Sometimes I Feel Cute, Living My Nudes Era

Warning: This is a very intimate and vulnerable reflection piece. Please don't judge me as I navigate my journey.

I've always had mixed feelings about my looks, my body, my style. For countless years, I would never dare call myself "beautiful" or "cute." Instead, I felt like my thighs were too big, my butt too soft, not enough hair on my head, not enough of this, too much of that. I felt like higher beings had totally messed up on the formula when creating me.

Especially when seeing mainstream queer representations and navigating queer spaces, I dreaded the feeling of being the "ugliest one" in the room. Inside, I wished someone would find me irresistible and approach me with a nerdy pick-up line, making me feel desirable. Many times, as I headed back home alone, I wondered what was wrong with me. I felt somewhat defeated, somewhat hurt – like a fairy tale in which the "prince" failed to show up. Silly, I know.

As a scholar of sexualities, I’ve learned to confront the question of desirability even more. Sometimes the stats seem to play against me – terms like hierarchies of desirability feel like a reminder of my own lower position within them. A few painful instances stand out, like when guys approached me in queer spaces, not because they were interested in me, but to ask about a friend of mine – for his phone number. I used to fantasize about experiencing that "ugly duckling" transformation, imagining that one morning I would wake up and suddenly be gorgeous. Spoiler: that day never really came.

The funny thing is, reading about sexualities, inequalities in the erotic sphere, and all that doesn’t automatically lead to higher forms of self-esteem. You’d think that being immersed in academic discussions about desirability hierarchies would somehow arm me with unshakable confidence. Spoiler: it doesn’t. Unless I’m an outlier among my colleagues, it seems that understanding these concepts on a theoretical level doesn’t make navigating them in real life any easier.

But maybe that’s the beauty of this journey – realizing that even as someone who studies and critiques these structures, I’m still figuring out how to unlearn the ways they’ve shaped how I see myself. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe feeling good in my own skin doesn’t have to be a linear process or something perfectly theorized. Sometimes, it’s just waking up one day, looking at myself, and thinking, “Damn, I look cute today.”

Fast forward to 2025, and I can’t say exactly what changed, but I finally started to feel good in my own skin. Looking at myself in the mirror feels less painful. I suddenly feel the desire to take nudes – not just for the attention (though, let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to hear compliments about their chest hair?), but because I feel good in my own skin. I feel proud of myself – my bald self, my brown skin, my sexy mustache.

Some people might think I’m just fishing for compliments. Others might think it’s silly, or shallow, or whatever. But it means a lot to me that I feel comfortable showing myself, no filters, no special lighting – just me.

I’ve also learned that comparing myself to others is just not wise. This is the body given to me – with its pros and cons. A body with acne scars, thickness in some areas, softness in others, bald spots, hairy spots, crooked teeth, nice lips. For so long, I was stuck in a loop of wishing I looked different, of thinking I’d only be desirable if I fit a certain mold. But that mindset never did me any favors.

Instead, I’ve started to see my body as uniquely mine – not a project to be fixed, not a problem to solve, but something that’s already whole. It’s a body that’s carried me through some rough times, and it deserves to be seen, to be celebrated, to feel cute every now and then.

The other day, as I reflected on this shift, I couldn’t pinpoint a specific reason for it. Nothing in particular changed overnight. But for some reason, Mariah Carey's album title, The Emancipation of Mimi, resonated with me. It’s that liberating feeling of being oneself – of embracing who I am without apology. Maybe it’s connected to other life changes, like recently getting tenure (yay!). But whatever it is, it feels like a new stage, and I’m here for it.

Living my nudes era might seem like a small thing to some, but it’s part of a bigger journey – of feeling desirable, of loving myself, of being unapologetically me. And that’s worth celebrating.