Editor’s note: the first nude I ever took was a picture of my pussy, because our biology book in school advised us to study our genitals with a mirror in order to learn more about their structure. I didn’t have a separate mirror like that, so I used my phone. I remember being very excited and a little bit shocked at what I saw on the photo. I had never really known what my vagina looked like and it seemed strange to me… alien, like something belonging to a different body. The photos felt like some kind of dynamite sitting in my phone and I was very afraid that someone would see them. Still, I kept those pictures for a long time, my shame and fear being mixed with a very secret, precious pride.
Oli’s dance reminds me of that feeling, of seeing my own vagina for the very first time.
I sold nudes for four years to a Broadway billionaire’s son.
If I’m being honest, I was groomed into it. And once it started, I was too afraid of what he might do if I stopped. But four hundred dollars a photo didn’t sound so bad, right?
My body had belonged to other people for most of my life anyway. To my mom’s boyfriend when I was a child. To my college boyfriend who complained every time I said no.
So I kept selling them—almost every week—for years.
My body wasn’t mine.
Dancing is how I reclaim my body and my sensuality. I dance for myself. Not for an audience—though an audience is always welcome. Whether I’m on the floor, in a chair, or up on a pole, my practice asks me to listen.
To gravity, breath, and instinct.
To every muscle and ache.
To fear.
Not ignoring it, but listening to it, negotiating with it, and deciding anyway.
Do you trust yourself?
There is a difference between pain that’s information and pain that’s a warning. Between fear that keeps you safe and fear that keeps you small.
Over and over, my body learns this strange, simple truth: when I believe I can do something—when I commit, breathe, and stay—I often can.
That choice alone feels revolutionary.
For a long time, other people decided where my limits were, and pushed past them without my consent. When I dance, I’m the one choosing how far to go, when to stop, when to soften, when to push.
I feel in my body more than I ever have.
There is freedom in moving this close to the ground, in choosing slowness, control, and surrender all at once. I feel sexy—but not in a performative way. Sexy in the way that belongs to me alone. The kind that doesn’t ask for permission or explanation.
I’m proud to practice a style of movement that was born in the club, shaped by sex workers who knew how to command space, desire, and power long before it was sanitized or renamed.
It’s raw.
It’s political.
Its embodied knowledge passed knee-to-knee, hip-to-floor.
This isn’t just dance. It’s memory. It’s resistance. It’s me coming home to myself—one slide, one roll, one unapologetic moment at a time
Haven’t sold my nudes in two years. Just here being sexc on substack for you. I want you to see.
Are you a beautiful girl with something to share? Don’t be shy and join Thirst Trap Review! DMs Mette or @mette_maria_maria on Instagram. E-mail: mette@vanacker.art
NEXT UP: Rosellen’s poetry
