Why I Post Myself Naked
“There atop the mighty rock danced a small group of women, naked as the first day they lay upon their mothers’ bellies.”
I started posting myself in artistic nudity a few weeks after I started reading Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. One of the central ideas I took from the book is that the wild, instinctual woman does not evaluate her body primarily by how it looks. She experiences the body as alive, sensual, functional, expressive, and connected to nature. One of Estés’ strongest ideas is that the body isn’t an object that exists to be looked at. She describes the body as something more like a living landscape — something that contains sensation, memory, movement, sexuality, instinct, and spirit. I don’t know if the book caused anything in me, but I know that after reading it, I started looking at my body differently.
I remember going alone to the waterfalls. Nobody else was there. I was taking bikini photos when a wild idea passed through my mind. I took off my bra, covered my breasts with my hand, and started taking photos. My heart was pounding, my eyes were alert for incoming eyes and people. There was fear in it, but there was also something exhilarating about it. I loved the adrenaline. I loved the outcome. I loved how my body looked. Even my cellulite. Even my belly. Even the parts of my body that I had been taught to see as flaws. So I posted them.
My family talked me out of it, convincing me to delete them. But I didn’t. Not only because I knew what I was doing, which I did, but also because I hate the feeling of being forbidden and being told what to do. It caused a drama among my family that made me not come back home for months. Even as I write this essay, I haven’t talked to them again. They said that their reputation was also at stake. Which infuriated me even more. Why would I tie myself down for your ego validation? Why should my body become something that my family has to protect their reputation from?
A family member even inferred that I was doing it because of my psychological disorder, bipolar I. That made me question myself even more. Was I being impulsive? Was I being reckless? Was I losing my mind? I hated that something I consciously chose to do could so easily be dismissed as a symptom simply because it was unconventional.
I knew people from my town talked about me. Eventually, even people around me started mentioning it. That made me anxious, not because I thought what I did was wrong, but because I couldn’t help but be scared that they would say something bad about it. And I might say something back. So was it worth it?
Why do I do it?
Simply speaking, just because I can.
What I do may be deviant, and they might think I’m going crazy, but the thing is, I love what I’m doing, so I do it.
But I also wanted to know whether I was actually making a choice or whether something else was making the choice for me. I asked my psychiatrist if I was being psychotic or manic while posting those photos. She told me my photos were beautiful and that I had a talent. It was not the answer I was expecting, but definitely a better answer. Maybe that was the only validation I needed — not that everything I do is automatically right, but that I was not necessarily losing my mind. That what I was doing could be part of who I am and not simply an attribution of my disorder.
I also asked my spiritual adviser, a practitioner of Bhakti Yoga and a follower of Hare Krishna, if what I was doing was wrong. She said she could not tell me what was wrong or right more than I could discover for myself. She told me to meditate and ask myself: What are my desires? Why am I doing this?
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So why am I doing this?
For fame? For likes? For money? How am I any different from OnlyFans creators?
But I am. Not because there is necessarily anything wrong with being an OnlyFans creator, but because that is not what I am trying to do. I am not posting my body for sexual pleasure. I see my body, as imperfect as it is according to society’s standards — with cellulite, body rolls, and flat boobs — and I see it as art. I see it as beautiful.
Politically speaking, I am also making a statement. Not everyone who shows their body is seeking sexual pleasure. Not everyone who shows skin is “asking for it.” Showing skin is not a pass to disrespect or overtly sexualize someone, especially when that is not the intention of the artist. I want to represent the women who have the same body as mine, who see their parts as flaws, and realize that these parts are beautiful too.
Or did I just read too much Estés?
But what if I am only doing this because I love how it looks? What if I love the attention and validation that I get? And if that is the case, then maybe I am shallow.
But there is nothing shallow about being a woman who goes against the norms just to exercise her freedom as a woman.
Maybe I am doing this for many reasons at once. Maybe I like the art. Maybe I like how my body looks. Maybe I like being seen. Maybe I like the adrenaline of doing something I was told not to do. Maybe I like the attention. Maybe I want to challenge the way people see women’s bodies. Maybe I simply want to know what it feels like to stop being ashamed of my own body.
I don’t think I need to have one pure, beautiful, intellectually defensible reason for everything I do.
I just want my body to be mine.
Not my family’s reputation. Not society’s standards. Not other people’s sexual projections. Not even my disorder.
Mine.
And maybe that is the real reason I post myself naked.
