These are some of my favourite images. Taken at one of my da..

These are some of my favourite images. Taken at one of my darkest shoots. STORY TIME I’m probably 20 here and am with a well-known photographer - who happens to shoot nude and erotica quietly on the side. I don’t know what’s a flag yet - or what’s expected in these circumstances. And I’m told I’m expected to do spread shots and hold my labia open. That’s standard. I don’t know how to trust my gut and I don’t know how to talk to the part inside me yet, the exhibitionist, that kind of wants to do to because of that scary feeling. So I do. He asks if he can put something in me. I don’t even think before barking “no”. *thank you body* The uncertainty is all over my face in the photos. I look y0ung and uncomfortable because I am. I hate it, but I don’t realize until later that’s what he likes about it. But part of me didn’t want to leave this experience feeling like I lost control. I was doing this entirely behind my partners back and he HATED the idea of anyone else seeing me in any state of undress. Getting visually violated by a guy with camera confirmed my ex’s beliefs that all this stuff was risky and for other people’s perversions rather than any artistic merit. So after Tiny almost T33nage Taylor let go of her labia - she pulled the items out of the bottom of her bag that she barely had the courage to buy, let alone wear. And for the first time since the dressing room at Northbound, she put them on and shot her last look. He was visibly taken back by the switch and I felt the energy shift. He didn’t know how to pose me in this new look because it wasn’t his style, but I also felt him like it. I’m shaking on several levels on a strangers carpet as a loner with a boner and a camera hovers on a ladder over top of me. But he doesn’t get any closer. A few yrs later his career implodes and the stories come out and he’s the first person I know to get outted - long before it was common. My heart sunk. I knew those photos had been sold to places I don’t even want to think about. I see photos of y0ung women he did touch and put things in. I ask myself if I was ever in any “danger”. He was a bean. Not physically threatening. Just emotionally stunted and socially screwed up. I didn’t have empathy for his sleaziness, but I didn’t feel threatened by his ask. Just mad at myself that I didn’t know the truth. It always bothered me that these photos don’t bother me at all. I love them. Even though I hated this day. It took me a long time to learn you can still take good and joy from bad. And you can still have all your power - even flat on your back underneath a bigger human. Just don’t let go of it.