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Attention hog
October 28, 2005
“Do you like the attention?” A number of people have asked me this recently, with regards to the ever-growing public nature of my (ahem) personal properties, my choice to model in the buff and show the pink.
Why do I feel, in some ways, ashamed to say: yes. I do.
Attention, and the desire for it, seems somehow needy and vapid to me. Maybe I am those things and I need to think about them, or I just need to embrace them and get on with it. I’ve always been trained to believe that it’s good to care a bit about how I look – but caring too much (obsessing over hair, makeup, clothes, weight) was downright silly and useless. Because, you know, the beauty on the inside is what really counts.
Though it wasn’t all about beauty, my high school struggles with food and weight ran counter to my training. I plastered on my goth makeup – white face, heavy black circles around my eyes – and was that about attention or beauty? In a deeper way I think it was more about my inability to reconcile how I felt on the inside and how I looked on the outside – I didn’t know how to deal with my body, what to think of its dangerous curves, the shape that got the attentions of many an inappropriate partner. It was easier to hide and get attention and rejection for the façade than get the same for my true self (whatever that is).
I think that last year, when I started modeling, I had a different and perhaps less healthy need for this attention than I do now. Though I was sexually and romantically involved with someone, I wasn’t getting the attention I wanted from him. No amount of asking or wanting could get him to say he thought I was pretty, sexy or hot (months later he confessed that he actually wasn’t that attracted to me). Writing it down, I see that maybe that was a really stupid reason to start taking my clothes off for money and for public consumption. It’s a reason I’ve only come to grips with very recently, not one I was aware of at the time, and its difficult to take that hard look.
I knew in this sort of objective, detached way, that I had the goods: 36D-28-36, tits and ass to die (or kill) for. But it was also sort of funny to me – I had a vague understanding that I was or could be considered hot, but I just didn’t get it, couldn’t see myself the way other people supposedly did, especially because I hadn’t heard any sort of confirmation from my lovers on this hotness thing. And by “lovers,” I don’t mean casual sex partners – their opinions, while often effusively positive, are sort of incidental. In using this word I mean ongoing sexual partners with whom I was romantically involved on a committed level.
It sort of frightens me to think to myself – and admit to you all – that my self-image is or has been so bound to my lovers’ opinions (or lack) of me and the way I look. Maybe, in some ways, I am not so different from the 18 year old girls who get into porn so they can get paid for people to think they’re hot. I try to set myself apart from that, because I’m somehow more enlightened or something – but the reality is that in some ways I’m just fucked up and insecure.
These days, I like the attention, but I’m still straining to understand it. And overthink it – c’mon overthinking is my thing. I am getting that hot and sexy attention I crave from a person who I think is hot and sexy (note to self: tell him that well and often) – and I’ve realized that that is a non-negotiable part of relationships for me; I need to be with someone who thinks I’m hot and tells me so. I won’t go back to being unappreciated and justifying that arrangement because I think I’m being shallow or needy. Fuck that, I like to feel beautiful and appreciated, I am not “above” wanting that.
Because of this personal attention, for some moments in the past month or so I’d begun to think that maybe my need for public praise and attention was drying up, but now I see that it’s just changing, and the desire for exposure (har har) is still there. Mixed up in all of this is a very real exhibitionistic streak – one that I can’t really explain away. I like to be looked at doing dirty things. It makes me hot and bothered, to know I’m being watched, masturbated to. And maybe the whole analysis of wanting to be wanted is nothing but a cover for the fact that I am coming to grips with the fact that I’m a pervy exhibitionist, and that is part of my sexuality.
So maybe I can finally say, with a clear conscience: I like the attention. Period. Exclamation point.
Posted by Dacia at October 28, 2005 11:15 PM
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Comments
All that overthinking led you to such an honest, appropriate conclusion, you pervy exhibitionist you.
Posted by: Balthazar B at October 29, 2005 09:24 AM
WOW!
Posted by: jg at October 29, 2005 03:29 PM
wow! before responding, have to give your last 2 communiques some more thought; that is, if u would like thoughtful feedback, svp?
Posted by: jg at October 29, 2005 03:31 PM
Dacia,
Well-phrased as always.
It seems to me that there are two different things going on here. In terms of being an “attention slut”, if it’s how you’re wired, then it’s part of your sexuality … if the 5” heel fits, wear it. At least in my case, I’m pretty sure that this isn’t an indication that my self-esteem only comes from others’ opinion … I just like the attentions, period, exclamation point :-)
And then there’s a related, but different, thing:
I won’t go back to being unappreciated …
I think this applies far beyond attention: it’s NOT unreasonable to want to feel appreciated , and it’s not unreasonable to expect your friends (let alone partners) to appreciate you rather than taking you for granted. This isn’t neediness; this is your (healthy) self-esteem wanting to be respected.
flouncy
Posted by: Flouncy at October 29, 2005 07:31 PM
Speaking of public exposure. What ever became of the video you shot last January?
Posted by: PugDuster at October 29, 2005 10:22 PM
Jesus, anybody who didn’t think you were totally hot didn’t remotely deserve you.
Were they thinking blonde bimbos at the time? Then they deserve to marry one and move to suburbia, and never gaze upon a dark, glasses-wearing, horny librarian type again. All I can say is, you totally turn me on, both visually and in your earnestly uninhibited writing about your voracious sex life.
Posted by: Mike at October 30, 2005 10:55 PM
i guess with ALL the porn sites its really starting to blend together. on one hand, its truly amazing how many willingly take off their clothes for photography or to make porn movies. maybe this is what dacia is intimating? the fact remains, we are creating a world of distance. if dacia is looking for attention, masturbaters et al, its sad that men have gotten so pathetic.
Posted by: jg at October 31, 2005 12:57 AM
also, must thank you, dacia. i found your website thru citykiddie, & from your links, or is it vice-versa, i found photography of some of the most beautiful women in the world, which are photographed “as if” they are not professionals, but simply beautiful everyday women(?) anyway, the point is i have finally been introduced to a small # of photographers/artists who are capable of elevating nude photography to an art form, as opposed to all the porn sites with the piped-in phony oohs & ahs, punk porn (seemingly, current rage, a la burning angel, suicide girls), narcisistic porn blogs(dacia et al …), etc, etc… its good to be able to view the art form known as “woman” & see it presented in such a classical way that doesn’t solicit one to masturbate, as dacia would like/wants us to, but to appreciate the purity of form.
Posted by: jg at October 31, 2005 09:50 AM
JG, I don’t understand. Why are men “pathetic” for masturbating to images of hot ladies? (or hot men for that matter)
Posted by: Belle at November 1, 2005 06:39 PM
Reading this, I was reminded of a moment early in our relationship—back before you were “hot,” and I was still married.
You were in the doorway of my office, dressed in a baggy sweater, and telling me about research you had done.
As I listened, I had the thought: “Oh, look, Dacia has such a nice body. Huh.”
I then went on with the leading thought of the moment, more along the lines of “Pay attention, this is smart stuff.”
(I remember with equal clarity the moment I realized you were scary smart.)
Now that you are officially “hot,” I can enjoy how much you enjoy it, and remember that somewhere in the mix, you have the ability to be as frumpy as you care to be.
Which is kind of, well, hot.
Posted by: Jefferson at November 2, 2005 03:54 PM
