I am out of spoons. A cold has triggered some of the more horrid bits of my disability. I’m weak and it’s hard to get up. This doodle is the extent of my capabilities in the current moment. I wanted to share a state that I usually hide from people.
I was raised to believe that a naked female body is an object of sex and therefore shameful outside of a sexual context. Ironically, it has been the wonderful folk of the London kink scene that have started to show me otherwise.
It’s a long road to quiet shame and I’m trying to teach myself bit by bit, to kick that assumption in the proverbial nuts. That is why I took this photograph. My naked body, non-sexualised, just as it is.
I hope I will be brave enough to be more brazen in future. I want to put together some kind of non-sexual strip performance... watch this space for whatever that may be.
For this day I wanted to share something that celebrates my body autonomy. I realise that a bondage photo doesn’t make immediate sense but I love the way shibari is an expression of trust for another person with your body. Body autonomy is about free choice, even when you are quite paradoxically choosing to give somebody power over you. It feels freeing. This bit of loveliness is the work of the beautiful Will Marlow at London Alternative Market. Photography by Alan Scriven.
This weekend at a lovely kink club in London, a man decided to touch me once without my permission and then once again after I had already said no. Not only did he cause one of the worst panic attacks of my life, he made me fear dressing the way I want to. He made the outfit feel dirty.
I am so sick and tired of being harassed and assaulted by men that believe they are entitled to my body in some way, regardless of my feelings. I’m sick of being triggered by people who see my curves as permission to treat me as less than human. I am a person and it is my body.
So today I put the outfit back on. With the help of a wonderful friend and badass woman Laura Boulter, I made this ‘fuck you’ post for my new Instagram - ItIsMyBody.
‘It Is My Body’ I will celebrate my body and my ownership over it. With thanks to the badasses who supported me this weekend and the wicked staff at the club that dealt with the guy.