Radical Honesty
I feel like I’ve made a choice recently to step back a bit from my life, and from my community. It’s not that they aren’t nice, well-meaning people who probably do care about my wellbeing. It’s more that they aren’t the kind of nice, well-meaning people who are comfortable confronting reality.
My reality is, in fairness, unbearable. I can’t bear it well myself. I don’t think they are there though for my expression of that reality, the huge feelings, the desperation and for the person I have come to be, and I am done with pretending. I need people around me that I can swear with, scream with, show my real self with. And that self is very irreverent right now, incandescent with rage and grief. I don’t want repression or polite niceties. I am wild, baby.
Radical honesty. Is that even possible with normal humans? There are so many things I have to hide. I can’t wear my fantastic vagina museum mask with these people, for example. I can’t tell them about the way I took a series of photos this week of my cunt for the first time in my life and they were just SO BEAUTIFUL, and that I wish I could have shared them with the whole world.
I really want to be more real though, more myself. I can’t be arsed to have another ‘I’m praying for you’ conversation with another well meaning person who has no idea what it is like to have lost so much of what made me myself. No, I’m not going to ‘just get better’. No, I’m not getting access to treatment. No I don’t feel ‘glad that at least I am alive’. Obviously I have my family, and I love them, but I’d also really like to fuck without repercussions and go for walks with my kids and take them to beautiful places like we used to do.
In stepping away however from the ‘get well soon’ and the ‘just stay positive’ and the ‘it’s going to turn out ok’ people, I’ve also found a whole community of people online who have welcomed me into a different kind of realness, a realness that is owning my physical self in a very different way. I can photograph my body and own the beauty still contained there in it, own my feelings, my desires, and not be afraid of being fully myself. I can embrace my sexuality and enjoy it in different ways, and that has been hugely healing for me.
So maybe, I’m going to try to stop pretending. Maybe, I’ll try to have more uncomfortable conversations in which I confront the positivity with reality. Perhaps I can be a little braver in my relationships and my choices.
I probably still won’t show them the cunt photos though.
Firstly taking pictyures of your cunt and loving your cunt is radical form of self care and self love. Soceity teaches that everything about this is wrong but that message is utter bullshit and loving your cunt is the most powerful and empowering thing you can do in my opinion. I love my cunt too
As for this “incandescent with rage and grief” I can relate. In some form or other I feel that has been my reality for the last couple of years. It ebbs and flows obviously but it sits inside me like a little pit of fire. I am learning to harness it and let it help me to give less and less fucks about all sorts of things including what people think of me
Molly
Thank you so much Molly. I completely agree; the sense of wonder and empowerment I felt when I saw the images was amazing and it was definitely self-care. It’s very hard to fit that into my current way of life, which has to be lived a certain way in order to be acceptable. It IS bullshit, but I also love the people in it so have to find some sort of middle ground.
Learning to harness it in order to give less fucks sounds like an excellent plan. I’ll get working on that!
I feel like you’ve been very brave here. Thank you for sharing such honest feelings.
You express yourself very well in words and in images.
I enjoyed both.
JerBear
Thank you
Thanks Andrew. It’s hard sometimes holding all the different parts of me. Some of them don’t meld together very well!
Radical honesty is entirely possible. I have found a way of being entirely myself around all the people in my world. There are some conversations I won’t instigate with certain people (non-traditional relationship styles with my mum, for example) but if they come up I am more than happy to have open discourse.
It’s a journey though, and I’m almost 7 years into mine. Do try to be patient with yourself, taking baby steps towards personal freedom has been the best way for me. I move forward, get comfortable then push on again.
I look forward to enjoying your journey x
Thank you! I think it is wonderful that you’ve been able to find a way of being authentically you with everyone around you. I am not sure I will be able to do that (my partner would be fired, for example, and a good chunk of our community is related to his job) but I will work to be as authentic as I can be.
I like the idea of baby steps. I think that has been my experience too. I have had to move forward to be more authentic in other ways in the past, and this is a new fresh discovery.
Radical honesty is hard. Not that we shouldn’t have it, it’s just not something we experience often, we usually have to sanitise ourselves for others.
And fantastic news on the cunt love,!!
Thank you!
I have just found your blog, and this post is so honest, I think I’ll be reading everything you have written. Be yourself, and take more pics of your cunt, I’m sure it’s beautiful.
Thank you
Beautiful and so Natural