On feeling sexy in an unsexy world

Image by videoplacebo, with book by Terry Richardson.

In this week’s Chron column I wanted to share my recent experiences with feeling sexy in a world that’s always trying to beat that feeling out of us — hence, Feeling Sexy In An Unsexy World: Violet Blue stumbles through sexy movement classes at Sedusa and emerges with a slinky new outlook. Unfortunately on the front page they’re promoting it as a pole dance article, but ::sigh:: whatever. It’s not. But people who are reading it are liking it, the response in my inbox is stunning, gracious and thankful, to say the least, which makes me feel great that I wrote it. here’s a snip:

None of us is ever going to be beautiful enough. And yes, the first few comments here will be from people who feel it even deeper than you or I can ever imagine, and they’ll be directed at me in the most hurtful way the ugly-inside person at the keyboard can imagine. And even other commenters get attacked; told they’re unsexy, not fit to even comment on a sex column. Let’s face it; we’re all too not-hot to set foot on the Internet, let alone the world. I’m sick of it; I want to mass-produce Jenna Jameson masks like it’s Guy Fawkes Day and find everyone who could never imagine themselves as a sizzling sexpot thanks to some anonymous douchebag, and make a bonfire out of trolls.

The world conspires to make us feel unsexy. Not just the Pam Andersons and the endless parade of 99-pound Hollywood starlets, or the ghouls that populate Internet comment minefields, or the Palins, or the baggage we carry around from growing up. I realized it when I was at A Food Affaire, ogling the contortionist babes and the hoop-twirling hotties and feeling like there was no way anyone could feel sexy when there was always something to chisel it off waiting around the next corner. I was in the sexiest environment I could imagine right out of last week’s column, and I was still feeling unsexy. The outside world was still in me.

And then I remembered something I was told in a class I’d just taken at local sexy-dance and movement studio Sedusa: “Imagine a ribbon tied in a little bow at the base of your spine, pulling up from the base of your neck. Now walk.” And suddenly in that room where I was feeling like the girl in glasses who writes and slouches all day and just wanted to hide in the corner and take pictures with my camera — I made my date watch me walk. And it worked. (…read more!)

Also, here’s the Qik video I shot at my first visit to the dance studio, where I asked the proprietrix a few questions and requested she show me a pole dance demo — it’s hard to hear everything she says, but what struck me the most was how eerie and unusual it is to see a woman pole dance without music — hearing only the sounds of her movements. It’s a really interesting experience.