Several of you have written that you’d like to see me post more photos of myself on on my blog. You have no idea— or maybe you do!— what a controversial proposition that is for me.
Part of me wants to throw a couple photos up to relieve anyone’s curiosity, and be done with it. Another side of me is all too familiar with the pressure and humiliation that comes with being even marginally known as a “sex symbol.” Any sane person comes to the point where they want to wash their hands of it. [self-portrait,2004]
I was once an "accidental model"— the years in the 80s that I ran On Our Backs magazine, and I was surrounded by topnotch photographers, professional lighting, and a pressing deadlines with no one else to strike the pose. Sometimes I think the same five people are in every issue from the old days. We just recycled ourselves in various wigs and pseudonyms.
[photo by Phyllis Christopher]
Before I edited On Our Backs, my main experience with picture-taking was childhood posing for church holidays. For the first twelve years of my life there aren’t that many photos of me that didn’t take place on a Sunday. They are all as stiff as the crinolines under my skirt.
[school photo, Riverside, 1966]
In high school, I took a b/w photography course, and that’s the first time I ever saw a candid photograph of myself. All the students took turns shooting each other. It was a revelation... I’d never seen myself as I look when I believe I’m unobserved. I loved those pictures! Here’s one of them, on the left, taken by Joel Levine, when our high school underground newspaper, the Red Tide, was protesting censorship at the Board of Education downtown. I’m 16, and it’s 1974.
At the time, and for many years afterward, I never wore makeup; I dressed in jeans and revolutionary slogan tshirts. I wanted to be desirable to my friends, and the people I was likely to go to bed with, but this did not involve the slightest bit of glamor or special preparations.
I didn’t wear revealing outfits, I didn’t wear bras— any of that would have been seen as pathetic by my peer group. I thought I looked good in my tshirts and peace sign necklaces, with my hair brushed straight and long. I was embarrassed that I was so tall. I took it for granted that I was slender— I didn’t think one thing about it.
Now I think of all those years as a blessing of oblivion.
I came upon the reinvention of glamor, the subversive glamoristas, when I got involved with resolutely communist drag queens in San Francisco in the 1980s. I would say the Cockettes were my role model. I loved theater, and costume, and dressing up like a girly-diva with tongue firmly in cheek. I finally lost my naiveté about the power of suggestion through clothes and deliberate erotic presentation. It was great fun— and quite overwhelming to see the sexual power one could have by “flaunting it.” It seemed laughable to me that I could put on high leather boots and have people think I was a dangerous dominatrix. [photo by Della Grace]
I don't think I ever had a bad time with those sort of dressing up. But I didn’t have to do it for a living. I thought of myself as a writer who just happened to get in front of the camera occasionally.
But I saw how my friends who worked full-time as models, strippers, escorts— and others in the “pretty business”— were burnt out by the pressure. They wanted nothing more than to take off the wig, the makeup, get in jammies, and have faith that someone would want them au naturel. (See my satire photo on the subject by Phyllis Christopher on the left) I’d already had years of love and sex while ostensibly being “plain in jammies”. That was the wonderful psychic protection I had, to know that looking like yourself was not so bad at all.
When I started publishing books, I was often asked for my photo to put on the cover. It didn’t occur to me that the publishers wanted a sexy young image to sell books. I’m not kidding! I just thought they were interested because I was the author. It wasn’t until they STOPPED asking me for my photo, that I realized they were worried that my image would be a sales STOPPER.
What happened? Nothing special. I got older, that’s the main thing. My face wasn't as smooth, I gained a few pounds, I didn't look like the dew off the rose. There’s a reason why supermodels start at 13 and 14... it’s all downhill from there! I’m neither fat nor thin, I’m just in the middle. My hair is salt and pepper. I could look any way you want depending on what make-up pencil and hair dye you choose. My photographic portaits are all all pure theater, there is no “real” there. I’m not photogenic, (i.e. perfect shots from any angle) and I always relied on clever artists to make my celluloid version look alluring. I never got around to using makeup or wearing bras as a daily habit; it was all in the costume shop.
My photos today,are taken by my family, and I’m sure I just look like someone’s 40+ mom, which I am! If I dolled myself up and put up the mood lighting, I could be a Great Seductress again, but it’s at the bottom of my to-do list. [Birthday,2004]
Why so? —Because it’s hard to keep up with people’s hopes and dreams of a fantasy girl. I don’t want my latest photo shoot to be the index of how sexy or wonderful I am at any given minute, when in fact my “camera face” has zero to do with my sexual satisfaction.
Plus, I don’t want to be endlessly discussed by visitors like this, who recently posted to my blog:
Subject: Your Photos Before You Became the FAT CHICK
You're fat Susie. Show the REAL you today.
Unsigned
Yow!
You know, I am so earnest that I actually wondered if this post was from fat liberationist who was mad that I wasn’t celebrating extra pounds. If I was a bonafide Fat Chick, I’d be proud of it.
So I decided to look up the poster’s email address. Big surprise: It was [email protected] I guess he isn't fighting fat oppression after all. So I deleted him, since it was nothing more than a nasty dig.
But it raised the issue for me: Why does someone act like that? What on earth has this guy been doing, following my career, and then trying to have some kind of negative relationship by jeering at me? Was he once attracted to me and then vilely disappointed? Is he attracted to fat women and repulsed by his own feelings? Since I’m average, from a mature woman's perspective, what does he think a normal figure looks like?
There’s a certain value in being photographed “as is,” just to reveal the veil of mystery and prejudice about what the human body looks like. I let a TV crew film me at a nudist club a couple years ago, and I knew I probably looked completely dull.
But I wanted to make the point that when you go to relax in the nude, it’s not about putting on a show, it’s about relaxing and letting go of the status that clothes infer. I want people to know that “this is what 40 looks like”-- it’s not Catherine Deneuve after five hours at the beauty parlor, as lovely as she is. It’s a huge relief when you realize how normal aging is, and what it really looks like. From the naturist sense, you are more beautiful when you are without artifice. [photo: Bailiff/Bright]
There’s a big secret and irony about appearance and sexual satisfaction: they peak at opposite ends of the age spectrum. I really did look like a stoned fox when I was 18, but my sex life was kind of frustrating! I didn’t have orgasms half the time I was with a partner, and I was SO embarrassed about EVERYTHING I felt about sex. Now, I’m not nearly as cute, but I enjoy sex so much more. I’m a much better lover, naturally.
And this is how it works for everyone. You don’t figure it all out when you’re crawling out of your egg, as pretty as you are.
Because the image of older women (“older” meaning: over 25) is so unusual in our culture, if you promote a middle-aged portrait of yourself in the buff, and you don’t use techniques to disguise your aging, that portrait becomes the focus of everything-- you better not have another point you want to make because no one will pay attention to it.
Or, you get to endure mean people like Mr. Not_A_Fattie who want to reduce you to ash. Who needs that kind of attention?
Since I do have a lot of different interests than being a role model for naked plump hippie moms— (and you know who you are!), I’d rather take a easygoing, no-pressure attitude about publishing my picture. If there’s some funny picture of myself that I impulsively put on the site, I’ll do it. but I don't want to work at it; I don’t want to create any kind of suspense or expectation.
If I could have a wonderful photographer take pictures with me today, and do anything I wanted, I would like to do something that involved nudity, actually. As usual, I’d want an original take on it— I not sure what. If you took Man Ray and Brassai and Ruth Bernhardt and mixed them up with a bunch of Nothing But the Girl photographers, that’s my idea of my perfect forty six year old portrait. It’s not going to look like a Nerve personal ad!
Hey speaking of which, I was once hired to do an essay about Nerve personals that never got published. I was required to place an ad. I decided to put the sexiest picture up that I had handy-- a still from my turn as the Bar Girl in Bound. I’m in a leather corset with lipstick, no glasses, and my hair is all done up. I wanted to attract the bees to the honey fast.
The only responses I got were from men who wanted me to come over and suck their dick in the next couple hours, and a couple of fun lesbian bi girls in Sacramento, who recognized me. Interestingly, few of the men allowed me to see THEIR photo, which I figured would be essential if all we were interested in was superficialities. My idea of hot sex is not going over to some faceless mans apartment to get him off without reciprocation. I’m sure it’s fun once, but I already tried it twenty years ago, and the thrill of the adventure is over! Plus, I realized that I didn’t have a hairdresser on hand and there was no way I was going to pour myself into that corset just to meet someone for coffee, or a blow job.
Photos!!! You see, they just get me into trouble.
One last question: That note from NoFatties-- I knew, intuitively, that it was written by a man. However, women are certainly capable of criticizing a woman’s figure, or being cruel about another woman’s appearance. So why did this letter sound like a guy? My partner Jon and I have been talking about this, and I’d be interested in what you think, too.
