, which document a group of close friends and creatives in and around the famed hotel.

SOFIYA LORIASHVILI, 31 DAYS IN JAPAN

Inspired by Tokyo’s heavy drinking culture and shibari, the traditional Japanese form of rope bondage, Loriashvili’s photo series captures the tension between control and surrender that’s at the centre of certain erotic relationships. “There’s something very similar visually between shibari and unconscious drunk bodies,” she says, and what better backdrop than the city’s famed (or infamous) love hotels?

MY ROMANTIC IDEAL

My Romantic Ideal was assembled by the exiled Russian artist and curator Slava Mogutin, who told Dazed earlier in the year: “Romance is not just about love – it’s about longing, fantasy, and danger.” In an effort to prove that theory, he brought together photos by the likes of Bruce LaBruce, Tyler Matthew Oyer, Łukasz Leja, Matt Lambert, and Quil Lemons, who each explore the “raw, exuberant and sometimes messy” facets of queer desire from their own angles.

VINCENT WECHSELBERGER, READY

“Shower, hair, makeup, music, prayer.” Ready is an insider’s portrait of queer sex work, focusing on the moments of stillness and preparation before a “charged encounter”. The actual details of these encounters – sex, nightlife, bodies, and the physical spaces where they take place – hover around the edges of the images, while sex workers’ inner lives, including fears, hopes and feelings of anticipation, take centre stage.

SOFIYA LORIASHVILI, STRIPPER EDITION

Parisian strip clubs set the stage for Loriashvili’s Stripper Edition – specifically, the locker rooms where performers get ready and, at the end of the night, leave the stage behind. “The moment you cross the door of the locker room, you put on a mask,” the photographer says. “Your walk changes, your facial expressions shift, even your voice. You slip straight into work mode.” In the photos, we see performers mid-routine, doing their make-up, and knitting in a break, offering a very different insight than the scenes on the other side of the curtain.

MARY KATHARINE TRAMONTANA, SERIOUS PLEASURES

This debut art book of photography and poetry revolves around a heavy topic: how desire can lift a person out of despair in the wake of a great loss. “Grief is not linear, it’s a wave that ebbs and flows,” says Tramonata. “So it’s shocking to me that we have this societal imperative to simply move on, to cut out this part of ourselves, as if it never existed.” Serious Pleasures is a call for the opposite, born out of a period of “highly inventive” grief that proves the most important parts of our lives – love, sex, and death – don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

ALEXIS KLESHIK, GRAND ST STRIPPERS

Speaking to Dazed back in September, Kleshik told a story about sneaking into an LA strip club at the age of 16, using a fake ID. “From then on,” she says, “dancing quietly lived in the back of my mind.” Following her own experiences as a stripper, Grand St Strippers documents the relationships and experiences of fellow performers, captured between sets or in the club’s locker room. “I wanted to push back against two of the most persistent stereotypes about sex work and strip club culture,” she explains: “the hypersexualised fantasy that flattens performers into caricatures, and the victimhood frame.”

EZEKIEL, SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A DOG AND A DOLL

Photos of landscapes, post-rave scenes, protests, cluttered bedrooms, and bodies combine in Ezekiel’s Somewhere between a dog and a doll, which captures the “liminal, uncertain, anxious and liberating” nature of trans existence. “Being somewhere between a doll – slang term for a trans woman – and a dog – widely used as a term to describe an untrustworthy or disloyal man – perfectly encapsulates the foundations of this project,” they told Dazed earlier this year. Influenced by personal experiences as well as Filipino mythology, the project aims to foster more conversation about transness as a fluid, expansive experience while capturing the “beautiful trans beings” in Ezekiel’s life.