Why I Get Naked

My compulsive need to bare my body unintentionally became a psychosocial experiment almost 20 years ago and through it, I've learned a lot—not just about society but also about myself, Internet culture and American men and women. In fact, I wrote 2500 words about it for Playboy back in 2015.

In the piece I explain the origins of my delight in posting sexy, playful selfies--which basically came down to the fact that I loved seducing men digitally from the minute I could do so and I didn’t want to live in fear of nudes coming out my entire life.

The power to be able to give a man a smile and a boner from 3,000 miles away while he was in the middle of a meeting was intoxicating. Nothing could cure a case of the blues faster than email-blasting some ex-lovers after a hot self-nudie shoot. (Yes, email, that archaic method of communicating. For those of you who don’t know a world without “selfies”—in 2006 smartphones weren’t yet ubiquitous and images were gasp impossible to text. All of that changed practically overnight.) It also occurred to me that however easy it was to send pictures, it would be just as easy for them to spread, and that could be incriminating or worse…embarrassing.

Instead of living in fear of the inevitable happening, I decided to take control of my image and post the photos myself. So as long as my website, Phetasy.com, has been around (which is over 10 years now), long before the explosion of social media, I’ve been getting naked online.

My nudie shenanigans continued when I actively started tweeting in 2013; I was grinding away in Los Angeles as a comedian while waitressing and trying to get work somewhere, anywhere as a writer. How I ended up working at Playboy in 2015 became a joke I told on stage. “I went in, took all my clothes off and they said, 'Wow. You’re brave. But can you write?' And I shuffled my feet and said, “I guess so…are you sure you don’t want to see my vagina?”

“Not unless it can type, ma'am."

It’s not a true story, someone on Twitter introduced me to a Playboy editor, but I was making light of the irony that although at the time I was known for freeing the nipple online (and always wanted to pose for them as well as write) I was too old to be considered a model at the ancient age of 34. That being said, my online nudity had no bearing on my ability to work at Playboy—in fact it was perfectly “on brand” and I figured it would be another stepping stone on my way to a job in liberal Hollywood.

Oh, how wrong I was.

As my platform grew and as the world started rapidly changing, I began putting the PG-13 nudies behind a Patreon paywall the summer of 2016 because the vitriol wasn't worth putting them online anymore and if someone wanted to pay to see my thirtysomething titties, well, how dare I get in the way of that? Capitalism always wins, baby.

Now, I could not have anticipated much about my future and in many ways, my choice to bare my body online was an attempt to control and prevent exactly what is unfolding--the defamation of my character and the attempt to shame me into silence.

What I couldn’t have predicted was the rise of Trump and how his election would polarize this country and leave me adrift, somewhere in the middle, feeling ideologically isolated in a liberal enclave and politically homeless in America. 

I couldn’t predict that my stream of consciousness Twitter commentary about the culture would expose me to independent and conservative editors who were eager to publish my thoughts at the exact time the liberal publications I was associated with were slowly backing out of the door and/or replacing me without notice.

I would have asked for whatever drugs you were on if you told me that by 2018 I'd be representing independents on a Fox News panel. I certainly never knew how writing and speaking in conservative outlets would enrage extreme members of the right wing who feel I’m too “immoral” to deserve a place on any conservative platform as well.

Lately, as my profile has grown exponentially, the psychosocial experiment and fears that my tasteful nudes would be used against me--have come home to roost—from the basements of the “men” on the alt-right to the heights of my own profession, where another blue-checked conservative journalist has become obsessed with publicly slandering me by repeatedly calling me a "sex worker." 

I say slander not because I have issues with sex workers--I don't (although I do have issues with that term)--but because according to a lawyer, what I'm doing is not legally considered "sex work" any more than First Lady Melania Trump's nude photo shoot or posing for Playboy or Maxim would be considered sex work.

I also didn’t calculate that when the mobs did come for me—I wouldn’t have a tribe to defend me. My former friends on the left, having drawn hard lines in the sand in the culture wars, saw my new affiliation with the right (perhaps rightfully so after what I’ve experienced of its underbelly) as dangerous to them. 

I never in a million years would have been able to foresee the complex chain of events that led me to being mobbed by the left while I was simultaneously being doxxed by the right. Disgusted with both sides and feeling defeated and depressed, I shut down.

See sometimes, the horrible things people say about you online aren’t wrong. I do have daddy issues and mommy issues and step-daddy issues. I absolutely struggle with self-worth and abandonment and insecurity. I don’t feel aligned with either party and perhaps it’s true that makes me a “spineless fencesitter” with no beliefs. I’m open about my battles with various addictions. I'm open about being sexually assaulted. I’m open about pretty much everything going on with me because it's is the only way I know how to make sense of the world and this trait also makes me a navel-gazing narcissist. 

But radical transparency is the only way I know how to be anymore. Honest about where I’m at, all the time.

Naked with my words.

But the mobbings and the doxxings and the targeted harassment all had the exact effect they were supposed to have. Silence. Fear. Shame. Feeling overexposed and under protected, I withdrew.

For the past two months, I haven’t been able to write a goddamn thing, at least nothing of value. Sure I’m active on Twitter and sure I’ve posted some words on Patreon, but I’ve been hiding from you. Hiding what’s going on with me in my life and heart and soul. Hiding my shame and pain and fear and body. Feeling alone, caught in between two worlds somewhere, that age-old painful wound that’s haunted me since I moved every year-and-a-half growing up: I don’t belong. Anywhere.

I'm no victim. I recognize I live in society and our society has a lot of feelings about a woman showing her boobs for money, for free, for breastfeeding or just for fun. They also have a lot of feelings about "centrists" in this current political climate. I'm aware that there will be personal and professional consequences for things I say and do--intended and unintended--some apparent and some I will never know about.

Many times in the past two months I’ve asked myself if what I’m “doing” (being my damn self and speaking my damn truth, all the time) is worth it. A part of me wants to cash out and move to Sri Lanka and trust me, I think about it at least once a day. I almost did last week.

But today I got an email from a woman telling me I was helping her feel “sane” on Twitter. (Is that an oxymoron? Sane on Twitter?) I got another direct message telling me I helped them feel like they weren't alone in these divided times. And a message from someone in a rehab who listened to my recent podcast in which I share my story about recovery and now the whole halfway house is listening to it. And an email from a listener telling me how much the podcast has helped them process their own baggage.

So today I’m reminded why I’m doing this over and over again. And then I remember: It's not about me.

My only goal in life was to stay open in face of the heartbreaks and the disappointments and rejections--and keep writing in the hopes that I’ll connect with people and use whatever pain and adversity I've endured to help them process and overcome their own. Over the course of 20 years of writing online and off and now with the incredible medium of podcasting—I’m doing exactly that. I'm living my dreams.

Before, I posted artsy nude photos to work out some of my own stuff, despite my own body issues and in spite of society’s judgment. But now, in a post-#MeToo world where just being sensual is suddenly considered "sex work" and we’ve never been more confused than ever before about healthy sexuality, I see my work and exploration into this part of the collective American psyche (and my own) is far from being done.

We all have our roles to play in the unfolding theater of the absurd. We all have our place. Finding myself perpetually at the crossroads, perhaps mine is of the trickster. 

I don't know. 

I do know that in the face of fear and confusion, it's essential to remain calm, stay true to our values and ourselves and be open to change. I value freedom and fearlessness and connection to my fellow humans above all else. I will keep pushing my own boundaries and fully expect that the world will push back. I have much to learn from you all and I’m looking forward to it. 

TL:DR—If "all the world's a stage" I'm standing on it, buck naked. And for now, God willing, I'm not going anywhere.