How Sex Work Helped Me Reclaim My Sexuality

Trigger warning: this piece contains mention of stalking, grooming and sexual harassment.

When I first met M. P. at a Writer’s Meetup, I didn’t really notice him. To me, he was just another adult in a room full of them. The Meetup took place in the back room of a restaurant not far from my parents’ house. I was there with my mother, because I was still just a kid. At the time I was seventeen years old, a high school senior, and exceedingly sheltered for my age. My Catholic parents hadn’t given me “the talk” yet, and they’d opted me out of Sex Ed at school. Aside from a brief “relationship” (we only kissed once) with a girl at summer camp, I’d never really dated. My Asperger’s Syndrome made me something of a loner as well. I didn’t know what a serious, adult relationship was supposed to look like. Nor was I interested in one. I was attending Meetups to make platonic friends. Isn’t that what meetups were for?

M. P. began direct messaging me via Meetup. Before long we were messaging each other on a near-nightly basis (he worked the night shift at a local apartment complex, where he manned the front desk and waiting for something - anything - to happen). From the very start he made sexual comments and claimed to be in love with me. I knew that M was 33 - seventeen years my senior. I didn’t mind, despite the large age difference, because I was so glad to have someone to talk to. I thought it wasn’t too bad since my grandparents were sixteen years apart in age. Anyway, M claimed that our relationship was totally normal and I (foolishly) believed him. All kinds of perfectly ordinary situations - from hugging a relative to watching certain movies with the sound on - distressed me, thanks to my autism. So I generally relied on other people - friends, family, teachers, even strangers - to tell me what “normal” looked like.

M. P. soon began stopping by my parents’ house nearly every afternoon, bringing gifts. He also began to grope and touch me, as well as describing his favorite kinds of porn. When I asked him not to, he explained that - as his girlfriend - I owed him. Supposedly, I had to do what he wanted, no matter how uncomfortable it made me. He’d also tell me that my writing was horrible and that I ought to become a prostitute because I was too stupid for anything else (which just proves that M. P. didn’t know what he was talking about, given that sex work actually requires a fair amount of business savvy, emotional labor, and raw intelligence). Of course, I believed him. Many of our visits ended with me in tears. I became increasingly gloomy and miserable as the months went by. Yet I kept everything hidden from my family, fearing they’d hate me if they knew.

Finally, around my 18th birthday in May, I tried to break up with M. P. I did this at one of the Writer’s Meetups so that there would be witnesses. I also confirmed over text. He agreed that we were broken up. Then, the next day, he refused to acknowledge that anything had happened. The next few months were even worse. I felt increasingly hopeless. Finally, I decided to cut him off completely and block all of his accounts. I also blocked all our mutual acquaintances and stopped going out. Though M. P. managed to send a few more harassing emails using new accounts, he eventually gave up. I was free, though still shaken and frightened.

By then it was September. My parents had decided to send me to community college. I’d wanted to take a year or two off, to recover from everything that had happened, but they wouldn’t allow this. Even more frustratingly, my parents had signed me up for a kind of mentorship program. One of the mentors (a man in his 30s) began texting me nonstop, telling me I was sexy and that I should become a stripper. He’d show up everywhere I went at school, probably because (as a mentor) he had access to my schedule. He also kept trying to get me to meet him alone on an isolated part of the campus. This terrified me. When I went to the man in charge of the mentorship program, he was apparently fairly shocked, yet he didn’t seem to know what to do. The campus police weren’t any help either, because the mentor hadn’t actually broken any laws. I ended up dropping out before my first semester ended.

Soon after that, I began taking classes and volunteering at a local public access television station. It was there I met J. M., a handyman in his 50s, who produced a horror hosting show there. He cast me as one of the kooky characters. From the very start, his behavior was vile. He’d barge into the women’s dressing room without knocking, send me explicit sexual messages, and threaten me when I didn’t do what he wanted. When I insisted that I was uninterested in him and probably gay, he responded by becoming aggressive and angry. He’d call me various cruel, sexist names and say that most women would love attention from him.

Eventually, after about a year of this, I gave in to his heckling. I let him kiss me with his horrible mouth, I let him grope me. Though I promised, constantly, that I’d have sex with him someday (usually to get him to stop yelling at me), I never did. He soon became impatient. He claimed that I didn’t have the right to say no, not after “dangling” myself in front of him (I suppose he saw me as a piece of irresistibly delicious candy, rather than a human being). One day, while I was at his house, he convinced me to flash my breasts. I thought that if I did so, he’d leave me alone. Instead, he pinned me to the couch and licked my torso. He tried to take my skinny jeans off as well, though between their tight fit and my struggling he couldn’t, so he eventually gave up. I found this incident exceedingly traumatizing. I had nightmares for many months. Everything startled me. I was terrified of the dark, of sleeping, of strangers who looked like J. M.

Finally, a little more than a year later, the nightmares stopped. By then I was still living with my parents. Aside from a brief stint as a cashier during the Christmas rush and a number of unpaid internships, I’d never really had a job. My income came primarily from gig editing work and publishing my essays. My autism and shyness made it hard for me to get through job interviews. It was then that I began hearing about sites like OnlyFans and ManyVids. I knew that selling porn or nudes could be a fairly lucrative side-hustle. It was also something I could do from home, without having to see anyone or go anywhere. I also felt that no matter where I went or what I did, I’d be objectified and taken advantage of by someone. Sexual harassment seemed inevitable so, cynically, I figured I might as well find a way to profit from my youthful looks and curvaceous body.

I began filming themed striptease videos and posting them on ManyVids. To my surprise I actually enjoyed the process. For the first time, I felt as if I were in control of my sexuality and sex appeal. I no longer felt as if I had to look or act a certain way to appeal to aggressive, controlling men. Instead, I could wear costumes that made me feel sexy and act out scenarios that I enjoyed. I soon branched out, filming masturbation and fetish clips as well as more themed stripteases. I played a variety of strong, confident characters in my videos - from vampire countesses to drill sergeants. I also “invested” some of the money I earned in props, as well as fabrics which I used to sew more costumes for myself.

For the first time ever, being sexual was about me instead of the men in my life. Plus, since I did everything - from setting up the camera to editing the footage - I was completely in control of the content I produced. If I didn’t like how something looked, I could shoot it again or cut out a few seconds. If someone requested a custom video that made me uncomfortable, I could always say “no”. After years of feeling trapped by the vile men in my life, being able to have complete control over something (even something as simple as the videos I post) has been so helpful in helping me heal and regain some autonomy in my life. Not only that, I’ve been able to make a couple hundred extra dollars every month from my video sales. When I live-cam, I can make that much in only about five to eight hours. This has made me more financially secure, which in turn reduces my anxiety and makes me more confident. The fact that I’ve been able to run my own business and make a profit has also helped me. It’s proved to me that, with enough determination and hard work, I can be legitimately successful at something. I’m not the useless idiot M. P. insisted I was. Quite the contrary.

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M. L. Lanzillotta is an AFAB transmasculine freelance writer from the Washington DC metro area. Before his transition, he dabbled in online sex work under a female persona and name. His many hobbies include painting, acting, cooking, and complaining via Twitter.

No, Mother.

When I first came out to my mother - and to me, coming out meant coming out to my mother - this woman I’d heard cry only from behind closed doors, choked tears on the other end of the phone and said, “Your life is going to be so hard, and life is hard enough.”

I was 19 years old. 

Now 31 years later at the cusp of 50, older than she was then, I can fully and truthfully respond, NO, MOTHER. 

No, mother. Being gay wasn’t hard; what’s hard is oppression. What’s hard is being denied history. Not knowing for instance that there were queer kings and queens and emperors - still memorialized on coins - women that rode into battle and married wives. Men who dressed in gowns and wore makeup and called themselves “husband” to the man they held dear yet STILL ran an empire. 

What’s hard is not knowing about the ancient sarcophagi containing some of the First People, male remains buried with tender female objects because these were the things treasured in life. It was hard to grow up in the South thinking I was the only one, all the while this history existed untold, the first people, gender-fluid, but still honored by their tribe, that was hard. It was difficult struggling inside with shame and guilt, shunned by classmates and threatened with damnation, all because I’d fallen in love with my friend, fell in love the way all teenagers do - an open, dazed stumble like falling into flowers – surviving that was hard. 

Being gay wasn’t hard.  It was being alone.  

Mother, the hard was you calling me queer, sneer in your voice. Belittling me, as I cried post-breakup on the bathroom floor.  The hard was learning later that so many queer children die needlessly for the same reason, taking their own lives, when had they known about Caleph Al-Hakeem and Queen Christina, and those Two Spirits, the absolute inevitability of LGBTQ people throughout time, well, they wouldn’t have died. 

No, mother.  Being gay isn’t hard. Seeing a college friend, jaw wired shut after being bashed in Alphabet City, that brings pause. Begging for politicians to recognize gay men dying of AIDS, to allow them healthcare, a basic human right, yeah, that sucked, I agree. But we threw the ashes of their dead bodies over the White House fence and eventually those inside got the point. 

Mother, you were worried about me in your own way, but what you missed was the joy. What  you didn’t foresee was the dancing. Limelight, NYC, a former church, now lit by spotlights.  You didn’t know about the Pyramid Club down in the Village, friends dancing to the all-80s night. Or Private Eyes, where they misted the room with wet smoke and how we swam through it like a sea to meet lovers on the other side. 

Mother, you missed the parades. We marched down 5th Ave from the Park, following a lavender line through the city.  Held kiss-ins in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, grabbed the person next to us and went to town. It reminded me of being young on Sundays when we’d say peace be with you and reach across the church to shake hands with strangers, only in the protest it was WITH TONGUE. Yes, mother that was fun. That was exultant. The great rainbow ribbon of balloons. The dykes on bikes. Rounding Christopher Street past the Stonewall, queers cheering from their balconies and throwing streamers down on our heads like we were wartime heroes. The parade would dump out on to the west side Piers, into a rally, and drag queens would lip sync from the stage.  They’d call us names, yell out, hey bitches happy Pride! And I’d be pressed in among the masses, a glorious press of bodies, love, and joy,  we’d say our goodbyes and plan to meet back later when we’d dance by the water and kiss beneath fireworks, and the moon. 

No, mother, that wasn’t hard. That was life.  That was being myself. Feeling myself, feeling free.  Free of hatred, particularly of self-hatred, and no, that wasn’t hard. THAT was grace.

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Laura Jones is a writer, journalist and teacher. Her nonfiction essays have been featured in two anthologies, including THEY SAID, edited by the poet, Simone Muench, and the upcoming, HOME IS WHERE THEY QUEER YOUR HEART. An excerpt of Jones’ graphic memoir "My Life in Movies" was published in 2019 in Fourth Genre, along with a companion essay commissioned by the journal. Her nonfiction work has also appeared in numerous literary journals including Creative Nonfiction, Foglifter, The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Drum, and Wraparound South, to name a few. Jones earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University, where she also won the 2015 AWP Journals Prize. She is currently co-teaching a curriculum she co-designed in LGBTQ+ history and theory to high school students at the Springhouse Community School.

My Religion vs My Libido

Growing up in a traditional Christian household, I was taught to be God-fearing, wholesome, chaste, well-mannered, and poised. These characteristics were the determining factors as to how successful of a Christian woman you were.  As I grew older and entered puberty, protecting my chastity became the main topic of concern. My virginity was to be saved for my husband.

During my formative years, I was a devoted “church-goer”. I participated in the choir, youth fellowship, bible study, and attended Sunday School. I’d do bible exams and pass with flying colors. On the outside, it would appear as if I was firmly rooted in my Christian foundation.  But behind closed doors, I was a rebellious teenager, struggling with sexual feelings and my changing body.

13, horny and confused.

Being taught that sexual feelings and actions before marriage were a sin, I found myself in a constant battle. If I was to wait until marriage, why did I feel this way? Was something wrong with me? No one told me that what I felt was NATURAL, just that it was WRONG. I found myself in a cycle of masturbation and guilt – Masturbating to feel better, but having the euphoria quickly dissipate because of the guilt. 

Going through the days plagued by shame changed the perception I had of myself. I was disgusted. I’d attend church and was afraid to speak with persons because I felt like they knew I was sinning. I needed to find a solution; not only did I have this internal struggle, but my relationship with God also began to weaken. Having to continually ask for forgiveness made me feel pathetic, so I opted to just avoid having interactions with him. 

I remember sitting in class one day when my teacher began to have a talk with us about puberty and sex. She touched on the topic of masturbation and assured us it was natural to partake in some self-love. Extremely perplexed; after class, I pulled her to the side to ask her if masturbating wasn’t a sin. She explained that the act of self-pleasure wasn’t bad, but what made masturbation wrong was the lust that accompanied it. I recall feeling an extreme sense of relief. I had no sexual desire for anyone, I just wanted to get off.

The respite I received helped me find peace. Because I now felt comfortable in repairing my bond with God.

15, horny and attracted to boys

That relief I gained lasted for two years. I salvaged my relationship with the Big Guy and I felt as if I was in a better position mentally to balance my urges. However, as time went on and my body continued to develop, my attraction to the opposite sex began to grow, and I was back to square one. 

Masturbation without porn and sexual desire became extremely difficult. Guys began to show me attention, and I was on overdrive. Consequently, I found myself watching porn and imagining my crushes and me in the scenes. The appetite I had for getting off expanded. I could not control my need for relief, which led to the return of the masturbation/guilt cycle. I entered a rabbit hole of self-deprecation and once again began to deviate from my faith.   

I struggled to choose between sexual urges & my Christian values. I felt I had no choice but to put my sins on a metaphoric scale. I weighed them similarly to how crimes were valuated. My solution was to justify my lust and masturbation as low on the totem pole. I wasn’t stealing, I wasn’t killing, most importantly, my virginity was protected.

But, then something happened.

The virginity I worked so hard to protect and chastity I struggled to uphold was taken from me

For a long time, I felt that what had happened to me was somehow my fault and that God was punishing me because I spent all those years succumbing to my sexual deviance. I held my head in shame, feeling that I brought this upon myself.

 “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually” 1 Corinthians 16:11- The bible scripture mandated to me after my traumatic experience. I was taught that times of hardships and tribulations were the most important times to draw closer to the Big Guy. I was a mess mentally, not only was I grappling with the thought that I brought this on to myself, but I could not and would not be around the opposite sex. The way I felt before the trauma was all gone. The last thing on my mind was getting off. 

Guilt-ridden, I emerged myself in the things I was taught to be right. I was traumatized, it was all my fault and this was the only way to prevent something bad from happening again. 

18, working on things but horny again? 

Time had passed, and I went through a plethora of emotions, phases, and moods. Fully emerging myself into Christian values had brought nothing but pain and sorrow. I had this increased level of detest for religion. If I was doing everything right, if I had asked for forgiveness and repented, why were bad things continuously happening to me? 

No one could provide an answer, all I heard was “stay true, stay steadfast and love God, things will work out” Nah, this wasn’t working. I started questioning if staying faithful and just was the right thing for me. I was miserable, unhappy, and most of all I had denied myself sexual relief. 

I entered a new chapter of my life – COLLEGE. I was moving on to the campus and out of my parents' grasp. I would no longer be forced to attend church and the values I lived by became a choice of my own. 

The guys were looking good, I was looking good and with my virginity already taken away, I was no longer fearful of the repercussions. What was worse than rape? If all I did was masturbate and my punishment was so brutal, how bad could it get if I actually took my power back and have sex voluntarily? 

These questions led me down a dark path. I was no longer bending over and denying my happiness in the name of religion. I was no longer going to live my life to die. I saw moving onto campus as a way I could regain my power, to regain the thing I lost…The right to choose. I was no longer concerned with sinning and the fall out of it.

Fast forward to today. 

Things haven’t magically gotten perfect.  I’m still trying to figure it out. One thing I learned was that my happiness had to come first for me to live a fulfilled life. I could not be concerned with keeping up a battle that was draining my energy. I had to find a middle ground that didn’t cause me continuous pain. Lust and fornicating aren't the only sins, so I chose to uphold the others. 

So here I am 

25, still horny, not married, sexually active, but I have a relationship with God.

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Ashleigh Harris is a recent graduate of the University of the West Indies with a degree in Political Science. She suffers from Epilepsy and as such she has become an advocate for the cause. She is extremely passionate about workplace equity for all and spends her free time relating to her peers on issues of sexism, racism and ageism. She currently works as a digital marketer and uses her platform to create content that spreads awareness of various issues. You can check out more from her at Instagram @ashlerenaee.

Catcalling Chemo Cuties

“They believe they should want to visit the edges where things have overgrown and become irregular, but they want to know they’ll be able to leave. ”

For the first time in months, I was left alone to try to walk the couple blocks to the grocery store all by myself. Basement level blood pressure sat me on the curb after only a hundred feet while I prematurely sweated through the same early gift cooking my ovaries into barren, Venusian irrelevance. On the way home, I thought about how embarrassing it would be if I passed out right here in the street. I didn’t pass out, though, and things aren’t all bad: I got to have a little treat on the walk back.

Standing and conversing on the sidewalk on the way to my apartment were two gentlemen. They wore jeans and shirts like everyone else, and only barely appraised my approach with light eye contact. These days, I am easy to size up. The shining of my bald head has turned to window glass; an absent minded glance allows even the least discriminating of observers to gather All The Information They Need.

Sometimes I wonder if my eyebrows have been replaced with the documents my oncologist and surgeon mail me recapping our conversations. As I passed, one of the men standing there on the sidewalk enthusiastically let me know, “I still think you look sexy!” The thought on the front of my brain was of course being amused that damn, people really will catcall anyone at any time. Even a bald wheezing dumbass who hasn’t Finished Physical Therapy but craves the crispy-fried rock-bottom prices of Cheep Chicken Monday isn’t immune.

Of course when analyzing intent and meaning, word emphasis matters, so I am delighted to point out it was impossible to discern. This leaves us some possibilities to be enjoyed: maybe the comment was backhanded, a kind of “I still think you look sexy, even though—and I don’t need to tell you, toots—no one else does.” Or maybe he meant “I have watched you walk to the grocery store many times, beginning before your cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy, and while I haven’t said anything lately, I still think you look sexy.” We will never know if he was expressing unrequited admiration, assuring me “I know you do not think I am sexy, but I still think you look sexy.” More pressing than these problems of identifying emphasis, this guy made me wrong which of course I hate and now I am supremely irritated. Not an hour before deciding to attempt to walk for chicken I had just been explaining on the phone to my friend Kerri how I have begun noticing (or lost the ability to ignore? who cares(?)) being “othered” by people in public due to my visible sickness. I am counted among the “sick” now. One may now only experience me by wading through and temporarily diffusing into the gossamer sticky “cancer” mythos which emanates from and surrounds me. People remember being children and they remember adults telling them how their face might Freeze Like That and while it isn’t the same thing, they can’t be too careful. They also remember how wild animals can be unpredictable, and so it is best to enjoy them from a safe distance. People know that isn’t really the same thing, either. They believe they should want to visit the edges where things have overgrown and become irregular, but they want to know they’ll be able to leave.

“I was bitching the point that people no longer register me as what I called a “viable sexual adult.” I’m now included in the same category we place children and the elderly. ”

People whisper when they speak to me. Sometimes they avoid eye contact, and sometimes they make eye contact but pull their lips weird in that way that absolutely, universally means “sucks to suck.” When I was talking to my friend Kerri on the phone—less than an hour before The enWrongening—I was bitching the point that people no longer register me as what I called a “viable sexual adult.” I’m now included in the same category we place children and the elderly. Treated as one of the protected rather than a protector. The way we perceive other people’s power and position is tied to how we perceive their sexual viability. How we assign worth to others is, in part, based on how we perceive their sexual viability. A person’s perceived attractiveness, fertility/virility, willingness to engage in sexual behavior, and their appearance factor into conclusions we draw about their appropriate level of power or position within a group. Now that chemotherapy has made me infertile, what does that mean in terms of my perceived usefulness? An awful lot of people are going to an awful lot of trouble just for me, and I can’t be bothered to fulfill the most basic biological request. I bitched and bitched about these things, and here this guy lets me know he still thinks I’m sexy. Do I not get to have ANYthing?? I wish I had asked him any question after I politely thanked him (which I did, because I liked his tone, and hey, he did correctly identify me as a person who hasn’t been hearing “sexy” so much as I’ve been hearing the greatest hits: “The Doctor Will Be Right With You,” “When Was Your Last Period,” and “How Are You Feeling Today?”) because there’s marrow to be sucked here and, as you can imagine, that’s about as precious a commodity can get. If I had my way, he would have explained the “still.” Clarifying, “you mean I’m still sexy, even though I’m wearing a blue dress?” I would have liked to have asked if “I’m still sexy, even though I’m under six feet tall?” What is my sexiness in spite of? He’d get to fumble through avoiding saying “even though you are sick.” Ultimately, his catcall is acknowledging the natural/appropriate/expected reaction to my being and person is one that is patently unsexy. Me being sexy is something to point and stare at now, and qualifying my sexiness with “still” drives the point home that I currently, visibly Have A Condition. That’s the answer to the question of “still.” He means “you are a person living with a condition which doesn’t allow sexiness.” Probably I would also have liked to have asked “why did you think that, in my enfeebled prostration, I would at all be concerned as to whether or not you still thought I looked sexy?” This is an easy one. Healthy People love to tell me how they feel about things. Healthy People love to tell me about me. It is not surprising a Healthy Person believed I was interested in hearing his opinion on whether or not I’m—believe it or dont!—still sexy. If I had thought of it, I could have even asked him why he pegged me as a person who needed to be paid a compliment. I don’t remember walking down the street projecting dejection or anything, either; the scent of lilacs was on the breeze today.

My money’s on it’s this thing people have been doing to me since becoming someone who Has A Condition: Cheering Up. People are very concerned with the evolution and status of my relative cheer levels. People NEED me to be cheered. The man on the sidewalk assumes I need someone to fill my Cheering-Up Cup because Having A Condition must be just god awful. What a perpetual slog, eclipsed in its shittiness only by its constancy. He was throwing me a bone. Brightening a cancer-person’s day by letting me know aloud I am still sexy.

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Beaumont Sugar is an essayist, poet, and painter based in Anchorage, Alaska. They live with Penelope and Waffle, their wife and cat. More of their work can be found on Instagram at beaumontsugar.

Lewds, Nudes, Dudes

“But the omnipresent fact is that the female body and its likeness remain hypervisible, bearing the official seal of a social trademark - easily recognizable, easily repackaged for consumption. ”

During my sophomore year of college, I took a costume design class as an open rebellion against the business degree that I had been maternally mandated to pursue. I sucked at drawing, but my professor from a theater class I’d taken the semester prior encouraged me - he believed that I would really enjoy it (they also really needed the students for the class to run so I’m sure they were willing to accept my crappy art).

This very small class of six had a ratio of all girls to one boy. Our teacher, a woman, presided. Our task was simple: we were to read plays and each individual class member would design a costume set for the entire dramatis personae. As the months progressed, our teacher repeated one resounding frustrated remark, “It’s like none of you know how to draw men. You’ve got these elaborate designs for your female characters and then the male characters look more like afterthoughts.”

She encouraged us, the female members of the class, to look up male bodies for reference because something had to give. I remember being slightly embarrassed by this - I was seventeen and felt like I was crossing a boundary. However, that class ended up teaching me something about fashion… and a lot about sexual politics.

*

I would like you to take a moment to visualize the nicest butt you’ve ever seen. Imagine the plumpness of the ass cheek, the rotundness of its curvatures. It could be a firm butt or a soft one, it just has to be a nice one. OK, now that we’re done with that indulgent exercise, tell me yourself what was the gender of the person with this lovely ass? More than likely, regardless of who you are or what you’re into, you were thinking about a female butt. Maybe it was Nicki’s, Beyonce’s, Kim’s, some random Instamodel you follow. The butt is female, the butt is always female.

Society, as a whole, is more inclined to look at women’s bodies because we have been actively encouraged and rewarded for doing so. Women’s bodies exist in this weird cultural public domain to serve as muse and canvas, our bodies are the clay from which male intellectuals and creatives mold and shape their careers. Of course, women also paint and theorize about women. We do this in efforts to reclaim our bodies, express our autonomy, show love and solidarity within the sisterhood, be transgressive. But the omnipresent fact is that the female body and its likeness remain hypervisible, bearing the official seal of a social trademark - easily recognizable, easily repackaged for consumption.

I read a study (Men Are Much Harder by Beth A. Eck) in which men and women were presented with two sets of images - one presenting female nudes and the other male. When presented with the female nudes, everyone knew what to say about them - both men and women would speak on how attractive the female bodies were; women would go on to talk about how they wished to look like the women in the images. Now, when presented with the male bodies? Oh boy. Men made sure to assert their heterosexuality (“No homo, bro.”) and would say things like, “This does nothing for me, I’m not interested in looking at this” while women would be slightly embarrassed by what they were looking at. Nobody knew how to engage with these images because men’s erotic bodies rarely appear in the open as the object of muse or fantasy, we have no lexicon with which to engage eroticized male nudity.

In our society, we conflate sex with the objectification of women. We speak of sex as a perfomance that plays out on female bodies for their male partner’s pleasure (I mean, have you seen mainstream porn?). Much of the language we use to communicate and express sexual desire is filtered through our patriarchal understanding of relationships and pre-set sexual “scripts.”

When I was in my late teens/early twenties, an aunt gave me a warning coated as advice: “Men are aroused by what they see.” I had heard some variation of this growing up but how she worded it so succinctly was nothing short of mastermind. As a young woman who had been repeatedly denied from exploring her sexuality for fear of reproach (and because, let’s face it, we as a society are not good about discussing sexuality at all) I let these be my governance for how I was to behave in relation to relationships. But it begged the question - what the heck were women aroused by? Because I sure as heck knew that I was aroused by what I saw and I had a private Tumblr exclusively dedicated to photos of dudes in all manner of undress to prove it. Yet, despite all this, I felt like I was doing something unnatural.

The gnawing sense of shame I felt for having that Tumblr lead me to delete it two years ago after a successful four year run (press F to pay respect). Why was I feeling shame about a blog that only I knew ever existed? Because I felt abnormal. Over the years I routinely explained to myself that I only had the blog so that I could gain better understanding of male anatomy but of course that wasn’t true - I kept it for my own visual pleasure, for my own titillation, for my own sexual satiety. That must have been what have been really scared the crap out of me:  I was a woman who was aroused by what I saw. After repeatedly hearing that female sexual desire is more duty than delight, an expense paid for the love from her male partner,  I felt like I was betraying womanhood and femininity.  

In Dr. Lucy Neville’s, Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography and Erotica, she makes a note on how we react to women who look - very poorly. She says, “To look critically at men goes against the feminine role and disrupts the established power relationship. Good girls don’t look. They particularly don’t look at men. Instead they get looked at.” Our society, so painfully unequipped to understand women’s sexualities  (especially when it entails looking at men with that same gaze with which men have been taught and conditioned to so freely look at women) decides to pretend that either we don’t exist or we’re in some way trying to be men. Our views on sexuality have been so thoroughly warped, so thoroughly androcentricized that we are willing to assume that one gender stands as sole paragon of sexual desire.

For me, the most powerful scene in the 2019 film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, comes when Héloïse asks Marianne if she draws men nude. Marianne replies, “I am not allowed to… I’m a woman… It’s mostly to prevent [me] from doing great art. Without any notion of male anatomy, the major subjects escape [me] [but] I do it in secret.”

This statement absolutely floored me. It reminded me of how I rarely find women artists who draw the male erotic as their primary subject and those that do tend to do so through the homoerotic lens. It’s as if women’s desire has been thoroughly quelled; we have a lack of social scripts to guide us.

In her video essay, Shame, Contrapoints points out that, “In the most patriarchal situation, straight women are ultimately attracted to men, and sexually aroused by male bodies. Or are they? … a lot of straight women are just kind of ‘meh’ about male bodies and men in general. What is that about?” But she’s right. I remember having a friend see my phone’s home screen (which is a really hot pin up I commissioned of an artist’s male original character [abbreviated to OC, for all you non-fandom plebs]) and she was really shocked to see it. The image isn’t explicit, it channels the power of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. When I asked her about her shock she said, “I just don’t look at men that way.” I believe what she meant was “sure I date guys but I’m not about to have a pin up of a dude as my screensaver.” I get it. Nobody really looks at men that way. While female bodies dominate our perceptions of erotic, male bodies are just… meh. We have had centuries of experience posing and styling the female body to make it aesthetically pleasing but when we do this with the male body it looks almost alien.

I used to be at that ‘meh’ point. But in coming into my sexual liberation, I have realized that I would rather openly challenge this than sit with it. I'm tired of hearing "be sexy for your man" as legit advice for women. Do guys hear from older guys that they need to "be sexy for their lady?" No they don’t.

I started that Tumblr back up again. I intend to keep it this time.

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Bracy Appeikumoh is a Sarah Lawrence College Creative Writing (Speculative Fiction) MFA candidate who writes to imagine a world wholly different from our own. She explores issues such as sexuality, gaze theory, the subversive effects of fandom culture, and internet culture. Also a nerd. You can find more from Bracy at Twitter or Instagram.