Getting Naked For Cancer, or, Why Having Naked Pictures Taken of My Fat Body Did Not Kill Me
My fat body is also a political body. I know this. Ways to use my body in a political fashion however... I've been a little shy about that sort of thing. I've had a livejournal for more than 5 years and it is only the last 3 years (years in which I have gained weight after significant -- though not on purpose -- weight loss) that I've stopped hiding from cameras. Getting out of a relationship in which my significant other denigrated my body helped. Having time to remember everything I love about my body no matter what the size of it helped. Getting into a relationship with a man who loves my body no matter what size it is helped.

And yet I never imagined I'd wind up posing naked for a calendar.

I wear a 24/26 in US clothing. My hips are a good 60 inches around because I have, in my grandfather's words, ghetto booty. I like my body with clothes on it and I like my body without clothes on it (and, thanks to some great suggestions here and my new live-in boyfriend being the patient sort, I'm starting to like my body in transition from no clothes to in clothes *grin*). But I still have a keen eye for my own flaws and full-body shots have always provided too much opportunity for me to make myself miserable.

But a friend of a friend was diagnosed with cancer and I started working on the benefit project that my friend cooked up. A calendar. A cheesecake calendar. A getting naked to prevent Heather (the friend of a friend) from being buried under debt while trying to survive (her insurance doesn't cover cancer meds) calendar. At first, I was just wrangling text, writers, and other editors. That seemed like a great way to help. And then my friend asked me if I'd be willing to be an alternate model, because she might just need one.

I think it's probably a sign of how awesome the woman who put this idea together is that I didn't immediately tell her no. I wanted to make her life easier because she was killing herself trying to make this all work and so I said I'd think about it. She showed me some of the other photos that were already in and I saw a variety of body types. I saw a woman with breasts that look like mine -- I'd never seen a woman with breasts that look like mine! I saw a woman with fleshy arms. I saw photos of women of all shapes and sizes and I told her I'd give it a try.

And so I did. My boyfriend is a good photographer with an excellent eye and I trusted him. We spent maybe 5 hours one night taking pictures all over my apartment. I didn't look at the photos once. He deleted a few that he knew I'd hate, but at the end of the night we still wound up with close to 200 pictures on my digital camera.

The whole experience was kind of surreal. I started out in a sexy bra and panties and got more naked as the shoot progressed. And, surprisingly, I just got more comfortable. We started having FUN. We started taking silly pictures. We started in with the silly poses. And by the end of the night, I had lost my fear of the camera. I still had no idea what my fat body looked like in the pictures, but the act of taking the pictures was no longer scary.

Just a tip, if you decide to take your own naked photos -- make sure it's warm in whatever room(s) you are using. It's hard to relax when you're chilly, we learned that fast.

It was a few days before I got to look at the photos. I'm not sure why I waited so long, but I'm glad that I did. Because when I uploaded the images to my computer and started scrolling through picture after picture of my naked flesh, I was able to look at my own body, for once, with the same kindness and eye for beauty instead of flaws with which I look at OTHER bodies.

It was amazing.

There are photos that just aren't great photos. In a roll of 200 images, there are bound to be several that just aren't quite right.But even those photos aren't bad. Even those photos don't make me cringe or recoil from my own ample fat.

Instead, I am amazed at how much I genuinely LOVE my body. I love my calves. I love my belly. I love my back.

And I love that, by taking these photos which might be used on a calendar that is currently selling AROUND THE WORLD, I am showing other fat women that it is okay to be fat in front of a camera. By using my body to help someone beat cancer, I am also demonstrating to other fat women that fat can be beautiful. Not a bad use of my fat body as a political body.

I want to see more fat women who are not afraid to be seen in public. I want to see models of all sizes, including fat sizes, on the cat walk being unfraid of people who might laugh at them. I want to see self-determined fat women make a conscious choice to be visible. Knowing that some people might laugh at them and making that choice just the same because otherwise we are giving in to the idea that we are not acceptable somehow.

I thought posing naked might very well kill me. Instead, it has lead to an incredible amount of body-empowerment and freedom from fear. Does it freak me out that I might be on a calendar and that I'm on the website and that people might very well look at my naked body and send me mean emails about it? Of course it does. But I'm doing it anyway. I'm doing it anyway because it's a great cause -- Heather gets every single penny of the proceeds to pay for her meds and treatments -- and I'm doing it because fat bodies need to be seen. I am so tired of hiding. I am tired of moving to the back corner of the elevator in an effort to take up less space. I am tired of apologizing to myself for not fitting into the clothes that I used to wear (back when I was "thinner"). I'm tired of looking at a size 10 woman on television and thinking about how great it is to see a "large" woman on tv when that actress is only large by Hollywood standards.

This is my fat body.







I want you to see it. I want you to see bodies that look like yours so you know there is nothing wrong with your body. I want us all to stop being afraid of wearing clothes that make us happy and of being loud in public and of accepting the messages that are consciously and unconsciously delivered to us that say fat=bad. I want us to stop being afraid of other people because other people, nonfat people, need to see us. That's the only way THEY are going to reject the messages they have been consciously and unconsciously delivered that fat=bad.



If you'd like to learn more about this project (and check out the other models, buy a calendar, or donate), you can do so at the website:

limeproject.org

We're taking preorders now and they are selling quickly. We had an anonymous donor who covered printing costs, so every penny of this goes straight to Heather.