10 Comments
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Sunny's avatar

AMAZING essay. A pleasure to read <3

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Sam Rueter's avatar

Ahhh thank you for being here!

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Zara Michales's avatar

💙🤟🏽

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Mari's avatar

you are not alone, Sam. you have such a beautiful and poetic way of stringing your vulnerable and raw truths together with words. thank you for putting it out there - i can relate so deeply xx i’m certain others can too!

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Growing & Grounded🌻's avatar

Brilliant writing! Thank you so much for sharing

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Michelle Francois-Walsh's avatar

thank you for your honesty. i'm new here.

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Sam Rueter's avatar

Hi Michelle! So happy you’re here and have found a safe community within it

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John Mitchell's avatar

This really is an exceptional essay. From the heart clearly.

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John Mitchell's avatar

This is really interesting and enlightening. I have always used my body as a tool and have generally fared well that way until late life medical issues. I never thought of myself as attractive and men usually don’t think about enhancement. It remarkable seeing all this from a woman’s perspective.

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Jody Frost's avatar

This is a brilliant piece of writing, dear girl! You express your struggle, so eloquently! And I know them well because they’ve been mine and I’m over twice your age, I’ve spent a lifetime comparing myself unfavorably to the cultural “norms” of what constitutes beauty.

Bravo to you for expressing this because the more you bring this issue to light for yourself and share it with us, with the world, the more we might heal this collective wound around how we see ourselves and experience ourselves in our bodies.

I’m so grateful and happy that you are exploring and questioning all these things we do at extraordinary cost emotionally, never mind in dollars, to feel we are of value. It really is criminal isn’t it?

Anyway, thank you for your willingness to dive in to the deep end of this subject and explore within yourself!

That takes courage!

Also just wanna say I think you’re an amazing artist and talent and I look forward to watching you here! 🤩💫✨

P.s. btw, I’ve been shooting women for over 30 years and I’m here to tell you that you are quite blessed in the beauty department… 👏🏼🥳 That you should never question.! And at 31 or however, old, you said you were? Good Lord have mercy.! I ought to smack you into the middle of next week for whining about a few wrinkles. Wait till you’re my age.!!! 🤣. But I get it. I used to worry about how my breasts or my thighs looked while having sex and this I can tell you about that at my age… I don’t give a shit anymore because I’m there for my pleasure and my pleasure, matters way more than such silly distractions. 😉

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