I had my first kiss when I was 14 - a first kiss is like one of those memories that stays etched into your brain, every romance novel you’ve ever read springing into action as he leans in. I do feel like I was kissed more than I kissed back, though. Sloppy, hard and my brain flashing a massive - what the fuck? Does this boy know what he’s doing? Irrespective, I personally felt wild, like I was tethering into this new unnamed territory. In hindsight, I do think that the boy could’ve gone through some WikiHow page or practiced on a pillow like a normal baby teen, no?
What I couldn’t quite place my finger on was whether it was romantic or sexual for me. Every fibre of my being would like to imagine it was more romantic because we WERE in a relationship? I hate that I end this with a question mark - it feels like the kind of thing you should just know. Then again, on analysis, I don’t think he left any room for it to feel sexual or romantic, he simply came at me like a train! How then, do I decipher this? A moment so big that I’m writing about it years later. Is there a guideline to tell if it was sexual or not? Do I look to society to decide or is it just one of those things that's purely personal?
I decided it was personal.
I’ve been making self-portraits since school. At some point I made them for Facebook, which felt like the shiniest new thing, it felt like it was for me, the validation that followed, a welcome bonus. Realistically though, the nude selfie I took for a partner at the age of 22 was when I saw what light did to my skin. Suddenly it wasn’t about the partner anymore but the feeling it left me with.
An intimacy with my own body and the shadows that fell upon it.
Few things come close to the romanticisation of something so personal, so yours. It helps that the most brilliant thing about art is its subjectivity. It is a perception of the receiver's lived experiences, my work to me is an amalgamation of mine. A marriage of freedom and beauty, yet, it was seen as erotic. I’d be lying if I said this didn’t bother me deeply but with time, albeit grudgingly, I accepted that sexuality is perceived differently by different people. I grew to like this universal truth - I didn’t need to exist in a singular bubble of set values and beliefs.
Let me explain - A naked body isn’t sexual.
But maybe, just maybe repression leads to an obsessive need to sexualise it.
Without judgment, I simply believe it is what it is and one day we move beyond it and see it for what it is.
For me, photographing myself naked is a normalisation. I cannot force anyone to look at my photos the way I look at them - I cannot force my gaze but maybe one day someone will see the freedom I see because the naked body in its truest essence is a place of love and resilience.
About the author : Ishani Das is a night bird who can’t function in the mornings but professionally she is made to since she is a cinematographer. She works in the fashion and lifestyle segment but hopes to find herself in cinema and all the chaos that comes with it. As a Bengali she knew she couldn’t just have one passion, so she found it again in dance and photography, especially self portraiture. She loves to play with light and skin and believes she can belt out any Adele song.
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