🦊 Tales of exposed body
"No matter how hard I tried, I kept sliding towards the floor instead of holding stead my position"
(Now that I am translating my Portuguese articles here, I decided to share some of my older writings too. This one is from December 2023 and seems fitting with the recent conversations around nudity.)
Nudity is a curious thing, isn't it?
Every week I publish myself online, sharing moments of vulnerability, in what might be considered an act of exposing myself.
Even with words, sometimes I ponder many times before admitting publicly things that are very much mine, but this is an exercise I've been doing for a long time now, so I hold it together – when I think it's worth it – and share.
With my body, it's another story.
I've been taking pole dancing classes for a couple of months now, more or less. Since the first class, I've harbored a little seed of doubt whether being in a dance studio is really for me, but I persisted out of stubbornness.
Shorts and a T-shirt, that's the attire I usually wear during the classes. I see the girls wearing sports bikinis and small shorts and some guys only in trunks, but until recently, it seemed safer to me to keep my shorts and T-shirt on.
A couple of classes ago, I climbed onto the pole and tried a new position, but no matter how hard I tried, I kept sliding towards the floor instead of holding stead my position. I exerted force and slid. I gripped the pole differently and slid again.
– It's the T-shirt – the teacher commented. – Skin helps holding the body on the pole.
In the next class, we practiced a similar movement. This time, I did notice how much my T-shirt was hindering me. There were two other male classmates in the room, one of them only in shorts – I didn't even notice when he took off his T-shirt – and the other with his shirt pulled up to nipple height.
Taking off my T-shirt could help me, but I was afraid. Of what, I don't know, I just know that I retraced the steps of a dance I'm already very used to: I want to take it off, but I don't know if I can. I want to take it off, but I don't know if I should. I step here, step there, doubt, doubt, doubt.
But I wasn't doubtful.
What I had was just fear.
The same fear I feel when I need to call someone, or when I'm about to enter a new place, or when I don't know anyone and need to start a conversation in another language. Or what I felt in Barcelona, on a nudist beach, when a friend asked if I would continue wearing my trunks or go nude.
This fear is an old acquaintance of mine, fueled by an endless sequence of ideas and values about inadequacy, comparison, and social rejection, things I’ve acquired after being successfully exposed to a lot of bullying during my childhood and teenage years.
They whisper: what will they think of me?
Perhaps fear isn't the right word, but whatever it is, this time it found me at a different stage in life.
I wish I could say that I took a deep breath and made a thoughtful, sensible decision, based on the perception that all this fear may have served me in the past, but at this moment it no longer takes care of me, but what happened was much less thoughtful than my text might suggest.
In a sudden movement, I took off my T-shirt and looked around to see if anyone had noticed or cared. Everyone was focused on their own lives.
I threw the shirt aside and climbed onto the pole again.
This time, I was able to care more about what I would think of myself if I allowed myself to freeze.
(And in case you're wondering, what I would think of myself is: "OK, this is difficult for you, not this time, we'll try again in the future!" If there's one thing I've managed to learn in this life is to tone down the inner whiplashes and move towards self-compassion.)
What they'll think of me seems like such a vain concern, right?
This is a fear that guides many of my choices.
Or rather, it's an apprehension that blocks many of my choices. I've missed out on many things because, deep down, I was afraid of being perceived as bad, inferior, despicable – names I learned back in the days of school bullying and which, apparently, still hurt today.
Many times in life I've found a dose of self-confidence and thought I had finally overcome these ghosts that keep echoing from the past.
Today I understand that the ghosts will keep coming, whether it's time to take off a T-shirt, whether it's time to send a message in a group full of people I'm not yet intimate with, or even when I look at a new restaurant with a closed door and need to speak in Japanese to interact.
What changes is that today I have better tools to deal with these ghosts when they arise, to take care of myself when I can't handle it, and to support other humans who also need care and support.
I remembered this comic strip by Helo on Instagram about self-defense. If to defend myself physically, I need to believe that my physical integrity is worth more than that of my attacker, then to face this fear, I need to believe that what I think of myself is worth more than what others may think of me.
If they ever think of me at all.
What I think of myself is worth more than what others will think of me.
I wish I could tattoo that on my mind.
With love,
Tales 🦊
An excellent piece to share by translating. I think so many people can deeply understand the inner dialogue you quite well describe.
I know that fear, often wondering why the person in the mirror was the hardest to love.