I want to talk about the body now...
Content Warning: This post addresses childhood sexual abuse and trauma.
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In my last post sharing ideas of publications I want to make, thereās one idea I held back and itās been bugging me ever since. Itās a deeply personal idea, one Iāve held in private, one I havenāt even shared with those closest to me. Writing in public on this blog, it makes sense that I held it back, even though my audience here is tiny (I havenāt shared this blog elsewhere). But as a space to work through ideas, Iām frustrated that I stopped myself, out of fear, out of shame, out of a lack of clarity and confidence about why I want to make this particular zine-idea. This self-monitoring brought to the fore questions Iām thinking through about publishing and publics, the act of making public, making a public, what I/we are comfortable sharing, with whom, and whyā¦ But also, maybe I just needed more space to think through the idea itself, and it wasnāt something that could fit in a list. Nevertheless Iām feeling the urgency to write about it now, even as my voice tremblesā¦
So here goes:
- I want to make a zine with erotic-sexy-pornographic photos of myself.
Right away I feel a lot of internal pushback to this idea. As a cis-het male with definite privileges, centring myself and my body so clearly feels like claiming space that shouldnāt really belong to me. I have a really complicated relationship with my desire, a complicated relationship to my body, my sexuality, Iām a survivor of extended grooming and childhood sexual abuse. This happened between the ages of 10 and 15. Iām 46 now. Iām not going to get into the details here, though I have shared some of my experience in the introductory essay to my book Design Against Design. Writing that essay and making it public (for the first time in Cindy Milsteinās collection Rebellious Mourning a few years earlier) I had believed would lead to some sort of miraculous catharsis. That it might free me from the shame and generalized anxiety I feel. Or maybe that it would garner me extensive sympathy and support from my community. These things didnāt really happen, but it was still important for me to make my experience of abuse and trauma public, to connect it to how I act and exist in the world, to feel, at least somewhat, seen. It also pushed me to finally tackle the trauma, through a variety of means, not the least of which has been more or less consistent therapy over the last six years.
The desire to make this zine feels like an extension of this, part of my āhealingā journey, though Iām less and less comfortable with this framing. Healing can imply a return to a state of wholeness, to a time and being before the fracture. It presumes a wound or a lack, which is true, but also positions me in the negative. In my case, it can sometimes lead to āwhat ifā questions that are ultimately unhelpful. Though itās challenging, I prefer to think from an additive level, of continual learning and progression, of finding ways to gain comfort and confidence in feeling and expressing the erotic, both within and beyond my intimate relationship. With a project like this, representing myself in a specific way, thereās also the whole philosophical subject-object quandry Iām grappling with, something that I think is heightened by the dissociation of CPTSD, particularly through the effects of sexual abuse.
To quote from Audre Lordeās essay Uses of the Erotic (though I disagree somewhat with her definition of the pornographic):
The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire.
Iāve sensed this in the erotics of direct action, at times in experiences of art, and sometimes through careful noticing. But rarely, at least without accompanying shame and anxiety, in my own body, or more accurately in perceiving my own body, or in being able to let go of that perception. I donāt doubt that similar to my experience of writing about my abuse, making and sharing sexy photos of myself wonāt get me to the catharsis I crave. But it does feel like a potentially brave step in the right direction. We make the road by walkingā¦
And yet, Iām wracked by self-doubt around all this, questions about why I really want to make something like this, what I hope it will achieve. For obvious reasons, it feels so selfish, narcissistic. And of course thereās also the risk of re-traumatizing myself, of putting something like this out in public and the consequences of that. In the end, who knows if Iāll even make this zine. But right now, I just wanted to recognize for myself and share with you, āthe public,ā my desire to do so.
Thank you for reading.
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PS. Before posting this I sent it to my partner to make sure she was ok with me sharing this publicly. Because sheās awesome, she was.