Nan Goldin's photos are characterized by vibrant colours, beautiful framing and especially by a constant exposition of the artist's intimacy. On Nan's images, the autobiographic description is seen as the only choice and, therefore, is taken to the utmost consequences. In spite of the fact that nowadays the western society is immersed in many expositions of various "I's", Nan Goldin's work was pioneer in this area in many aspects, and its appearance was just possible because of some social changes that had taken place over the last centuries. This work aims to present an initial analysis of the work of this photographer, situating it in its time and taking as a basis these social transformations that took place before it, which were described by Richard Sennett, Anthony Giddens, Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault. An examination of the aesthetic aspects of four of Nan Goldin's images presented in the work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency gives consistency to this analysis.