I recently saw an interview with Emma Thompson, filmed a few years ago already when her movie, “Good Luck To You, Leo Grande” came out, which was such an emotional masterpiece in my eyes. The chemistry with her co-star, Daryl McCormack, is brilliant, and at one point in the movie she completely bares it all in the mirror, a very raw and very real scene, fully nude and very vulnerable.
Speaking to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, she mentioned how she “can’t stand in front of the mirror without wanting to improve the way she looks”, either by tucking things in or turning to another side, or switching the lights completely off because then she’ll feel “safe”. The vile thoughts that run through the female head at that point are exhausting and draining, yet we all hear it, and we all feel it. I am not completely taking men out of this equation, I understand that a harsh inner voice could be part of the male psyche as well, I just understand the millennia-long struggle for women and their self-worth.
The moment where “Nancy”, the character played by Emma, looks at herself in the mirror nude, is more neutral at that point, after she was helped to unlock the relationship with her body by Leo, and her realization as actress afterwards was that that moment will now be shared with however many people will be seeing the movie, and she was wondering what had she just done…
Stephen then asked her if it changed how she felt about her body. She then explains how heartbreakingly, she started hating her body when she was about 14, :“those neural pathways are kind of well carved into my soul”.
Stephen asked what she would say to that 14-year old right now, and she almost jumped into her answer saying DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME, don’t waste your life’s purpose worrying about your body, it’s your vessel, it’s where you live, there’s no point to judge it.
So many of us have not gotten near to that point at all yet - taking endless photos of myself for these campaigns for my range can get exhausting, every time I have to sort through hundreds of images, and edit about 120 of each shoot, it’s 120 opportunities to hate myself and to find fault with what I see. I have to try and love myself hundreds of times over.
The actress Kate Winslet was 22 when she filmed Titanic, and in the years since then she has also been scrutinized for her body over and over again, explaining in an interview on 60 Minutes on how getting naked in front of the camera was a “great moment, because it wasn’t just for me. It was for all those people who were subjected to that level of harassment”, and in her newest film “Lee”, she plays a former model turned photojournalist who served as a World War II correspondent for Vogue magazine, and said that in scenes with her bikini she was asked to sit up straighter as to not see her belly roles, to which she replied no, it was deliberately done for that purpose.
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Accepting yourself is most probably the journey of our lives for mostly women, and I know how it’s tough even for myself to look at the cards I’ve been dealt with, in the mirror or on computer screens.
KittyKink is a fun brand for sure, it definitely is meant for playtime with partners or even just dressing up for yourself - but its birth came from the feeling of needing and wanting to empower. Sensuality is just one of the pathways to feeling strong within your body and wearing something sexy makes you feel various levels of confidence - I’ve tried and tested this myself.
Photographing hundreds of boudoirs over almost 17 years, have shown me even the most “perfect” women from my viewpoint, with zero marks or bumps on them making editing easy, have issues with their bodies and want to change various things.
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Images by Loci Photography
Acceptance is way more a mental shift than having to change anything physically, and it’s tough as hell.
And…..we’ll most probably never get there fully. Perhaps only when we’re way older and beyond a point of care. But society is a system that sets us up to fail, and we’re dependent on weight loss gimmicks, extreme treatments, and various ways of “fixing” our flaws, so it’ll never stop.
Making peace with it, is the true test of our time, one even I - have not yet mastered.
With love,
Kitty
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