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.
