nude

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 7 Bangin’ Selfies

Kate Sloan

It’s time for the most self-indulgent instalment of this series: the one where I show you my fave selfies of the year and tell you about why they were meaningful to me! Let’s jump in…

Content note: There will be nudity in this post! You’ve been warned!

 

January 9

I’ve had such a hard time staying in touch with my femmeness during the pandemic. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve waded more deeply into fancy loungewear than I ever had before, I’ve bought myself cute slippers and robes and chemises, I’ve attempted to make “hanging out at home day after day” into something glamorous and aesthetically pleasing… but that stuff can only go so far when you’re depressed about not being able to go out, see people, and do things in the world.

On this night, my partner and I got dressed up to sit at home on the couch watching a livestream of Bawdy Storytelling. A friend of mine was telling a story that night and we wanted to be there to support him (virtually, from afar). Bawdy offers a thing in their virtual shows where you can pay extra to be an “exhibitionist” or a “voyeur,” meaning that your camera can be on during the show so other people can see your look, and/or that you can see other audience members (who’ve consented to it) throughout the show. It’s a really fun way of motivating audience members to dress how they would if they were going to an actual Bawdy show – and to make the flirty personal connections that often at least partially motivate such aesthetic choices.

It felt good to put on lipstick and lashes and a sparkly dress, even if it was “only” to watch an online show. I’m glad to have had opportunities this year to occasionally cosplay like we’re in the Before Times.

 

February 14

Valentine’s Day selfies often end up making their way into this post, because I love to dress cute for Valentine’s Day. It’s one of the few days of the year when I can really “get away with” wearing pink, red, and a whole lotta hearts!

Matt and I usually go out for a fancy romantic dinner on this day, but we decided to do a COVID-friendly version of that this year and ordered delivery from the steakhouse BLT Prime. We sat down at their little dining room table in our pink finery and ate an excellent meal, and it was almost like being at an actual restaurant.

There are always ways to celebrate special occasions even if your options are limited, and I found that dressing up was a major way I celebrated holidays and accomplishments this year. Even in an era where my most frequent and robust socialization happens via Twitter and Discord, there are still times worth dressing up for – and eating a steak with my sweetie in celebration of our love was one of those times.

Side note: Check out that grin. They really do make me this happy. 🥰

 

April 26

When Matt received the sex doll they were supposed to review for my site, we couldn’t stop laughing about how tiny she was. Like, yeah, we knew she wasn’t full-sized, but I don’t think either of us really fully understood just how small she would be until we took her out of her box.

I immediately had a very specific vision for the photo I wanted to take to go along with the review. It needed to convey what we had realized in that moment of opening her up: that she was hilariously, almost disturbingly petite.

But also, having done a fair bit of writing on sex dolls and sex robots and the like, I’m kinda fascinated by the “uncanny valley” and the differences between human sexiness and slick technologically-engineered sexiness. I wanted this photo to convey that tension as well: my tattooed and cellulite-dimpled thighs next to her tiny flat-planed ones, my gravity-affected boobs and her perfectly round ones, my skeptical expression and her total lack of human expressiveness. It’s an odd photo and I like it more every time I look at it.

 

April 30

Upon returning home to Toronto in April after a 7-month stay in New York, I had to go on a long and (for my chronically ill body) arduous journey. I had to take a cab to the airport, go through security, get on the plane, fly, get off the plane, pick up my suitcase, drag it onto a link train, ride the train to my quarantine hotel, check into the hotel, stay there for 3 days, and then trek to my parents’ house to complete the remainder of my quarantine. It was pretty exhausting.

I took this photo, sleep-deprived and mildly manic with anxiety, on the link train between the airport and my hotel, by which point I’d been traveling for something like 7 hours. I was surprised to get a car to myself on the train, and wanted to let Matt know I was doing okay but barely had the energy or brainspace to formulate a coherent message. So instead, I lifted up my shirt, snapped a surreptitious public nude, and sent that.

The wildness in my eyes makes me laugh, because I was really on a different planet mentally at that moment than I am in normal everyday life. I was just So Over It, and you can tell. This isn’t really a sexy nude. It isn’t really a funny one either. It’s just… weird. But I like that about it.

 

May 16

Both of my vaccine shots happened somewhat suddenly and unexpectedly – I’d hear about a pop-up vaccination clinic way up in North York or way out in Scarborough, do a little scoping online to see if it was for real, and then hop on the subway or in an Uber and get my ass there ASAP. It was quite a rush, like the public-health equivalent of managing to score tickets to your fave band’s big arena show just moments before it sells out.

Upon arriving back home after my first shot, I was glowing with happiness from having been able to get this thing I’d been (like most other people at that time) desperately and impatiently hoping and wishing for. So I decided to take a nude, of course.

This photo is such a 2020/2021 mood. I love that about it. In no other years so far in my lifetime would it make sense, let alone be hot, to take a lewd selfie with a band-aid slapped onto your arm like a sexy accessory. And yet, this is probably one of the most sensual photos I took all year, if just because of what it portends. After all, wouldn’t you rather kiss someone who’s got their shot than someone who hasn’t yet?

 

August 26

Another sexy one! Damn, there are a lot of those this year.

I had a bunch of ideas for photos I wanted to take when copies of my book first arrived on my doorstep. I wanted to line them up in flat-lays with whips and chains, hold them between my legs like a naughty secret, surround myself with them like I was drowning in my own words. But also, I wanted to put one on my ass.

Something I like about this photo is that I would have no idea how to interpret it if you showed it to me-from-10-years-ago. I wouldn’t immediately clock this ass as my own, because I didn’t have those distinctive tattoos back then, and I certainly wouldn’t know how to parse the sight of my own name on a beautiful book like this.

In many ways, this is a photo of the version of me I’ve manifested into existence over the years, the me who I’ve fought to become. A good girl, an inked-up queer femme, a freelance writer lounging half-nude at home, a published author who doesn’t have to care if people online have seen her butt or not. It’s essentially a self-portrait of some of my favorite things about myself and my life.

Plus it’s made a great promo shot for the book. I mean, if you saw this on a billboard or something, wouldn’t you be curious?!

 

October 24

Because we’re romantics, Matt and I celebrated the one-year anniversary of them proposing to me by returning to the place where it happened, the High Line park.

We walked the entire length of the park twice, first one way and then the other, stopping in various spots where we’d had romantic moments on previous visits: places where we kissed, where we held hands, where we laughed at odd things we’d overheard other people saying.

But the most meaningful spot in the whole High Line for us is the picturesque lookout where Matt got on one knee and asked me to marry them. They’d chosen it specifically, over any other place in the park, because it was so beautiful. So we returned there and took a selfie to document the moment, and our joy.

I love them so much and I’m still so glad I said yes to them that evening in the park, late in 2020. I think our smiles say it all.

Selling Nudes Scares Me, But I Do It Anyway

Kate Sloan

The first time I ever sold a nude photo wasn’t like a first kiss or a first fuck; it didn’t stick in my memory that concretely, a fully-fledged moment recalled with multidimensional sensory details. It was much plainer than that. Probably some random person sent me a DM, I pulled a list of rates out of my ass, they picked what they wanted and sent a payment, and I scrambled to snap some nervous nudes in my attic bedroom. Not exactly an auspicious start, but hey, it’s something.

Looking through amateur porn galleries always wows me. These people are so brave. I know sometimes “You’re so brave!” is slung condescendingly at people who have chosen unconventional paths, even when they’ve chosen those paths out of necessity rather than courageousness – but I really do think anyone who makes porn of themselves and puts it on the internet is braver than most of their fans will ever even realize.

I know this because my own nudes are available for purchase and it is simultaneously one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done and one of the scariest. Most laypeople’s main worry, when I mention that there is porn of me on the internet, is how it might affect my future employment opportunities, but I feel pretty firmly that that ship has sailed: I’m not going to go into childcare or politics, and I’m not trying to write for conservative publications, so on that level it doesn’t really matter that you can find pics of my genitals online.

No, the thing that still scares me most about being publicly naked is the sheer vulnerability of nudity itself. The likelihood of people saying (or thinking) mean things about my body. The way that internet commentators sometimes speak with such unearned authority that their criticisms creep coldly into my brain and stay lodged there, overriding any calming compliments from loved ones.

But as prevalent and understandable as these fears are, I also know that I have overcome them before, and I can do it again.

When I went quasi-viral a few years ago for writing an article about how some abusive men twist feminist rhetoric to get women to trust them, I was hounded by misogynistic trolls for weeks. They sent me death threats, told me to kill myself, left cruel comments for me across multiple platforms. I was scared for my physical safety. But one of the things that snapped me out of my fight-or-flight daze was seeing these men mock photos of me in a strap-on. They spoke as if this was an inherently disgusting sight, like they didn’t even need to explain why it was grotesque to see a chubby woman looking happy and confident while strapped into pink leather and wielding a glittery dildo. And I laughed and laughed, because… I looked hot in those photos. People whose opinions I actually cared about had told me so, and I thought so myself.

If this was really the best they could do – telling me I looked stupid and gross in a photo where I looked verifiably happy and hot – then they had no real power over me. They had tried to humiliate me and had failed. The spell was broken.

I was reminded of the famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I have a lot of problems with this quote, most notably that it contributes to victim-blaming rhetoric when survivors get understandably upset about being objectified or harassed or assaulted. But, I do still think that your attitude about your own victimization can contribute to (but isn’t at all solely responsible for) how you end up feeling about that victimization. And since these trolls were sad weirdos whose rage toward me was probably borne from resentments they held toward women they actually knew in their actual lives, rather than being due to anything I’d really done or said, it felt relatively easy to shrug off their bad-faith attacks once I’d seen that they really had no ammo.

I was proud of the things they wanted to shame me for. I loved the things about myself that they claimed were worth hating. My life was full of love and sex, despite their projected insistence that someone like me could neither deserve nor acquire either of those things. Their arguments had no teeth, no real impact, no basis in reality. What they were saying was far more about them than it was about me, and that had been true the whole time.

It still makes me nervous every time I hit “publish” on a new batch of nudes. But it helps to know that all the arguments I’ve ever heard for why I shouldn’t post them are essentially meaningless. I’m not trying to get an office job. I don’t give a shit about impressing misogynist trolls. No decent partner of mine would ever be threatened by me being naked in public. And most crucially of all, although I have my bad body image days like everyone else, I know ultimately – in my heart of hearts and pussy of pussies – that my body is beautiful and worth celebrating. The “someone just bought your nudes!” notifications that show up in my inbox are just one of the many pieces of evidence proving that to be so.

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Sex Sells, Part 1: Selling Nudes

Kate Sloan

I’ve always loved good-lookin’ nudes. When I was a young(er) pervy little thing, I would creep to the family computer in the dead of night and surf SuicideGirls, GodsGirls, and archives of old Bettie Page prints – always taking care to clear my browser history afterward, of course. These women, with their lush curves and hard-femme aesthetics, had something I thought I could achieve someday, once I came of age: the confidence to pose nude on the internet.

Especially in light of the recent SESTA/FOSTA laws which are jeopardizing many sex workers’ livelihoods, I was excited when the folks at Dior London Escorts agreed to sponsor a blog series here on my experiences with sex work (the mild forms of it that I have done), so I would have an opportunity to do some destigmatizing through storytelling. I thought immediately of those formative late nights, scrolling through elegant porn. At one point, my desire to join these naked women’s ranks was so great that I shot some provocative (non-nude) photos of myself on my little digital camera and carefully photoshopped the SuicideGirls logo into the corner of one, just to see what it would look like. My mom later found that illicit jpeg on our computer and told me she hoped I was being careful with my images. I still don’t know whether she thought I’d actually somehow been accepted to model for the site despite being underage.

Those early signs of exhibitionism didn’t really bear out in my adult life. I’ve performed in porn from time to time, with friends behind the camera or on camera with me or both, but it was always more for the goofy fun of the experience than for a sexual desire to show off. When I’ve shared lascivious photos online, it’s typically been out of boredom or the need for an ego boost. Even sending nudes to partners doesn’t really get my rocks off in and of itself; I typically don’t do it unless asked to, because it doesn’t often occur to me, and it’s the other person’s desirous reactions that thrill me and make me feel hot.

And yet… I like selling nudes. There is something powerful and sexy about it. Maybe I have a bit of a money kink; maybe it’s just that strangers buying photos of my body makes me feel somehow more “legitimately” hot than when partners enjoy those same photos, because the strangers don’t even know about my charming personality and still want to jerk off to me. Weird but true.

I don’t recall the first time I sold a nude, but I would imagine the interaction originated in a Twitter DM. Maintaining an active Twitter presence full of sex jokes and snazzy selfies, I attract a fair amount of sexually motivated looky-loos. Sometimes random men slide into my DMs with a simple “Hey” and it turns out they want to see me naked; other times they’re upfront about wanting to buy pictures (guess which approach I prefer?!). On the advice of my friend Bex, a gifted salesman, I’ve started answering every vague DM from a stranger with a concise “What can I help you with?” This sets a businessy tone for our conversation and helps me quickly filter out flirty time-wasters so only actual customers remain.

I always ask interested buyers if there’s anything in particular they want to see. If it’s something fairly basic (say, tits or ass – the classics), typically I already have some great shots on tap that I can send along. If they want something more niche or involved, I set aside some time to shoot what they’re looking for. I don’t even necessarily have to be at home to pull this off; I have fond memories of snapping impromptu nudes for clients in bar bathrooms and a boyfriend’s bed (the boyfriend knew what was up!). I feel like a badass every time I make quick cash just taking pictures of my body, a body that feels utterly ordinary to me because I walk around in it all day every day. What a revelation and a joy that some people like this chubby, flawed body enough to pay for digital glimpses of it, even without knowing anything about me.

The only times selling my nudes has gotten awkward were when the buyer was someone I knew. Either I felt guilty about charging them money (even though they were proactively trying to pay me) or the interaction added a sexual element to a relationship that previously lacked that dimension. But in every case, these people have been cordial and respectful throughout the process. I’ve even said “no” to a few of them and gotten nothing but sweet understanding in return.

I’m always happy to sell nudes, so slide into my Twitter DMs or send me an email if you want to buy some. I love that this exchange is a total win-win: my buyer walks away happy (and hopefully jerkin’ it), and in return I get a fistful of cash and the knowledge that someone, somewhere, thinks my body is beautiful.

 

Thanks to Dior London Escorts for sponsoring this post! They’re one of the most popular escort agencies in London, known for their high-quality service and employing a wide range of women.