Sexting Myself
A story of body reclamation through self portraiture.
I have found so much pain and beauty in this body. These folds hold wounding so deep, I fear I would not reach it.
I have found my medicine through introspection, movement, and creativity.
By becoming my own witness I have seen the depths of me, documenting every step of the way. This is a reclamation.
Self portraits are my personal favorite self love practice. No, I don’t mean selfies, although those can be fun too! I can say with confidence that I am incredibly well-versed in the art of self portraiture. Through my experience, I’ve found profound love for my body and a rise in creative expression over the years. Self portraiture is a loving documentation of my pure beauty.
Growing up, I never had a great relationship with my body. I always needed to lose more weight, shave my hair—constantly comparing myself to the other women I saw in magazines, wishing I looked like them. They were beautiful. But me? I wasn’t sure of it.
4 years ago, I found myself in a constant state of self pity and poor confidence. I tried all the diets, I could never stick to a consistent exercise plan, and self love practices were non-existent to me. I just didn’t feel like a beautiful, confident woman. Besides that, my creativity had reached an all time low. I hadn’t taken a photo in years, burying myself in the work of an agency graphic designer. The fire for my true creative love, photography, had dwindled down to a sad flickering flame about to go out any day.
Searching for all the right answers, I drowned myself in Instagram chatter, until one day, I stumbled across Ev’Yan Whitney’s work. Ev’Yan is a super chill Sexuality Doula (cool, huh?) that that teaches, writes, and speaks so graciously about female and queer sexuality. I continued to follow her work for about a year and one day she announced an offering called ‘Sexting Myself’. I thought, “well that sounds different!”
When we think of sexting, it’s typically reserved for the eyes of someone else. But this, was purely meant to seduce yourself, while having a group of babelicious femmes, cheering you on along the way. I was intrigued and needed to do this for myself, immediately. With 10 days of assignments, paired with tips and prompts to create beautiful images designed to uplift, inspire, and reclaim our own unique sexuality—I instantly fell in love with this course. We were encouraged to share our images in a private group chat and lift each other up in the process. This was the image I took on day 1:
Damn, I was proud of this image. It felt artistic, minimal, and secretly sexy. I posted the image with hesitation, only to find loving comments like: “Queen!”, “You are stunning!”, and “This is pure art.” I felt my heart burst with happiness. Yes, the goal was to create this for yourself, but having a group of like-minded women who had the same insecurities that I felt all my life, tell me I was beautiful was life changing. To be truly held and witnessed by others is one of the most healing experiences you can gift yourself.
I was nervous to share nude photos of myself with a bunch of strangers, but nudity was completely optional, and it became easier day by day. I looked forward to seeing the other women’s photos and telling them that they too, were beautiful queens. I finally felt at home.
After the first few days of phone selfies, I decided to dust off my old Canon 50D, and jump into my love of photography again. And just like that, I was hooked. Both in my photography, and a passion to guide women to reclaim their bodies, just like Ev’Yan had given me in this course.
I am pure art.
One year later, I decided to embark on my most ambitious personal art project yet. I called it, 100 Days of Body. For—you guessed it—100 days, I would take nothing but self portraits, and post one a day on Instagram. It was one of the most challenging and gratifying things I have ever done for myself.
I laughed, danced, cried, screamed with frustration, and cried some more because something inside me was changing. I was becoming a different person. Posting intimate portraits of myself on a completely public platform was…difficult. Certain friends and family were not fond of seeing my nude body on their feeds and it made me self conscious once again.
I was starting to reveal my truth and grow exponentially through my creativity. It came down to this…I was doing this for myself. No one else. Even if I was posting the photos, they were all for me. A promise to myself, that I would keep, no matter what. In time, it also became a message. I wanted to show other women that they could feel beautiful in their skin, and reclaim their sensuality, creativity, and pure erotic innocence. The loving feedback I received far surpassed the criticism I was so worried about.
“These images are about freedom. Empowerment. This is not a man’s image of a woman. But a woman’s image of a woman.”
-JAMIE BECK
I look back on this project and see how significant this was for both myself and my career. It still stands as my largest body of work to date. And for that, I am so proud. I take self portraits to this day as a way to express myself, step into a flow of creativity, and capture my body as the true art that she is.
Sharing these self portraits allowed me to display my gift of photography and attract many, many people who were interested in being photographed by me. It was a dream come true. And now I get to offer this gift to you, in a ritual container of self love and empowerment.
I am forever grateful to Ev’Yan and all the wonderful teachers I’ve studied with along the way. They have lifted me up, gave me new meaning, and inspired me to give this to others. No matter what you have been through, just know this: YOU. ARE. BEAUTIFUL. And, I love you.
With gratitude & love,
Olivia
I WORSHIP MY BODY
My breasts
Beautiful mounds of pleasure
Food for my child
My yoni
A sacred temple
Only I choose who can enter
My hips
Supple curves
Power to hypnotize and grind
My womb
A warm space
To hold a growing child
I. Am. Magic.
