Writing that last post with the list of posts I dig a lot from the last year got me curious about long-ago Waking Vixen posts (also, yay procrastination!). It’s weird, this blog-writing habit. In many ways, each post can stand on its own, but seeing how all the pieces fit together is pretty fascinating too, if one has the time or (in my case) the self-indulgent inclination.
I wrote this post, about body image, my past-tense eating disorder, and naked modeling, three years ago to the day. And it’s interesting to rethink that-all again from where I sit now. In describing a modeling gig in the post, I say that “I had these weird moments of self-awareness, feeling comfortable in my skin with a degree of awareness of what my skin looks like from the outside.”
It occurs to me that so very much of my relationship to my body has been mediated by looking. Early in the development of my sexuality, when I got curvy but didn’t feel like a girl, when I hated the body I was growing into but was aware that other people thought it was hot, I felt kinda violated by people’s desire to look at me, so I countered that aggressively by becoming really, viciously slutty. I wanted to see what they saw, but I didn’t want to examine my body and my needs. Years later, after a mostly-healthy long term sexual relationship (though one in which I wasn’t often told that I’m pretty) under my belt, I plunged into sex work and modeling, and I learned a lot more about projecting pretty, and I learned how to see it in myself.
In that post of three years ago, I was beginning to see and understand what other people saw in me, in my curves. And I was beginning to appreciate and value myself. It might be strange or kinda fucked up that it took doing sex work and getting naked in that most public of ways -for the photographers that would be putting pictures on the internet- for me to value myself, but that’s how it happened.
There’s definitely been a shift in these three years. I feel much less oriented to “what my skin looks like from the outside” as I did in that post of three years ago. This isn’t to say I don’t care what I look like - I buy well-fitting clothes that make me look sexy, I wear makeup regularly, I obsess over my hair. Actually, I probably do these things more than I did three years ago. But I don’t have that intense need to see myself represented in photos in order to understand. I used to have a serious need to be seen and to see myself in that way, and now… I just don’t. I’m not entirely camera shy, but I don’t have any strong desire to strip down and do a photo shoot (sorry).
3:26 am
I think you’re a brave and beautiful woman. To engage in a journey of self-discovery is never easy; to do it so publicly is truly courageous. It enables others to identify with your struggle and perhaps be comforted and guided by your experience. As far as your lack of desire to strip for the camera: that’s our loss.
But I congratulate you. Happy New Year!
7:16 am
The whole blogging thing is, in my opinion, aanother form of allowing people to look at an intimate side of you.
9:37 am
That’s absolutely true about blogging - and actually, it’s arguable that there is more intimate exposure in blogging than there is in getting naked for pictures. Of course, over the past three years, I’ve also been increasingly selective about what I share in writing, not just images.
12:12 pm
It’s not fucked up. Everyone has their own way of processing stuff and coming to personal realizations. All that matters is that it worked for you and the results have been positive.
2:03 am
yes, you’re totally a badass. looking at your last post and this one, i’m both jealous and in serious admiration of all the awesome work you’ve done.
its exciting to hear that you’ve found sex work to be a healing space. its also really interesting to hear your point of view, having done lots of work and lots of reflecting on it. i’m deep in the middle of this process and i wonder if i’ll feel in a few years like i’ve grown because of it. i’m not sure, right now, i just feel like the questions of identity as a social process, gender subversion and sexual exploration just get deeper and wider every day.
still, having been really close to friends who’ve done some of the kind of healgin you’re talking about, and having done a bit of that kind of healing the wounds the world gives us, its really touching to read this blog entry. thank you for sharing.
4:17 pm
maturity happens in spite of ourselves, i believe. i think it’s fabulous that through sex you’ve discovered yourself and become more comfortable. how lovely that through pleasure and pain comes self-reflection, revelation, and realization. isn’t sex truly the ultimate representation of this fact?
It might be strange or kinda fucked up that it took doing sex work and getting naked in that most public of ways -for the photographers that would be putting pictures on the internet- for me to value myself, but that’s how it happened.
i don’t think that’s strange at all ~ i think it’s appropriate and inevitable. your experience just happens to be documented and much more public than most ~ and that’s wonderful!