Episode 004: Controversy of Boudoir
November 23, 2021
There is so much controversy with boudoir.. and you know I’m here to dish out the details of it. Boudoir has changed my life and the lives of my clients, and because of that, I will forever stand up for it. In today’s episode, we’re digging into what that controversy is, some of the major debates I’ve heard around it, and how I truly feel about the hot topics of boudoir and nudity!
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/618022038d4f0300195c3ae8/61958ea09582440012025553" frameBorder="0" width="100%" height="190px"></iframe>Review the Transcript:
The Wedding Story (:38)
Boudoir is Controversial (2:28)
The Shameful Stigma Around Nudity (4:14)
You Can Wear Lingerie & Have a Boudoir Shoot for You (4:35)
The Power of Boudoir (4:55)
Vanity (5:20)
Boudoir Allows You to Accept Yourself (7:39)
Nudity is Empowers Some, Modesty Empowers Others (8:48)
I’ve Been Called to Boudoir (10:39)
Images Can Change Self Perspective & Build Confidence (11:52)
Every Single Body is Worthy of Love and Self Love (12:39)
Comfort Zones (14:09)
Let’s Connect:
Review the Transcript:
Welcome to some place for everybody where we talk about belonging and being a human in our bodies and living in and learning to love our bodies. I’m your host, Carly someplace. This podcast is brought to you by someplace that midges Goodwater everybody, you can see the full show notes at some place for everybody.com. Now, let’s change some self perspectives.
Hey, y’all, I’m Carly someplace. And this is some place for everybody. So today, I want to talk about the controversy of boudoir photography. So, recently, I was at a friend’s wedding in England. And he introduced me during his groom speech to the entire room as the photographer who would have shot their wedding, except for that everybody was wearing too many clothes. So I’m sure that you can imagine the stairs, the looks, and the no less than 10 people who came up to me after that and said, so what is it that you do for work, because he just loved to make it sound like I did something ridiculous. And here’s the thing, what I do is absolutely not ridiculous. boudoir in no way, shape, or form is ridiculous. I got into boudoir photography, because it was something that I was doing on the side of weddings. I worked in the wedding industry for over 10 years. And when I started shooting boudoir photography, it was for my friends getting married. And we would just do a couple, you know, little sassy photos on their wedding day. And then I decided to take a bigger chance on it. And I decided to dive deep into it.
And the first thing that I did was photograph myself and post to self images. And it was absolutely mind blowing to me that the reactions that I was getting from people were oh my god, I love that you used a curvy model. And this is so amazing. This is somebody who actually looks like me, this is somebody who I can relate to. And I had to tell people, that’s me. Because these were, you know, for advertisements for moving forward with my business towards boudoir. And I never realized the healing power that this genre would bring me and bring so many others. boudoir is extremely controversial because it is so hand in hand with what people think of as soft porn. I don’t know if I can say that don’t know if that has to be edited out, or even just porn in general. And it’s not. It’s not and there’s so many different subcategories of boudoir there’s erotica, which is probably more similar to what you would think porn is. But erotica isn’t created for the intent of others. It’s still in creative it created for the intent of self or those involved. And this big controversial industry that I work in is the most empowering thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I love boudoir because it is the biggest high in the world to have somebody have a shift in self perspective in front of me to see people look at themselves, and absolutely love themselves, quite possibly, for the first time ever to look at themselves and say, Wow, that’s me. I look amazing. And regardless of all the controversy, which there shouldn’t be, that is the best feeling on the face of the planet. Literally the best feeling on face of the planet. I would say 85% of my clients. Tell me, are you sure that’s me? Yeah, girl. Did you see anybody else in this room? I don’t think so. I don’t think so. You Me camera. That’s it. This controversy, though, has brought me so much more than I could have ever asked for in so many ways. There’s such a shameful stigma around nudity that is reinforced, so reinforced by social platforms. There is so much to be said about those social platforms, allowing the imagery of some bodies and not others. There is so much controversy in wearing lingerie for your damn self, Who knew Who knew that we could do things for ourselves? Who knew that we could take pictures for ourselves for the only intent of loving ourselves more
it’s a very powerful thing of very powerful thing. And that’s why people don’t like it. That’s why people think it’s scandalous. That’s why people think you’re self obsessed. And here’s the thing. I am self obsessed. I have to be self obsessed. In so many ways. I had a video go somewhat viral on Tik Tok. And it is all about fat vanity. And that if you are a fat person, and you’ve crossed into being vain, and taking selfies, and loving yourself, and living for who you are, without shame, that you’re to be applauded, because there’s so much in our lives, that again, is based around our weight. And that if you’re fat, and vain and in love with yourself, you are a very special creature. And while I think that’s true, I think that every single person deserves that vanity. I think we so deserve to be so in love with ourselves, that we want to take pictures of ourselves, that we want to show off who we are, that we want to express ourselves, to express our sexuality to express our comfort levels to do something that scares us, but makes us feel good. And boudoir does all of that. It does all of that. It’s controversial, heaven forbid, as a person born female and living female, that I have nipples, and that society cannot stand the fact that they exist, and that they are shameful, and that they can’t be seen on social media. And that men’s nipples, oh, no, those aren’t shameful, those are fine. That’s not a big deal. They look pretty much the same to me. And it’s crazy to me, crazy to me to watch social media put these restrictions on our bodies, as we’re waking up to the idea that we can be self obsessed, that we can be vain. And have and cherish those feelings in those moments that we can take all these selfies and post them and feel good about ourselves, that we can wear lingerie for the fucking sake of wearing lingerie, that we can like what we like and want to do what we want to do and be controversial.
And that’s why people look at me with the side eyes. When I talk about shooting with naked people. And when I talk about empowering women through sexuality, and by letting them tap into their sexuality, so many of my clients and so many of my friends who I’ve shot with, have never let themselves just accept that they’re beautiful as they are. And I have a gift, a talent to show this to other people. And it’s controversial. And it’s that my vanity, and my self obsession and my self love rubs off on other people. And that scares people. And it’s controversial. Because with this self love and self realization and self obsession, we realize how powerful we are, in so many ways. The power that we hold over our own sexuality and our own happiness, and our own. Everything can be unlocked by seeing ourselves in a different way. By going out of our comfort zone by putting on things that we’ve always wanted to try and have never had the guts to and then doing it by standing in front of a camera. It’s controversial because nudity to many is extremely intimate and it should be but there’s nothing wrong with our bodies. There’s nothing wrong with your body the way that it is. And it’s okay to love it. And it’s okay to cherish it and it’s okay to want it to feel sexy. In the way that you determine is sexy. There is as I’m sure you’ve seen at some point, many a meme that goes around saying that nudity Empower some and modesty empowers others and that is true. And here’s the best part of boudoir. It can be for everybody. You don’t have to be fully nude. You can wear things that you would wear with a pair of jeans, you can wear things that cover more than a bathing suit does. You can wear things that make you feel amazing. And the amount of fabric that’s there is entirely up to you because that is an individual choice. And it doesn’t make it scandalous if there’s less it makes you more comfortable with how you feel and how you want to be yourself.
boudoir is controversial because it’s an awakening boudoir is controversial, because it’s empowering. And it allows us to take back power over ourselves and over our self image. It allows us to take back power over our sexuality, our comfort levels, pushing outside of that comfort zone and seeing that you could wear other things. And that the way that you act outside of boudoir can be changed by this intimacy of these photographs. And I am so here for that controversy. I am here for it. It is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. It is the thing that I have honestly been called to do. It lights my world up to watch people have a shift in self perspective. It is a drug like no other to see those changes. And then to see the change in self confidence in so many ways. And if that’s what controversy is, I’m fucking here for it. I’m fucking here for it. Because there is someplace for everybody. There is a level for you, for me, for everybody. Have comfort with ourselves. And reclaiming our own comfort with our bodies is a huge step in this revolution of body positivity, body neutrality, self love, learning to love ourselves. It’s not easy. It’s not always easy, but it’s there. And this, if this is controversy, Sign me up. Sign me up. God, it makes me so happy to move forward. Knowing that images can change self perspective. And self perspective, can change self confidence. And self confidence can change everything about who you are, and the way that you exist in the world, and what you go after, and then how you change the world by those repercussions. I’m here for the controversy. I’m here for every single body, being cherished, being loved, being able to see themselves in this shifted self perspective. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. And it’s everything that I want to do.
Think about it. Are you ready for something like that? Every single body is worthy of love, and is worthy of self love, extremely worthy of self love. And when you begin these journeys to loving yourself, you accept less shit from everybody else. Because at your core, you’ve stepped into a place of self value. And that is just an amazing feeling. I encourage you to do something that scares you. It doesn’t have to be boudoir. But think of it like it is where the thing that scares you. Do the thing that scares you become more comfortable with your body because it is you who lives and exists in this body and you are worthy of everything. Love happiness, sunshine on your skin, you’re so worthy of it, take the plunge. Now, I fully understand a lot of the fear around boudoir that you’ve seen other people’s images and you could never look like that. Guess what, honey, you’re not them, you’re gonna look like you. And I’m here to tell you that any boudoir photographer that’s worth their salt is going to make you feel amazing, is going to give you an experience where all you feel is you and amazing. And it might be nerve wracking. It might be scary. It might be extremely out of your comfort zone. But we don’t grow within comfort zones. We grow outside of them. That’s how we grow we push we push past those barriers. In my own studio, I example everything I show every single person, how to pose where to put their hands, how to breathe, how to park their lips, how to do everything. Because that coaching and that guidance is what we need to step into ourselves. And these are just pictures.
But they can change you. Isn’t it crazy? That so much of how we value ourselves can come from an image and I say this in a way that it goes the other way too. We’ve all all had a photo posted of us, probably somewhere on social media, that the first thing we thought was oh god, please. untag that, and then we sit, and we stew. And we think over and over about that image. Is that really what I look like? Is that how people see me? Was it an unflattering angle where your eyes closed, where you chewing something, there’s endless possibilities. But on the same plane of thought, an empowering image can make you feel unstoppable. It makes those other images, the weird awkward ones where you’re awkward handing or you know, whatever it makes those fall to the wayside. Or it should these images of self love and self expression should cancel out those negative images. It should be the step that moves us forward. Seeing that, yeah, no, that’s not how I look in that bad photo. It was an awkward moment. And that’s okay, and move past it. boudoir shows you so much of yourself, so much of yourself. And it’s an amazing journey to go on. And again, it’s controversial, because heaven forbid, the human body be used for ourselves as a weapon against society instead of being used as a weapon against us. Are you here for the controversy because I am there someplace. For everybody in this community. There’s some place for us to celebrate every single body, yours included, that is worthy, beautiful, amazing, just as it is.
The phrase, all bodies are good bodies gets passed around. And while I inherently believe it’s true, I understand that there are stigmas around that saying as well. It is hard for friends of mine with chronic illness, to look at that statement. All bodies are good bodies when their body is warring against them. I myself have a chronic illness. It doesn’t consume my daily life. And I’m extremely lucky, but it’s there. It exists. And it is hard when your body wars against you. When your body has something that truly is foreign and will say quote unquote, wrong. And that’s hard to look at your body and say this is a good body, but your soul, oh, so worthy, so worthy. So amazing. Our bodies can be struggles, our bodies can be a lot. They are the thing that we exist in, and sometimes it’s hard to cherish them when they were against us. And I feel that and I see that and I validate exactly how you feel with that. So I won’t say all bodies are good bodies. I will say all bodies are deserving of love and compassion. All bodies are worthy of this amazing self reflection. That you are beautiful. Exactly as you are. Thanks so much for listening to someplace for everybody. If you love this episode, would you mind leaving me a review in your favorite podcast app and subscribe to the show. If you’re looking for a community to love on you and support you in your self love Journey, come join our all gender Facebook group someplace for everybody which can be found in the show notes at some place for everybody.com Until we meet again, be kind to yourself.
