On life drawing, learning to love my body and getting naked in my mate’s basement

Hands up if you’ve ever had moments (days, weeks, years, decades) of hating your body. Hands up if that relationship still has a permanent ‘it’s complicated’ sticker slapped on it. Hands up if you’ve ever felt uncomfortable in your skin. Hands up if there’s been times when getting naked even on your own has been impossible, let alone in front of anyone else, no matter how trusted (or not). Hands up if you’ve ever felt like your mirrors were trying to kill you. Now breathe.

Babe, I’ve been there. But I’m not there any more. At some point, things shifted. Like that phrase that’s been attributed to a comically long list of people (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Mark Twain) and used repeatedly used to describe change, bankruptcy and addiction: it happened slowly at first, and then all at once.

Some things that helped, non-chronological, interweaving and definitely not definitive: journaling, therapy, an initially short-lived but later revisited foray into onstage stripping, leaving the abusive relationship where I was bullied daily for my appearance and weight, learning about intuitive eating and Health At Every Size, learning about healthism, crying on my yoga mat, ditching wired bras and other uncomfortable gear, pole dancing, healing some of my patterns of disordered eating and exercise, putting the blame in the right place, sobriety, building an ecosystem of safe trusted people who actually get it and don’t make it worse.

As I write this, I have so much tenderness and gratitude towards my body. We are not enemies. That might shift at any point: it is hard to love your body at times of illness, injury and pain. It can be hard to love your body when your nervous system is frazzled, when your historic trauma returns alive and kicking to bite you in the arse, when your recovery feels wobbly, when your friends or family say insensitive shit, when you’re grieving or raging or exhausted or all of the above.

But for right now, my relationship with my body is the softest and most loving that it’s ever been. And so there was something both casual and momentous about the recent cosy joy of getting my kit off to life model for an assortment of pals in my friend’s candlelit basement. An intimate assembly of queer fam burrowed into blankets and cushions, with a soundtrack of atmospheric music and the soft scrawl of pencils and markers on paper, we took turns in the centre of the circle we formed, finding poses we wanted to hold for each other.

Turns out I know some bloody brilliant artists. Turns out lazing on a blanket with your tits out in front of your mates is unexpectedly lovely. Turns out seeing and celebrating each other’s bodies — even when they’re a bit broken in whatever way — is a comforting, healing, radical thing. Turns out living the full Titanic fantasy behind closed doors with a room full of queers will inevitably turn to a conversation about 90s Leo being a lesbian icon. Turns out I could have probably loved my body a lot earlier if I’d had spaces for it like this.

Thank you to the following for firstly creating and then letting me share their amazing sketches of me: Maria and Sophie (top and bottom of first image) and (clockwise from top left in second image) Avadrian, Sophie and Fiona.