Willy or Won’t He?

I am going to be a nude model.

As I have mentioned in previous entries, I truly admire the nude figure.  Ever since I took that life drawing class in school, I’ve come to appreciate the human form and found beauty in these bodies: the soft curves and skin textures of women and the hard edges and hair patterns of men.  It’s all quite fascinating how we all essentially have the same parts but they can be so different at the same time.  A multitude of shapes and sizes and colors and coverings.  And what I really found fascinating was that these people were far from perfect.  You would never see these bodies gracing the cover of a magazine.  Yet, a lot of them seem very comfortable with their bodies.  Their bodies are imperfect, yet they are perfectly comfortable with themselves.  Sure, some of them could be so hard up for money that they would be willing to go nude for aspiring artists, but I like to think that they do it for the sheer mutual respect and admiration for the human body. 

I advocate nudity.  This might sound strange coming from the king of modesty.  Did you know I don’t own a pair of shorts?  I don’t like showing off my legs.  And if I weren’t so hot natured, I would wear long sleeves every day.  I like to be as covered as I possibly can without interrupting comfort.  That’s why I like winter so much: layers.  But, the more I see nudity, the more I witness naked bodies, the more comfortable I become with the concept of nudity.  I don’t feel as prudish as I used to feel.  And the more I see imperfect bodies, the more I become comfortable with my own. 

I get so caught up in perfection.  I always wish for a model quality body/face/hair/etc.  But, when I see these people, I realize that they aren’t model quality but they are okay with themselves and that gives me a bit of hope.  They’ve already accepted who they are and they are much happier for it.  I always thought I’d only be happy if I had a six pack but I guess I never managed to realize that I could be happy without one.

Take a minute for that to absorb…

And now throw it out of the window.

I want to get ripped and then be photographed nude. 

I think my self-acceptance can be a dual process.  I think I can learn to love what I have while simultaneously improving upon it.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wishing for better for yourself, as long as it doesn’t get you down or become an obsession.  And for me, I’d love to achieve the body I’ve always wanted (in a healthy manner, of course).  And once I do, I want to document my success.

I wrote a poem called Take off your Clothes, Take off your Skin, which you can read here.  I’d like to expand upon that a little bit.  As I mentioned, I’ve always been shy, not only with my body but with my feelings.  Some parts of me just want to be done with it all.  It’s pretty exhausting being so secretive all of the time.  And it’s not even that I try to be but I suppose I’ve just never had anyone I could really talk to about anything deeper than MTV.  I would like to change that.  I’m tired of being ashamed of how I feel and how I look. 

When you are naked, you have nothing left to hide.  It’s liberating.  I’m sure it feels great.  It can be scary, but good, to be so exposed.  Once you let it all hang out, there’s nothing left to worry about.  After everyone has seen the most intimate parts of you, there’s nothing else to fear.  How can you hurt me when you’ve seen the worst of me, seen all that I have?  You can’t dig at me when I have nothing to hide from you.  I mean, if I’m willing to show my willy, there’d be no doubt that I was an open person.  And that’s what I’d like to be. 

I’ve heard some female celebrities’ reasoning for going nude in such magazines as Playboy was that their bodies aren’t going to last but for a few more years and so they wanted to show what they had before it all went south.  Paraphrasing, I remember one celebrity saying “These boobies are only gonna stay up so long!  I wanna get them on film before they hit my knees.”  That’s reasonable.  And that’s another reason why I want to do it.  Some people want to capture their youth and beauty while they still have it and for me, I want to capture the progress I’ve made over the years.  Once I get ripped, I want to have it captured forever in film so that one day, after it’s all gotten saggy and flabby, I can say that I was once a young stud.  The only problem is, now I have to become a young stud.

Just to clarify, my motives are not sexual.  I wouldn’t want any shots taken of me stroking it on a bear rug or anything.  My photos would be tasteful…naturally.  I’m looking at it from an artist’s standpoint, as an artistic endeavour, as a mode of self-expression, as a time capsule for my handsomeness and youth.  Although, if it were to make me feel sexy and help me get in touch with my long dormant sexuality, then that would be pretty awesome as well.  I just want to look sexy and feel sexy and have a picture that says, well, sexy! 

I think it would be good for the self-esteem.  Photography can be an insecure person’s friend.  It all goes back to imperfection.  No one has the perfect body, even if they appear that they do.  There’s no telling how much plucking and tucking it takes to get someone to look the way they do and even that is manipulated when it gets scanned into the computer.  At the same time, I keep thinking of the expression “you can’t polish a turd.”  And as sophisticated as photo editing programs are nowadays, you can’t turn a troll into a treasure.  So, even if most pictures are Photoshopped within an inch of their lives, the starting image still has to be somewhat decent.  So, if after all the airbrushing and cutting and pasting, I can look and my nude picture and find myself handsome, I can take some comfort in knowing that some of that handsomeness is natural and not cooked up using fog or filters.  It’s still me, maybe improved upon, but it’s me.

They say even models feel insecure.  Well, they don’t look it in those pictures.  And if models can feel insecure everyday, then for a moment, in a flash, I can feel as confident as they look everyday.