I’ve always liked UPA’s Bringing Sexy Back endeavor, although I do sort of subscribe to the idea that sexy can be all the time, if you want it to be. I’ve never really done anything for it, though. I haven’t taped myself dancing sexy. I haven’t posted purposefully sexy photos in honor of it.

In thinking about it this week, I got to thinking about why. Part of it, I think, is that I have this natural sense of reservation about those sorts of images, for me personally (not for anyone else). It would feel rather foreign to me to post a sexy photo with the intention of promoting myself as sexy. A photo I post may be sexy – I do have some, after all – but me posting it exclusively to promote it and myself as sexy seems inauthentic to me. It also seems like, if I did it, it would be mistaken as attention-seeking, and there’s a certain math to all of it that has always made me uncomfortable. Why?

I suspect that it has a lot to do with being in a space of not necessarily owning my attractiveness right now. Which is just a personal thing. I don’t love my weight. I’m not super into how I look right now. I’m definitely in a bit of a hiding phase (oh hai, dolman tops that are billowy and forgiving, let me wear you every day). And, to me…sexy is something you are simply being, not something you try to be. The moment you TRY, it becomes a little meh to me. I think that’s just a personal preference that is held over from my acting days, as there is nothing worse than an actor who is trying too hard. I used to watch scenes in class with actresses who were trying SO HARD to be sexy, and it was really bad. Like, hard to watch. Because sexiness – to me – is about authenticity.

With that in mind, I made a decision: I was going to enter the BSB Poster Girl Contest.

I know, it sounds weird given my general aversion to posting anything sexy for promotion, but hear me out:

For better or worse, this is who I am right now. This is what I look like. I may not love it every day, but it is me. And…honestly…I want to see women like me being celebrated in pole. No, I’m not plus size (I’m a little short of it). But, I want people to see that people of all sizes pole. People of all body types pole. And, I want to see more of it. I love the body diversity that is in our community, but I want to see more of it being shown. This isn’t to knock the amazingly fit people in our communities – you folks are awesome, and I envy your abs – but I wish I saw more people with a little extra padding, in visible positions in our community.

So. I submitted this photo, with the encouragement of two of my most admired (and sexiest) pole friends:

Photo by Alloy Images 2015

This actually was the result of me fucking around in my photo shoot, being silly and playing with that riding crop that we dug out of a closet at the studio. Because I have a lot of fun fucking around with this kind of sexy, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily the kind of sexy I identify with all of the time. It is FUN, though – and that is an essential thing for me. So, in that sense, it’s a great photo to use.

I hope more polers with diverse body types are encouraged to submit their photos to the poster girl contest. I hope people vote for them. If you’re interested in nominating someone for the poster girl contest, or submitting your own photo, you can do so on UPA’s site – it states that they are accepting entries through August 4th:

For what it’s worth, the photos that I found the sexiest out of that shoot are these two: