Sexyat40

This Is Who I Am: Our Beauty in All Shapes and Sizes is a new photography book by Seattle-based photographer Rosanne Olson. The project started  word-of -mouth, as individual women were delighted with their photos, and recommended her to their friends. Far from the perfect bodies, they are average women celebrating their bodies and forms.

Elizabeth Wellington, Fashion Columnist for the Philly.com writes about it here, and both Olson and Wellington make a connection between negative body image and the fashion industry. While fashion does play a part, between fashions designed for stick figures, no larger sizes available in trendy clothing, and advertising promoting an ultra thin version of beauty, the issues of body image are much complicated.

 While most of us have become immune to the ads from the fashion industry, a positive celebration of the average female form is easy to relate to, and a great celebration for all women.

In a previous post, I talked about posing nude for photographers and artists. I just received some photos from the last project I worked on. Personally, I think they came out really cool. I think I look pretty darn cool for 40!!!

They are artistic, classy, and make me feel inspired. I know there are some people who have a problem with nudes. I’m not one of them. I think nudes and the female form are beautiful. And as you can see, in no way do I have the “perfect” body or shape. Even my imperfections in the butterfly photos add to the photo.  I hope there are more opportunities to push the envelope, because no matter what age, there should always be new adventures on the horizon.

 I was at a bookstore looking for books on exercise & health, trying to gain knowledge on how to better support my body as I get older. The same situps I did at age 20 seem to have little or no effect on my abs at 40. Looking for good quality information was hard to find, as the magazines just wanted to sell me things to “fix” my body.
As a young girls I remember a Judy Blume book of pubescence. It dealt with the issue becoming a teen and the body changes to expect. My friends passed it among ourselves as if some kind of handbook for becoming a woman, all of us just holding our breath and waiting for the day when our breasts would blossom, we could shave our legs and our cycle would start. We were thinking when our cycle started it would be a magic day that would completely change our lives. Will we feel different when it happens? Who’ll be the first of my friends to get it? Why did my mother call it a curse?
Sure things did change, but maybe not as drastically as we thought.

 Looking back, there were two things my friends and I  were looking for in the book. The first was strictly information. What changes were to happen, etc. The second was “how did she feel”? What was the experience like for her emotionally. I could get information from my mother, but to her it was an older woman’s opinion. I wanted the experience of someone my own age, going through it at the time, sharing her fears and joys. I needed to relate.
 That is what I was looking for in the bookstore. Information and support from other women my age. Instead,
I found magazine after magazine telling me that I was falling apart and only surgery, pills and lotions could fix me. Somehow this new stage of life was a disfigurement that needed to be “cured”. I feel I know less now than I did before I started seeking information.
What’s the big secret? Why can’t someone just say point blank “These are the changes happening, here is how women feel going through it.” I don’t necessarily want a fix to my few gray hairs, or my beginning crow’s feet. And I certainly don’t like being told that they are items that I need to “correct” to feel good about myself. I know that is not true. I do feel good about myself, but on a bad day, I do second guess myself.
What would make me feel good is to empower myself with information, to know that these are normal changes of life, and everyone in the same stage is going through it and are wondering the same things.
 

I  started nude modeling for an artist friend about two years ago. OK,  do the math, not at age 20, but at age 38.

Why you ask would I do such a thing? I did it for myself and for my personal growth. Rather than being all talk, I wanted to do something to show myself how I really felt inside. I feel sexy and more-so as time has gone on. I know I don’t fit into any normal or conventional box, so while things can be challenging, it is also something in which I am proud. I have always wanted to model and tried the plus size modeling road over the years with no response. I wanted to push my level of awareness of body image and being comfortable with myself. To me, the fact that I would be able to enbrace my self naked in the light, and surrounded my a multitude of people, instead of one -on-one, was liberating and empowering.

I started out just modeling for the one artist and then it quickly grew. He taught at a very prestigious art school and asked if I would be interested in modeling for his class. It is one thing to get comfortable with yourself and one person, but very different to open yourself up to many. I was very nervous the night before and the morning of. But an interesting thing happened after a split second of vulnerability. As I was standing there naked, on a platform, surrounded by ten people of different ages and backgrounds, nobody cared. They saw me in a position of full nakedness, and did not look at me different or down on me. As a matter of fact, I was revered.

 The models used by the class varied in size, age and body type. And as I lay there still, the class discussed among themselves, and with me, their experiences with different models. They were frustrated by the young college girls,  with tight bodies and perky breasts but yet still uncomfortable with their bodies. Their rigidness and tenseness of the situation made them difficult to paint, and their perfect bodies too easily looked liked caricatures on canvas.

The artists worked, talked, and talked with me. No comments were made of my nudity, and they were appreciative of my time. They were thankful to me, and models are hard to come by. Having not the eyes of my husband or a lover who knows each wrinkle and line, and the stories behind them, but the stares of a stranger looking at me and not caring is a true accomplishment. I don’t think many woman would push themselves to that extreme. But I do feel it is a great exercise to try to get there.

 I was told my essence did shine brightly and was invigorating to be around. And the fact that my body was in an art class, seen by artists, and painted by artists, truly helped me see the work of art that it is. Much like a finger print, no two bodies will ever show the same exact marks,  making each woman’s map unique. They are the map of my life and where I have been.