I enjoyed the photo shoot with Anastasia—we had an interesting and wide-ranging conversation; as I left the shoot, a primary thought was that I was glad we’d met!
I don’t feel shy or vulnerable about being naked. I think that’s because, for one thing, I’m a drag performer and have done some extremely amateur theater—and there’s been lots of changing and getting dressed near other people in confined spaces. You just have to get over yourself and get the costume change done. For another thing, a certain amount of communal nudity has come with my experience of being a gay man—my queerness has led me into many environments where people are naked together, only sometimes in sexual contexts. In many ways I feel pretty comfortable in my skin.
Even so, I did have a slight worry that examining the photos—actually looking at them with a critical eye and thinking about which ones we would publish—would make me feel self-critical or self-conscious. I don’t experience being naked as uncomfortable, but of course I have insecurities about aspects of my appearance. As most people do, I guess. When I’m not actually looking at myself, I can say, “It is what it is.” But when I actually sit and contemplate...I admit I’m sad about growing older, about not being young anymore, and about the loss of physical beauty (and sexual capital) that’s a part of this process. I struggle with this. I was never an adonis, but, you know...I was pretty cute! And the sheer beauty of youth is not to be denied. I stopped counting birthdays several years ago and now just consider my age to be “somewhere between 40 and death” (with thanks to the film Auntie Mame for that term).
Fundamentally, what is my body? Is it “me”? Or is it just the container that “me” exists in? Not being a spiritual person (at all), my perception is still a common one: that somehow my body is a kind of animate vessel for the spirit/mind me. This seems illogical to me—I’m one being—but that’s how having a body feels. And the emotion that came up for me when I was looking at the photos was tenderness and fondness for this vessel, this animal, this flesh machine, that I “live inside of”: We’ve had a lot of fun together, honestly, this body and I! And although having a body is often a messy, unpleasant, or painful business...my body, the body in these pictures, has been a source of so much joy and pleasure. I thank it; I honor it. And I congratulate myself for taking pretty good care of it—for, lo, these many decades! I’m not young anymore, but I hope I’m closer to 40 than death. I still have this body of mine, and with it I’m still very much in and of the world, on this, my one and only journey through it.
I’m thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this project.