One Tumblr explores what real bodies look like when the camera's not watching.
We all know that the majority of images we see in magazines have been treated to a heavy dosage of Photoshop, but to what extent do we alter our own selfies? One anonymous Tumblr user runs the NSFW blog experiment Bare to Bush, a documentation of the growth of her pubic hair since she shaved it completely off in September 2013. Here she ruminates on the implications of embracing your body as it is and what a full bush actually looks and feels like – an image that is largely exempt from media representation.
Part anecdotal and part inspirational, Bare to Bush is also polemical. The blog confronts the reader with enlarged photos of the blogger's unshopped body, including magnified shots of her growing hairs, but not without purpose. As she notes in one post where she bares an undershot of her vulva, "having a vagina can be terrifying."
She is on day 65 of her bush-growing experiment at time of writing, and the author behind Bare to Bush is moving on to topics of general bodily acceptance. In a post entitled, "The Reality of Nude Photos," the writer explored the power of representation when it comes to posing the nude form. In the post, she put two photos of her nude body, taken minutes apart, side by side.
In the first she lies flat, her back arched, and her arms above her head. Her ribs are emphasized and her legs are bent and shapely. It is a photograph of a typically attractive female form in the eye of the media. In the second, she is hunched over, her breasts are hanging, and her stomach is naturally pouched. Both are the same woman, and yet, our reactions to the photographs are different.
NSFW below.
On her Tumblr, she writes:
I just feel called to point out that a body that looks so “sexy” or “slender” or “desirable” in one picture, can look squishy, vulnerable and saggy in the next just by letting go of a pose. No one wants to post those pictures, those are the ones you delete before they’re even out of the camera. No one wants to say, “Hey! Here’s a selfie of how my tummy puffs out and look, can you see the stretch marks on my breasts!?
I took both of those pictures this morning, minutes apart. They’re both me. They’re both completely unedited. They are simply meant to show the difference between a body that is carefully designed to be sexy and well-received, and a body that is just sitting there being a naked body on a bed in the morning.
Readers were most shocked by the differing appearance of her form, some even admitting they had never seen a female body positioned in that way before. Then came questions of her breasts. How could the two photos possibly be of the same woman? Which prompted her next post.
The truth was, readers didn't know what breasts actually looked like when they're not being positioned for optimal roundness and perkiness. Bare to Bush's compilation indicates that not only are every woman's breasts unique in appearance, but with each angle and position a woman's body can possibly be in, her own breasts change, too. These are breasts in movement -slinking, smooshing, hanging, and sagging as real bodies do. Our forms take familiar shapes when we are constructing them into those shapes, but when we're living, they loosen.
Bare to Bush by no means shames those of us who carefully pose every shot we choose to post on the internet, using lighting and flattering angles to make ourselves look attractive. She's only holding up a mirror to our bodies, saying, "Here, this is you when you're lying down on your side, this is you when you are sitting on your bed pulling your socks on, this is you when you're leaning over your lover." It's a reflection we rarely see, but it's still an amazing shot.
Image via Veer.
Check out more from our sister sites:
15 of the Unsexiest Moments from the Sexiest Celebrity Sex Tapes [Famously]
A Guide to Selecting the Perfect Plus One for Every Wedding [The Date Report]
Photographer Captures Really 'Haute Dads' on the Streets of New York [Swimmingly]
The Best Way to Pick Up Women? Be a Cupcake [The Date Report]
15 Surprisingly Sweet Gangsta Rap Love Songs [Swimmingly]
Does Taylor Swift Break Up with Boyfriends or Best Friends More Quickly? A Scientific Study [Famously]
