As someone who came from an incredibly conservative, religious environment, and who now makes a living showing their body off on the internet and all the wonderfully erotic things it does - I’ve felt a lot of contradictory pressures around my body. Ultimately, my liberation from these pressures was taking charge of my sex work, which gave me the ability to accept my body and shake off the standards which had been imposed on it since birth.

I was born with a vagina, and in this world, it means hearing a lot of things about the worth of my body and the standards it must live up to. These were wildly different given the direction my life took - the religious, conservative ideals are far different than what a client demands in a strip club.

I internalised a lot of messages as a child about my body. Shameful messages, my own mother refusing to speak to me about menstruation in detail, my puberty talk consisting of being given a book and told to read it alone. I was confused about the sudden hard masses in my breast as the tissue developed, my hips swelled and created curves I tried to hide. I was told that my body was a means for people to sin, that sex should only be done in private, and while it was to be enjoyed, it was only to be enjoyed between a husband and wife, never talked about, never discussed.

These days, I run in much more sex positive circles, but dipping my toe into the sex industry was certainly an experience. I suddenly found myself in a dressing room of a strip club, surrounded by girls with no shame and instead of hiding my body, I was accentuating it - a pushup bra laced around my chest, garters and thigh high tights pushing up my ass. It wasn’t unusual to have a conversation with someone else when they were fully undressed, or to check that the girl had shaved her pubes properly as she presented her ass to your face. Suddenly a body was just that - a body. There was no hidden shame, no stigma, simply acceptance.

Or so I thought.

I shed myself of the shame around my body, and in doing so, internalised much more commercialised messages regarding the state of a woman's body. I’m lucky enough to be white, and I’ve always been quite thin and busty, but I found myself tangling into weird positions to rid myself of every pubic hair, and spending nights with a mirror pointed at my crotch, anxious that my labia matched each other, that they didn’t extend too far, worrying about the slightest imagined discolouration.

As far as conventional beauty standards go, I’m privileged enough that I fall within them, for the most part. However, a sudden desire to have my body seen, accepted, and loved came with the perils of stressing about every slight, of waxing my face and vulva, of picking only the few pieces of lingerie I thought showed my body off to its best. Within the context of work and a strip club, this is fine - acceptable. But it started to leech over into my personal life, and I would cancel dates if I had the slightest razor burn, or if I’d been bloated from eating too much the past few days. I found myself hiding my body again when it didn’t fit into my strict standards of pretty, and therefore, acceptable.

It seemed hopeless, like I had traded one set of arbitrary, restrictive standards for another. I thought I’d found freedom, but I’d just decided to crawl into another cage. An outspoken, sex positive feminist, I’d argue the merits of an unaltered woman's body while turning around and reluctantly taking a razor to myself, booking in the next waxing appointment, keeping up with my hair stylist. I’d passionately fight over body positivity, shaming my friends who would dare shame a fat woman, and decline to treat myself with sweets because I had to work that night. It was an exhausting double standard to keep up, but I thought this was the closest to liberation from my childhood, restrictive ideals I could find.

I ended up transitioning into brothel work and suddenly I found women of all shapes there, all of them incredibly successful. I once got there only to gasp in horror and exclaim I hadn’t shaved, to which another girl turned around and revealed her bush to me, saying that she didn’t care anymore and if the clients knew what was good for them, they wouldn’t either. I carried this attitude over into my private escorting career - it was a crucial realisation that people don’t care, and more than that, even if they did, it didn’t mean I had to alter myself for them. There’s always another client, always another friend, always another partner.

These days, I style my hair the way I like, I eat the food the way I want, and I adorn my body exactly how I please. Sex work was a huge part of accepting my body as a body, perfect in itself.

Transitioning into porn, I felt the same old pressures - it’s hard, when “hairy” is a fetish, but shaved is presented as the normal. When “chubby” is a fetish, but skinny is normal. Back in my modelling days, I wouldn’t eat carbs for 4 days before a shoot, stressing about bloating, but I rocked up to my first porn shoot having eaten a full breakfast - and thank god I did, those shoots require energy.

I bounced around the world of company porn for a while, but having other people choose what I wear and how I act in a scene, even if done in conjunction with my views, grated. I’ve spent my entire life dealing with those pressures, I don’t want to put myself in a situation where, however small, they appear again.

These days, I star in my own porn. I produce my own content, predominantly solo, sometimes with partners as the mood strikes. The only way I need to be conscious of my body is to make sure the placement of myself doesn’t obstruct key views (an entire hand over a vulva, when the video is meant to be focusing on exactly what my vulva looks like, doesn’t quite lend itself to the art I envision). I own lingerie that’s deliberately unflattering, I’ve shot in it and it’s some of my best sellers. My body works for me, my body is beautiful, my body is unaltered from societal pressures.

From a childhood where I was told to be shamed about my body, lest it tempted men into sin, I’ve come a long way. My pornography is all shot with one thing in mind: “well, fuck you, if you don't like it, someone else sure as hell will”.

My 18 year old stripper self would freak out at the thought of me presenting a vulva with pubic hair to anyone, let alone on the internet where it’ll stay forever. My teenage self would have a fit at the form fitting clothes - or lack of - that I happily wear. I’ll admit, parts of me still look at where my body presses out against fabric unhappily, but I take a breath and remind myself that my acceptance of my body is not conditional on conventional beauty standards, and - in terms of income - if one person doesn’t like it, there’s a million more who will.
“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.” - Dita von Teese


So I don’t shave. Or I do, pending if the mood strikes. I’ll eat a bowl of pasta without remorse. I’ll colour my hair every way under the sun, I’ll adorn my body with tattoos, and I pick my clothes based on whether I like them, not on whether some imaginary person will approve, or whether I may accidentally tempt someone into sin.

My body is my own, and it is nothing more than a body, a beautiful, sex-having, free body. Becoming part of the sex industry and taking charge of my own businesses within that was a vital part of coming to this realisation and acceptance.

Kristen
web: kristenjade.net twitter: https://twitter.com/_kristenjade instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristenjadeaus/