What do Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Gena Lee Nolin, and R Kelly have in common? (No, it’s not that they’re natural blondes.) The answer, of course, is that they’ve all made embarrassing—and, in one case, incriminating—sex tapes that weren’t intended for public consumption, and then sat by relatively helplessly as the tapes were sold to and watched by millions of strangers.

The idea of a family member, coworker, or online porn distributor with good lawyers getting his or her hands on your sex video is a mood-killing, mortifying thought. Yet filming sex can heighten intimacy between you and your partner while providing a two-pronged sexual thrill: the exhibitionism of being on camera, and the voyeurism of watching yourselves later.

To fully enjoy the thrill, therefore, simply erase the video after you’ve watched it—you can always make another. Then, relax. “You’re not a porn star, or a pornographer,” says Dr. Laura Berman, an Oprah favorite and director of Chicago’s Berman Center, which is dedicated to women’s sexual health. “No matter how many porn movies you’ve seen, you’re not going to tape yours in a way that’s going to turn out how you imagine it. You should expect a lot of giggles.”

David and Caroline* had never talked or even thought about filming themselves having sex—until David brought home a digital video camera for a work project. “I asked him how much memory it had, and he said only about ten minutes,” says Caroline, a 28-year-old consultant in Miami. “I joked that it would never be enough time for us, but it didn’t stay a joke for long.”

They filmed themselves, then watched it in bed. “We did more laughing than anything else,” David, a 30-year-old public relations executive, admits. “But it still made us want to repeat our exploits off-camera.” Take note: Within hours of making the video, they erased it.

Even fully clothed, many people react like cornered baboons when someone tries to take a simple snapshot, so the idea of being filmed while naked, vulnerable, and sticking their ass God-knows-where is essentially unthinkable. But, ironically, the phobia may provide the cure: If you can screw up the courage to watch even a few seconds of yourself on camera—cellulite, silly faces, unfortunate noises, and all—you may see yourself in a whole new light.

“Women, especially, are typically much easier on other women than they are on themselves,” says Berman. “So they can use the video to take a step outside themselves and look on as though it was another person. They might find that she’s quite attractive.”