Naked On The Internet

Several weeks ago I posed nude for the photographer Allan Amato. The specific photo I’ve written about is included at the very end of this post, but I am hella naked so if that is not something you signed up to see, well, this is your warning that Thar Be Boobs.

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I was uncomfortable when I first saw this photo.

The photographer did an excellent job on his end! The lighting, the framing, the quality of the image are all expertly executed and my ego is so delighted I got to pose for The Allan Amato, after a decade of admiring his work online and in magazines. 

The part that made me uncomfortable was me. 

Naked. Vulnerable. Exposed. 

When Allan described this project to me, he told me he was looking for raw, honest portraits of people who got naked professionally. No fancy lighting, no posed image, no make-up. Just the bare humanity of the model looking straight at the viewer. “I can do that,” I thought. “I’ve been doing that my whole life”

I am naked on the internet. Both my body and my heart are on full display for anyone who wants to look. 

I have been getting naked for an audience all of my adult life. Back in the day, when my comic career still allowed me enough time to take on other jobs, I used to nude model for artists and photographers. The focus was rarely on my face, as the center of attention was on capturing the movement of my body and the interesting shapes I could make with it. I loved the special observation they made to the tiny details of how I was put together. I loved being the subject of somebody else’s art, of creating a beautiful, interesting picture. I loved creating an image that an audience could drink in and make their own through their own interpretations. I loved being the center of attention. 

I am also a cartoonist and my approach to comics was not much different. I got my start as a teenager in the late ‘90s drawing silly, idiotic, honest, candid comics about my life and posting them online. This was before social media, so to share my little autobiographical stories I had to write the HTML into a text editor by hand and FTP it to my webspace, provided my parents weren’t on the phone so the modem could connect to the internet. I shared my misadventures, I shared my heartbreaks, I shared my goofy, flawed moments, I shared my heart. The more years I shared my comics, the more people started paying attention to me. These faceless strangers told me they enjoyed my observations and could relate to my experiences. 

My home was chaotic and unsafe, my family painfully unstable. For a young girl without a sense of self and a profound, all-encompassing self-hatred, the attention of an audience was intoxicating. Their validation was addictive. The more personal information I shared, the more positive feedback I got. I felt appreciated, I felt loved, I felt seen. So I spent the next decade sharing comics about my life, about my thoughts, about my naked self. Getting vulnerable and exposed and naked connected me with other humans in fulfilling and profound ways that are inaccessible if you stay safely covered.

Putting myself out there naked on the internet physically, emotionally, mentally, has resulted in me finding my career, my home, my closest relationships, my chosen family, my husband. It has completely shaped the course my life took. Getting naked on the internet is the best thing I ever did. 

But here is the thing about making yourself visible: Some people are not going to like what they see. 

Getting naked on the internet is also the most foolish, destructive, and damaging thing I ever did. 

When you put yourself out there, all your flaws and faults and mistakes play out in front of an audience. Every aspect of you, every casual word choice, every silly photo with friends, anything and everything you share is frozen in amber and hyper analyzed. They are strung together as pieces of evidence to support the latest theory on the “real” you that complete strangers have decided you are. They construct a narrative for you and track it like the storyline of their favorite hero or villain on a soap opera. You are idealized. You are vilified. When you share yourself on the internet, you stop being a real human being and become a fictional character based on the likeness of you. 

You are exposed. You are vulnerable. You are naked.

The last decade of this unrelenting scrutiny has worn me down. Every year I feel more raw. Both the adoration and the denunciation, neither one is healthy to believe. Neither one reflects who I really am. The last several years especially, I’ve tried to take pre-cautions, to put up protective walls, to be more careful and selective about what I share. But I can’t stop. Not entirely. I don’t know how. This is how I connect with my community, my chosen family, how I express myself and have a sense of self. And, more complexly, this is how I support myself, how I pay my bills. My mortgage gets paid and my cat gets fed because of what I do. This is all I’ve ever known. 

Allan’s photo made me uncomfortable because I have never seen a more honest portrait of myself. 

Years ago I would have stretched and contorted, tried to create the most pleasing, interesting shapes I could with my body to produce pleasing, interesting images for an audience to consume. I would have enjoyed being the center of attention. 

And now, here I am. 

My pose is not dramatic or interesting. I’m not creating a story or sharing an emotion in this picture. I am upright. I am guarded and I am also on display. My breasts are exposed but my genitals are modestly obscured by my hands. I am sharing myself and I am protecting myself. I am looking straight at you while you look at me. I am soft and I am resilient. After everything I’ve learned and survived, I am still doing this. This is the portrait of a real human.

I am exposed and naked and vulnerable and I am still here.

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