Sexy Positive Body: The Beach Reveal

While I was unable to organize myself to actually compete in the Mr. Fire Island pageant this summer, which was one of the goals of my Sexy Positive Bodies photo journaling project, I did decided that I would, instead, reveal the work that I have done on my body and body image on the Fourth of July while at the beach with some good friends.

The two pictures I allowed to be taken are included here.

So, roughly a year after starting my Sexy Positive Bodies photo project, yesterday's beach adventure brings the project to a close. I will be putting together a poetry, essay, and photo display/exhibit that talks about the process, the intention, the feedback (including the recent anonymous digs), and discussions about the politic and ethic behind it. Look forward to future workshops (offline) about this topic, but you will notice that most of the shirtless pictures have been removed my FB profile, if you happen to be one of my Facebook friends.

The next phase is choosing the photos that I am going to use for the display, writing poetry that goes with some of them, figuring out how to integrate some of the blog postings that I have done on various subjects related to HIV and desire over the last year, incorporate both the negative and positive feedback about the project (ranging from the hundreds of poz people that have contacted me to thank me for doing this work to the half a dozen that said it was nothing but narcissism and immature....I heard both with equal respect...though not agreement)...and meeting with a couple of multi-media artists to talk about how to best design the production, and then launching the production. The LGBT Center in the Hudson Valley has offered to host a showing of the project, which is very generous. So now that I have most of the raw material, I need to figure out what to do with it all.

The public shirtless pictures will be very few and far between if they happen, as opposed to the systemic process I went through over the last year. But the gym and I are friends and will continue to be. A part of this process was also fighting my own body dysmorphia, and proving that it can be done on your own terms and that you can finally tell the mirror to fuck off. Yesterday I proved to myself that I had done enough work on my process that I can now go back and look at what it took and all the incumbent issues (internal and external) that have come with it. Including becoming an Executive Director towards the end of the process and how that has impacted what I was attempting to do and how it has been seen. I am hoping to have this all rolled out by October.

So stay tuned. Sexy Positive Bodies will continue in a new and exciting format.Thank you to the literally thousands of you that cheered me on in this 15 month process of personal, spiritual, physical and mental transformation. Thank you to all of the folks from the poz community that shouted out their love and support, came out to me during this process, or let me know how much it meant to them to see someone claim sexual space for poz folks. This process, project, and new way of being wouldn't have been possible by myself. One love folks.