Sexy selfie

Looking back, I was never much of a fan of selfies – mainly because I don’t consider my face to be terribly photogenic without careful angles and a lot of airbrushing. It had never occurred to me to take a sexy selfie, let alone send one to someone else.

And then, one day, I did. I’ll spare you the backstory, it’s tedious and not very relevant, but the pic was enthusiastically received. The more I looked at it, the more I liked it, so I took more. Some of them I sent to that same Enthusiastic Recipient, but not the most explicit ones. Those, I kept for myself to gaze at and by doing so, I learned to appreciate my body.

I tentatively put a couple of the less explicit ones on the Internet, and the response was overwhelmingly positive (thanks, Kink Twitter!). I started to get a bit more adventurous, and thanks to memes like Sinful Sunday, I was able to share my intimate features in a safe, supportive space.

Fast forward a couple of years and now I have pictures of my tits, my bum and occasionally my muff all over my blog and am perfectly comfortable with that. Why not? It’s a human body, just like any other, only unique because it is mine. My social culture has taught me to be ashamed of nudity, to be embarrassed of my ‘imperfections’, to hide and feel guilt about my sexuality. I’ve managed to shake off most of that ridiculous nonsense and I refuse to be shamed into hiding myself away. I don’t show my face, because there are waaaay too many a) entitled/judgemental arseholes and b) facial recognition/matching algorithms out there, (and the last thing I need is for one of my professional clients to google me and get a picture of my tits. Not because there’s anything wrong with my tits – but because they might disapprove of my openness and punish my employer for it. Or worse, they might interpret my willingness to show my body online as an excuse to ignore my boundaries). Sadly, not everyone is as enlightened as my blogger/sex worker/kinky friends. I’m sure my (very traditional) family don’t want to see me in a sexualised context either, for that matter. I just don’t need that hassle. So my face selfies disappear from my Twitter feed after a short while, and I prefer not to put my face on my blog.

Taking sexy selfies has done wonders for my self-image, my confidence and my comfort with my body. Of course, I’m pleased that others also seem to appreciate the view! I have lots of pictures I’ve never shown to anyone else and never intend to (kept in high-security/privacy storage!) because for me, the purpose of taking a sexy selfie is so that I can look at it and feel that I look good.