Plus-Sized Boudoir?

Plus Size Boudoir?

I pop up in your social media feed telling you all the reasons you need to celebrate yourself right now, just as you are. Maybe you feel a little tug and think “you know what, I absolutely should!”Later that day, you have a doctor’s appointment and get the “let’s talk about your BMI” speech.Feel gut punched yet? Yeah, you’re in good company. So what’s a woman to do here?

For (literally) thousands of years, the idea of the ideal body size and shape for women has shifted. It has went from the highly curvaceous bellies and breasts during times of food scarcity in paleolithic eras, to narrow bodies in the rise of Egypt, back to fuller hips and curves during the rise of the Roman Empire and again followed by the Renaissance Era. Just take a stroll through an art museum to see the flip/flop of the idolized woman.

We thought we had figured it out. But wait! The Victorian Era came in and introduced corsets so we looked like a walking hourglass. Never mind that we couldn’t really breathe- we had to have this look. This was of course followed by chaotic twists and turns into the 20thcentury. In the 20’s we took on an androgynous look, followed by the return of the hourglass (hello, Marilyn Monroe), then the near skeletal look (hello, Twiggy). Jane Fonda and other aerobics came to rise in the 80’s telling us to look athletic, but wait- the 90’s said we should strive for the “heroin chic” look- a modernized Twiggy, if you will. It was a gain muscle/lose fat era followed by a lose all the things- breasts, muscle, fat era. Whew, are we tired yet?

We thought again we had it figured out. Then came the 2000’s, which told us that what we really needed was a BBL so we could have a modern-day Marilyn look- thick thighs, big butts, and tiny waists.“Baby Got Back” all the way from 1992 was coming to fruition a whole decade later. Social media and the music industry fed heavily into this idea and made it viral. Corsets were now replaced with “waist trainers” as we nodded in agreement with this. Along this same time, came the concept of “body positivity”. Oh, that sounds so good on paper, right? Just learn to loveallthe things about your body that our culture tells you to not. Obesity? Love it! Emaciation? Sign us up! We were essentially told that we should just smile and shit out some hearts and rainbows because we were practicing “self-love”. And somehow, it seems we all silently agreed.

Hopefully you’ve been paying attention, because over the past few years I’ve seen something pretty radical happen. In the thousands of years before now, one thing is consistent- no one ever asked these women what THEY wanted, thought, or felt. But now- now we are pushing back- and on several topics, not just our body shapes. Now, we are embracing more of a body neutrality. This is the idea that we prioritize appreciation of our bodies over loving our bodies. So it may sound something like this- “I don’t have to love my belly and stretchmarks, but I appreciate that my body carried a pregnancy”.

So, as your boudoir photographer, where do I stand? I feel as though both ideas of positivity and neutrality are a bit rose-colored when viewed separately in their own rights. No matter how much anyone tells me to love my mastectomy scars, I’m just not going to. Nope. And while I appreciate that my now absent breasts saved me from dying of cancer, I would definitely prefer to have them back. So, I’m a bit in the middle. Sort of the “well shit, now how do I makeTHIScrap work?” camp, and I have a feeling I’m not alone.

Real talk here- I attend networking events all the time and have talked to literally thousands of women. What do I hear over and over and over again ad nauseam?“I’ve wanted to do that for SO long, I just have to….XYZ first”And typically, it’s related to their weight or body size, less often, related to surgical augmentation. My first instinct might be to convince you to just “love yourself already! And ALL bodies are beautiful”, because I do truly believe that- but it doesn’t mean YOU believe that. Then I remember how I definitely do NOT love my scars. I feel you. I see you. And I could tell you to appreciate that you’ve recovered from a surgery/had babies/survived a horrible marriage…and you very well might feel appreciative, but that doesn’t equal love, it doesn’t equate to feeling like you can celebrate those events that changed your body.

So here we are in the middle. In the middle, it’s important for me as your photographer to HEAR you when you say, “I hate my belly fat”. I’m not going to tell you to love it, to appreciate it, or ignore it. I’m going to help you figure out outfits that disguise it. I’m going to pose you in ways where it’s not the center of the image. I’m going to light you in ways that leave the belly more shadowed. I will however, celebrate the fact that maybe you love your legs, or your butt, or your stunning face. Remember how I said that for thousands of years, no one asked the women what THEY want? Yeah, that nonsense has to stop. I’m going to ask you, point blank.

My ladies that refer to themselves as Plus-sized, obese, fat, thick, curvy, juicy, overweight, chubby, etc. need not miss out on a boudoir session or having that experience. These ladies have much to celebrate- maybe it’s a wedding, a divorce, a health goal, an anniversary, a birthday, or a “just because I f*cking deserve it”. Whether you work with me or a different boudoir photographer, I want to make sure you are being heard. Neither you nor your photographer need to celebrate things that you don’t like about yourself and you shouldn’t be told to just “embrace it” because let’s be real, that’s just not going to happen. In reality, you want some smoking hot images of yourself that aren’t focused on the things you are insecure about. You want to come out of your boudoir experience feeling mighty damn powerful, worthy of being desired, feeling absolutely beautiful and confident. And this is what I want for you as well.

If you’ve thought about having a session and then got that gut-punch feeling, let’s chat.