Showing posts with label nude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nude. Show all posts
Getting Over Shame Through Nude Photography (NSFW)
It's already nearly mid-way through Naked November, so we've been thinking about nudity a lot. We support getting naked in all forms, including photography. What better way to show off your beauty than getting photographed? An intimate photographer, the artist behind 101 Vagina, is here to talk about how nude photography could decrease your shame of getting naked. Why? Read on!
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I do a fair bit of nude photography, but almost exclusively of women, so how does this relate to couples? Well, let me tell you a story.
To combat one particular body image issue and taboo I have also been working on a coffee table photo book called 101 Vagina, a collection of 101 photos with a message from each of the women. When this arose in conversation I again asked if she might be interested in participating. Again she declined.
But her compliments kept coming and I suggested she might appreciate seeing herself through fresh eyes. In the end it was her boyfriend who emboldened her, saying it might help her get over some of her negative body image. So she got in touch to participate, in both projects no less.
Most people are a little awkward in front of a camera at first, but Eva was almost inconsolable. She was visibly struggling, so I went to give her a hug. I was stunned. Her whole body was shaking, from the inside, as if some massive tectonic plates were shifting in her character, dislodging old and strong patterns of shame. I had never witnessed anyone confront such massive fear, and have the courage to go ahead in spite of it. Massive kudos to her!
As it turned out it didn't take long for her to relax into the shoot and we got some great images. She could hardly believe that the images were of her, seeing herself through my eyes allowed her to see the beauty in my beholder's eye, rather than the critic in hers.
The next day Eva wrote to me me that she looked at herself in the mirror naked for the first time ever!
More recently she shared this about how it affected her relationship. "It certainly has changed our relationship, firstly I was so amazed and felt so loved when he told me to go ahead with something that I thought most guys would discourage. When I sent him the pics I was really nervous, and I was so happy to hear that he loved them. I'm much less shy around him now, and find it slightly easier to talk to him about my body."
Witnessing such shifts is the reward for the conscious nude photographer. But it was not always so.
My journey with nude photography began many years before I ever took a nude photograph; in my mind. I dreamed of doing it ever since I became sexually aware but there was a huge barrier in the way. That barrier was shame. My mother was a fairly strong feminist and the message I inadvertently internalised was that male sexual desire is the root cause of all evil in the world, that nudes are degrading and people who take them akin to murderers. And yet I loved the images. Perhaps fittingly it was a woman who finally invited me into the world of nude photography, and that first experience, and all that followed, have worked to reverse my inhibitions. It was a healing process for me, an affirmation that my appreciation of the female form is not only tolerated, but appreciated. Further to that, it was often a healing experience for the women also.
Any shame we hold around our bodies and sexuality will always impact on the way we share ourselves with others. Shame is a powerful hindrance to happiness and it does not dislodge easily. If it's easy to talk about it's not shame you're dealing with. Shame is the last thing we want to talk about, ever. But it's the first step to really being honest and connecting with ourselves and others.
He has travelled the external and internal world extensively and gotten a closer understanding of each in the process. His photographic portrait work demonstrates this awareness through the depth of presence he captures in his subjects, bringing their internal world to light in the external form of their bodies. Follow him on Twitter & Facebook.
32 Affirmations From a Nudist (Why Be Nude--Now!)
It's Naked November, so we're all about getting down to our skivvies. We even have several fun nude date ideas. But why? What's so particularly great about being nude? And why in November? OK, we admit it's a bit too chilly for nudity. But that doesn't mean you can't look at yourself naked and feel good. Being naked is about having a positive body image, accepting yourself, and others as well--including all of their flaws. Our resident friend and nudist, Roy Michael Blakely, is here to explain his 32 affirmations for why you should be naked right now.
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Why I Love To Be Nude
For happiness! Naturism keeps, provides, allows, reveals, answers, fulfills, completes and confirms our return to a spiritual design of being human for the joy of loving and being loved beyond all secrecy, inhibition, doubt, and betrayal.
#1 Being Nude keeps me grounded, and protects me from the incremental assassination by a world seeking to rule my awareness with bigotry, sexism, and lust.
#2 Being Nude keeps me more alert - attuned to my surroundings and those around me in a stress-free state of mind.
#3 Being Nude keeps me vigilant in my faith for self-worth and values.
#4 Being Nude keeps me - ME. I belong to ME without self-doubt or pity, thus remaining free as ME to inspire the happiness & joy that gives you me, and me you, free of debt as my reward for being ME.
#5 Being Nude provides my perpetual invitation for new friendships seeking to honor this awareness with our mutual sharing and living.
#6 Being Nude provides the comfort essential for my spirituality.
#7 Being Nude provides the clarity of self-worth and honoring self-esteem with unbridled reflection.
#8 Being Nude provides freedom for others that welcomes their uninhibited selves, for the honor of sharing and living without pretenses.#9 Being Nude allows me to uphold the honorable spiritual truth that the penis and vagina constitute the physical host for Gender Values, and that no shame, guilt, or fear should diminish our Sum by my attitude and actions.
#10 Being Nude allows me to feel closer to my Higher Power. Bearing no pretense for the design of me--as a spiritual being embodying the human experience.
#11 Being Nude allows me to be more easily recognized by those who embody my passions and honor.
#12 Being Nude allows me to better illuminate the women who can embrace my awareness of them, from the many in denial of that spiritual worth.
#13 Being Nude for a woman‘s honorable worth, reveals my faith in her as undiminished given a lack of pretense by her.
#14 Being Nude for a woman's reflection of her own self worth, reveals her self-esteem with me as undiminished without pretense by me.#15 Being Nude for a woman‘s acceptance of me, reveals an affection from her that welcomes my worth without excuse.
#16 Being Nude for a woman‘s need of embracing who I am, reveals the affection I seek to share in the mutual worth of friendship, romance, and sexuality.
#17 Being Nude answers the best of what we are in spirit, to honor the most of who we are in the flesh. We can embrace our truth in one another - family, friendship, marriage, and faith, without the ignorance or arrogance of secrecy, inhibition, doubt, or betrayal diminishing that acceptance.
#18 Being Nude answers my greatest honor in being alive as a human being, for the faith and self- worth that constitutes the love with which I worship my Higher Power, in total acceptance.
#19 Being Nude answers the devotion I seek to share with others in family, friendship, marriage, and faith, in total acceptance.
#20 Being Nude answers the need for spiritually, emotionality, and sexuality.
#21 Being Nude fulfills my need for being me, as my quest to worship my Higher Power finds peace and joy in what I am by spiritual design.
#22 Being Nude fulfills my courage of being me, as my need for being nude is of my faith and not by doubt.
#23 Being Nude fulfills my purpose in being me, as shame, guilt, and fear bear no religion as my faith to seduce me.#24 Being Nude fulfills my duty of being me against all the social assassinations of my spirit sought by religion and politics.
#25 Being Nude completes me with the face value of my self worth, by the naked truth of faith through gentle eyes. With nothing left to shed as a nudist who worships a Higher Power, as a celebration of our sum, answers with reflections of You by spiritual design, that hate cannot undress as a pretense.
#26 Being Nude completes my trust with others about Gender Values, by the gentle eyes I inherit as a nudist to embrace whom I can as a sum rather than for their parts. Greed cannot claim me with selfish want.
#27 Being Nude completes me upon the orgasm, by the gentle eyes I inherit as a nudist to honor sex with the dignity of my own esteem. Temptation cannot answer for me.
#28 Being Nude completes me upon my free agency, by the gentle eyes I inherit as a nudist to respect others as I respect myself, that clothing cannot determine for me.#29 Being Nude confirms my dignity by my Higher Power's domain, as my spiritual will by realization over consensus, seeks to discover and not plagiarize my meaning with others by spiritual grace.
#30 Being Nude confirms my beauty by my Higher Power‘s domain, as my spiritual will by realization over consensus, seeks to extend, rather than patronize the worth of others by spiritual blessing.
#31 Being Nude confirms my love by My Higher Power‘s domain, as my spiritual will by realization over consensus, seeks to embrace, rather than question, the spiritual truth of others by spiritual will.
#32 Being Nude confirms my sexuality by my Higher Power‘s domain, as my spiritual will by realization over consensus, seeks to deliver, rather than cheat the value of joy in others by spiritual design.
Roy Michael Blakely is a nudist. He's also a divorced father of 5 grown sons & a daughter in Heaven. He is also a newly published author of "Gender Values: A Proposal for Marriage in a Bottle". Michael believes that as long as “normal” is used as a measure for right and wrong, insanity will rule us against growth-maturity-and love! Check out his blogs at Gentle Eyes and Gender Values. Follow Roy on Twitter @gendervalues.
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