49 2/12ths

...and I did something an hour or so ago that I have never done before. I took completely naked pictures of myself.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Late to the party. Digital cameras have been around for, what?, 15 years? Plus, we
did have Polaroid back in the day. But here it is, 2012, and just now I am getting around to doing something every sexting 15 year old does before they finish freshman year.*** Should have done it years ago. It's very instructive. Here's what I learned.

1.) Naked pictures can look better than, say, underwear pictures because (in my case, anyway) the underwear just bisects one's fat and calls attention to it and makes it bulge in ways it wouldn't when it's set free. Free your adipose!

2.) Finding the side/camera angle which makes you look best is very pleasing. I kinda knew from all the underwear shots I've taken of myself in the bulking/dieting progress pictures what view of me looks "best", but naked? Boobs look best from that angle too! Win-fucking-win situation, kids. I cropped my face/head out of the two pictures I liked best and saved them on this laptop. I intend to look at themwhenever I feel old/fat/ugly/undesirable and delude myself into thinking I really look to other people the way I look in those shots. And should this computer ever get stolen, que sera sera. I defy anyone to prove they're me. None of my identifiable marks are showing and that could be anyone's bathroom door. The towels hanging on it came from Tarzhay. I'm fairly sure approximately 2.4 million other people have exactly the same ones.

3.) Taking naked shots of yourself from your bad side/angle and living to tell about it is also pleasing. Many of us female type people have spent years of our lives not wanting anyone to see us fully undressed, never mind documenting it. Looking at the non-good pics and realizing the world hasn't come to an end is another step to freeing yourself from body shame and self-hatred. It lessens the power that kind of thing can have.****

I think that's all I have to say about that.

xoxo

***I'm not sexting mine to anyone. Settle the fuck down.

****Tangent: I took a life drawing class once with nude models and I subsequently always wanted to be one of those models. A.) because I would be awesome at it--I can hold perfectly still for long periods of time no problem. B.) I realized that this was probably the most purely nonjudgmental situation in which anyone would ever look at me naked and that, mired in my occasional/frequent bodily self-loathing as I was at the time, that would be very therapeutic for me.