The Doe’s Latest Stories

For most of the past decade, I’ve worked as a staff singer in churches across all denominations, mostly in the Deep South. This unique experience has given me an intimate look behind sanctuary walls. While the dangers of the institution of the evangelical church in America cannot be ignored, one misconception I’ve found most often is about churchgoers. These people who some might write off as a monolithic hivemind of hate are so much more than that. There are a surprising number of congregants in these churches who are vibrant, compassionate and willing to open their hearts and minds. There’s an undercurrent of change happening right now, and I think we ought to pay attention.The church, as an institution, has caused many people irreparable harm, but it was never an intimidating space for me. I’m aware that’s a rather unusual sentiment coming from an openly queer, leftist millennial, and I am vastly aware of my good fortune. And no, I didn’t go to one of those “hippie churches” either. I was born and raised LCMS Lutheran, and church was my life: working the sound booth at Saturday night services, being an acolyte on Sunday morning, going to confirmation classes and, later on, youth group every Wednesday night. While I stopped attending regularly in high school, I never developed a negative relationship with the church. Even in my youth, I realized that my church experience was abnormally pleasant given my identity, which is something I will forever be grateful for.

These people who some might write off as a monolithic hivemind of hate are so much more than that.

How a Queer Person Ended up in Bible Belt Churches

When I went to college to study opera, I was intrigued to find that a common job for singers is working as a staff singer at local churches. My alma mater is in the Bible Belt, so I can imagine you’re probably asking the same questions I asked myself:“Aren’t churches there, like, incredibly homophobic?”“Aren’t you worried about getting hate-crimed?”And of course, “Why would you want to be in a room with all of those people?”College doesn’t pay for itself, though. I know hymns like the back of my hand, and almost all of my older peers—many of whom were openly queer and openly not Christian—were doing it without hesitation. So, I figured, why not?I braced myself for impact, fully prepared for my first Sunday to be jam-packed with hellfire, brimstone and the like. But when I arrived for our morning rehearsal, what I got was, well, not what I expected.One of my first gigs was at a Presbyterian church in the heart of the college town I was living in. Many of the choir members were professors at my school, but seeing them in church added a refreshing layer of humanity. The Sunday sermons were usually about compassion, grace and loving your neighbor authentically. Every week, the pastor would lead the congregation in a prayer for the marginalized and in need, and he always made it a point to advocate openly for policy changes and legal action to uphold those who’ve been oppressed. From his pulpit came radical calls for justice, something I hadn’t experienced before, and something I surely didn’t expect to hear in the heart of Dixieland. I witnessed some churchgoers get up and walk out in the middle of sermons about tolerance, which I found to be quite poetic. We were coming up on the 2016 election, and the tension in the air was thick, but I was pleasantly surprised at how little the pastor backed away from serious subject material, something veterans of the choir confessed they’d never seen from him before. The Sunday after the election, there was a profound moment of silence, followed by a sermon on fear and perseverance.My fellow staff singers and I were making our way out of church that day when we were approached by a few animated choir members. They went to great lengths to reassure us that we were safe and loved, and that “if someone has a problem with who you are, they have a problem with us too!” There’s nothing like watching a white-haired woman with a walker threatening to “kick someone’s ass” if anyone gives us trouble.This was the day where it really sank in that this work was more than a paycheck. Making music with people makes personal connections almost inevitable, especially in their house of worship. I thought to myself, “Okay, maybe the stereotypes aren’t entirely true,” and I started letting my guard down. I allowed myself to shed the impersonal and emotionally detached approach I’d had before, and my music-making ability improved from my vulnerability. Leaving this church was bittersweet, but I knew a rough semester was ahead of me, so I made the choice to step away to focus on my studies.

Patience and Understanding Can Solve Anything

A couple of years later, I was out of school and between jobs when a friend put me on to a gig at a teeny, tiny church in a one-horse town in rural Georgia. The choir was no more than 10 people, but they welcomed me into the choir loft like family. I would bring my partner to rehearsals, and the other members adored him, even begging him to join the choir. The church was welcoming a woman pastor for the first time in its history, and you could feel the energy among the congregation that something exciting was happening. The only group of folks I ever heard them speak badly about were the Baptists up the street.One man there, a Vietnam war veteran, engaged us “young folk” in a discussion before rehearsal one day. He revealed that he had a negative perception of immigrants and asked us genuinely for our input because he noticed that our generation didn’t seem too concerned about what his generation saw as a “crisis.” We went around and gently shared our thoughts with him and discussed misconceptions about immigration. One of my fellow staff singers told their personal experience as an immigrant. We watched as the veteran’s moment of vulnerability turned into a complete change of heart. He admitted he “never thought about it like that,” thanked us for our time and education, asked us for book recommendations and proceeded to tell us a heartfelt tale from his days in the war that profoundly impacted the way he felt about people from other parts of the world. He told us that he was excited for our generation to take things over because we would “do better than his generation did” and that, when it’s his time to go, he’ll go in peace knowing the world is left in “better hands.”I still cherish that moment, that man and that teeny, tiny church. It’s something I look to when I need reminding that there is hope for mending division.My most recent church job has given me a change of scenery, taking me to a United Church of Christ in the middle of the mountains north of the Mason-Dixon line. My partner and I had just moved over 1,000 miles to this new valley town where we knew absolutely no one. I sent out feeler emails to local churches about staff singing. One person got back to me, so we scheduled an interview. The music director was a woman around my age, so I already had good feelings. She heard me sing and then we did a little interview. I could tell she was dancing around a question for a while, but she ultimately asked me, “So, how do you feel about LGBTQ+ people?”A bit unsure of where this question was headed, I decided to be honest. “Well, my partner and I are members of the community, so pretty good I guess.”“Oh, thank god!” She sighed with relief and proceeded to tell me that this is an open and affirming congregation. Honestly, it’s the church of my dreams. There’s an enormous rainbow banner out front that reads “A JUST WORLD FOR ALL,” and that mantra flows through the entire spirit of the church. The lesbian pastor and her wife regularly walk in marches for social justice causes, engage in political activism by meeting with local leaders and offer safe haven to anyone who may want to come to the church, without indoctrination. The church takes part in a local ministry to house and feed the homeless; leads workshops and open forums on intersectionality and faith, white supremacy and institutional racism; and regularly holds interfaith worship services where those from all other religions, or none at all, are invited to come participate and build community. Churches like this one are paving the way in challenging theology and shifting the paradigm of what church in America could look like.

It’s the church of my dreams.

I’ve Learned a Lot From Churchgoing Folk

Despite the vastly different dynamic in these and all of the other churches I’ve worked for, there are a few things that I’ve found they all have in common: Most people are trying to live and love their best with the information they’ve been given. Patience and compassion go a long way, both in learning music and in learning life. And if you open yourself up to receiving love, grace and kindness, you’ll be amazed at how much of it you’ll find in the most unexpected places.Of course, not everything has sunshine and rainbows. Occasionally, a parishioner says something that isn’t quite politically correct or asks a blunt or invasive question. But in my experience, reducing even the most straight-laced people down to an archetype based on preconceived ideas doesn’t allow the right circumstances for mutual understanding. When you level with someone and acknowledge their humanity first, the potential for growth can be limitless.

I still remember one of my earliest sexual dreams: a girl in lace, inviting me onto my little single bed, waiting atop my colorful kid’s blanket. When I woke up, my first thought was, “God would be so ashamed of me.”Puritanical tyranny is both responsible for modern life and in violent conflict with it. Why is sex so taboo? Why is drug addiction seen as sinful? Why do First Nations Australians not have a voice in Parliament? Why the vendetta against the dance music industry? Why are Australian judges still excusing male perpetrators of violence against women due to “provocative” clothing?We’re living in the haze of a colonial hangover, and we didn’t even get a good party out of it. Our cultures are inherently interwoven with religious puritanism, even when it goes against our own interests. The very origin of Jesus—the Immaculate Conception—hijacks sexual morality by giving divine weight to virginity, as if sex and reproduction are too dirty or animalistic for the likes of God. Even Adam and Eve simmer with unresolved sexual tension.

We’re living in the haze of a colonial hangover, and we didn’t even get a good party out of it.

Human Beings Are Animals—and There’s Nothing Wrong With That

Yet nothing in humanity is pure. We are naturally multifaceted. We are extremely susceptible to our own egos and the messaging of our cultures more broadly. If we had different religious stories, our cultures would preach different messages. Imagine a modern culture forged by a belief in Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of nature and grape harvest, wine and religious ecstasy, fertility and sex, orchards and fruits, festivals and theater. Relationships with each other and ourselves would be totally different and most likely healthier. Politics would probably be more fun, too. Arman Khan recently wrote a piece for Vice on the Bison-Horn Maria tribe in India, whose culture has not been affected by religious puritanism, whose human nature flows more freely. In the words of Renu, a 38-year-old farmer from the tribe, “[Y]ou will never read about a case of violence against women, because there are no inhibitions. Sex is not caged. We hold the earth sacred, not man-made institutions like marriage. There is no sexual frustration among the men. Everyone is free to fall in love or fall out of it. Marriages aren’t sacrosanct because human beings, who created the institution, aren’t sacrosanct themselves.”Religion elsewhere is still scared of sex. Unlike the Maria tribe, many of us are wrapped up in sexual anxieties. Even my heterosexual side came with religious baggage. When all you’re taught as a child is, “Sex is between a man and woman who love each other very much,” there’s so much that you don’t know. And our parents generally knew even less about relating to sex, and on it goes. Left to pick up on the signals of our culture, the interpretation many of us carry is that sex and desire are impure and sinful and not to be openly discussed.But we are not sinful. We are natural. Humans are the natural outcome of millions of years of evolution. There are natural reasons why we want what we do and do the things we do, especially in today’s society in which the most vital things that make us human are undermined, restricted or exploited—our connection to nature, to each other, to communities, to meaning and, of course, our innate curiosity, our inherent suffering as conscious, intelligent beings. The betrayal we feel from religion only creates a bigger hole in our humanity, a crack in our foundations.

Sexual Purity Is a Myth

After 60,000-plus years of inhabitance by countless Indigenous nations, the continent I call my home was stolen and founded as a single, white, Christian nation: Australia. Colonial Christianity established our world as a fixed hierarchy, with humans separated from animals, separated from the natural world, made in the white image of a divine supernatural creator. This framework reinforces the human ego, the root of all our suffering. Christianity also justified incorrect claims that Indigenous people were less evolved, subhuman, because they weren’t white enough, not hairless enough, not civilized enough, forever simply not enough. It may not be true that, as the common myth claims, First Nations people in Australia were legally considered fauna until the 1967 referendum. But as Marcia Langton told the ABC in 2018, “We were not classified under the flora and fauna act, but we were treated as animals.”The puritanical mindset was that First Nations people needed to be protected under God and government. Missionaries forcibly removed Indigenous children from their parents and communities, replaced their names with numbers, their languages with English, adopted them out as workers and housemaids and indoctrinated them with the Bible, eradicating any “impure,” “savage,” “pagan” beliefs, like relationships with nature, country and ancestors. These were the Stolen Generations, and although this policy lasted from 1910 all the way up to 1970, it continues today under child protection services. Compound this with the cyclical effects of untreated trauma, alcohol and other drugs, and the splintering of families and cultural connections across multiple generations, we have a very real and current problem arising from puritanical tyranny. Yet we still look away. We are still colonial.

I couldn’t give a shit these days because I no longer view myself through subconscious myths.

We Need to Shed Our Puritanical Hang-Ups

To address the continued onslaught of puritanism over the natural realities of our world, we can start by looking inward. We can examine the things we dislike about ourselves and the underlying reasoning. We continue to feel ashamed about quite natural elements of our being, whether it’s sex, body hair, desire, a big nose, an accent, anything. We can recognize how it’s woven through our tech and social media: Instagram censors women’s nipples but not men’s, as well as art it considers sexually inappropriate (Vienna museums are even using OnlyFans to display ancient statues of motherhood and eroticism after censorship across socials). Other than directly impacting people’s platforms, this sets the standards of cultural morality. Almost all my insecurities were founded in some sense of being impure, imperfect or not up to scratch. I couldn’t give a shit these days because I no longer view myself through subconscious myths. It has been liberating.Despite being constitutionally secular, just this year we’ve had federal MPs pushing for more chaplains in public schools to address climate crisis anxiety among children—instead of actually addressing the climate crisis. Our Minister for Education and Youth doesn’t want colonial atrocities included in the national curriculum in case it reduces patriotism. Our nuclear-powered partners in the USA are more extreme, with the recent abortion laws in Texas going beyond anything we’ve seen in modern Australia. Without recognizing puritanical influences in our ways of thinking—and therefore in our schools, courts and parliaments—we can’t view these beliefs objectively. We must see the world without any perceptions of divine endorsement. To understand who we are, we need to understand where we come from. We must critically compare our colonial Christian and evolutionary origins. If we think of the past as simply the past, with no effect on our current day, then we’ll continue to dismiss recent horrors in the name of God and country as mere guilt trips, pointing out how far we’ve come without taking responsibility for how far we have yet to go.

How long does a body take to burn? The body was set on fire. The wet cloth still clung to the skin and carved the silhouette of a woman. Soon, the cloth was engulfed, flames charcoaling the outer layers of her skin. Her right arm folded up to the sky as her muscles contracted from the heat. Her fingers began to liquefy at the knuckles. Her breasts were thin and melted. Fat burns first, then tissue, muscle and bone, I thought, uncomfortable with my lack of sympathy toward the event. Would I have felt differently had the body been in a church? The ghats in Varanasi are like outside auditoriums, with stairs leading down to the river where boats can dock. A few men lingered around a covered chai stall at the bottom of the stairs. Cows decorated with necklaces of flowers grazed the ashes while wild dogs drank from the flowing river. It was hard for me to tell who was a spectator, who was here for a burial and who was organizing the burns. There was no practice here I recognized from the Christian funerals I’d attended.“And there,” a man said. “See that man holding a club?”The man spoke to a few white foreigners as if a guide. I moved a little closer to the group. “See, he will be the one to release the soul. It’s often the eldest son.”He explained releasing the soul meant to crack open the skull once the body had burned. I didn’t linger to watch the eldest son smash open the human skull.

What the hell was happening?

I Met a Hindu Spiritual Leader Along the Ganges River

Visiting India was a bucket list destination: the vibrant colors, the spices, the food, the wildlife, the 1.3 billion individuals who had created a culture unlike anywhere else in the world. Then, there was the spirituality to the point of mysticism or magic that I’d read about in books. I wanted to feel the energy for myself, and, maybe naively, I thought it might settle a growing discomfort I’d acquired in the years of living in Southeast Asia, a discomfort in being a baptized Christain without practice or belief. Was there just one right way?I put the question of faith out of mind and focused on enjoying Holi, Hinduism’s spring festival. Varanasi was the place to be in India for Holi. I’d been walking along the Ganges in anticipation of being swept up in an exciting crowd of festivalgoers. Having slept in, the streets were quiet. I saw the circumstantial splattering but missed seeing the casting hands of the colored mess in the narrow alleyways. There was more life along the Ganges with a line of canopies set up. I was drawn to one tent where puppies were playing among the five men sitting on the carpeted ground. A man sat cross-legged on a large swing bed decorated with pillows and held by chains from the structure like a country porch swing. He called me to join his circle. He introduced himself as Nagababa, the swing baba. I knew of standing babas devoting their lives to never sitting or the baba who had held his arm above his head for 40 years until it was skeletal. Nagababa must have been confined to his swing. He was welcoming, asking me to sit and share from his pipe. He waved a large feather fan across his face and proceeded to ask me questions in English: Where was I from, how was my time so far, where was I going? His tone was curious, but his questions were rote. “I have disciples from all over the world,” he said. “People follow me. I am 20 years a baba. I am a swing baba my whole life, staying in my swing. This is a big time for the babas. From all over.”Nagababa asked the man nearest him to retrieve a phone from his bag and instructed the man to hand it over to me. “See the people who follow me.”I scrolled through the gallery in his iPhone sheepishly. I assumed a baba was similar to a guru or a monk or a priest tapped into a higher power, and it felt odd that he should have a phone-like technology dampening his spiritual credibility. “You can follow me too,” he said.His offer was straightforward, like a newsletter subscription, though I got the feeling following in the context of religion was meatier than the click of a button. “What does that mean to follow you?” I asked. “Do people give you money?”“It doesn’t matter. See the people, all the temples. I pray for you. It’s easy. You just message me on Facebook.”“So we just become Facebook friends?” I asked, a little disappointed having expected some grandiose ritual.“No problem. I’ll give you my mantra, and you take with you mala beads.”A mantra sounded familiar, but I had no clue what a mala bead was. Nagababa had one of the men prepare a pipe of hash. Nagababa hit the pipe first, coughing out smoke with the thickness of wool. He had his eyes closed and was speaking in a low volume from his swing. The group was silent while he spoke. I closed my eyes. I heard the chains of the swing clink and opened my eyes to see Nagababa standing from his seat rifling through his bag. I closed my eyes again, thinking I wasn’t supposed to catch him standing. Wasn’t the point that he never left his swing? “Here,” he said. I opened my eyes. He was back in the swing handing me a necklace. It was a cheap string that had a single maroon pendant that looked like a petrified cherry with holes drilled through the center. “This one is for you,” he said to me. “A special one. These are rudraksha seeds, from the tree.”“Thank you.”He continued to speak in a thick honey rhythm. “Now you have my mantra; every day, you can be with me. You are feeling good, yes? You are one of us. You are my follower now. This brings you luck.”I held the mala necklace, looking dumbly up at Nagababa, wondering if I had consented to something or had I accidentally undergone some ceremony to become a Hindu follower. I asked Nagababa to repeat his mantra into my phone so I could record in case I ever seriously considered Hinduism. I put on my necklace as Nagababa rose from his swing again to stand at the edge of his tent and wave goodbye.I tried to offer him money because the need to pay for getting high with a spiritual leader in India during Holi felt unavoidable. He didn’t accept the rupees nor did he seem offended by the offer, so I placed them on his swing, and he shrugged. I left, wondering about the boundaries of his devotion.

Nagababa Had a Unique Way of Showing Spiritual Devotion

In the evening, there was a ceremony to celebrate the divine love between the gods Radha and Krishna. I found a seat on the wall that looked out over the river and the stage that was lit by electric umbrellas. The ceremony was in Bhojpuri, the native language of Varanasi, or maybe Sanskrit. There were at least 50 babas, some dressed in orange cloth and some naked. Midway through the music on stage and the roar of chanting, I saw Nagababa. He didn’t have his swing and was instead standing. His skin was white and streaked like forgotten strokes of sunscreen. His hair was swirled and nested on his head and his beard hung down past his belly and ended at his jungle of pubic hair. He had a miniature drum in one hand that he shook so the beads swung back and forth to make noise. In the other hand, he held a walking stick that for a moment I thought was wrapped with a snake. I refocused and realized Nagababa had pulled the shaft of his flaccid penis to stretch it several times around his walking stick so the skin was as flat as the mouth of an empty balloon. He was not alone, as each of the other babas twisted their genitals around some form of a stick. Where I expected to see Nagababa’s face holding agony, he was calm as if separated from his body.Was there some deity above holding an ethereal yardstick to measure their pain as their devotion? What the hell was happening?I had doubted Nagababa in his tent earlier that day, giving weight to judgment because he had a Facebook page. Assured of Nagababa’s commitment now, I felt disheartened about my role and assumptions as a tourist. Was I worthy of prayers from a man who sacrificed his body for belief? I felt puny in comparison to his physical devotion.

I refocused and realized Nagababa had pulled the shaft of his flaccid penis to stretch it several times around his walking stick so the skin was as flat as the mouth of an empty balloon.

I Learned About the Values of Intersectionality

My friend Navin once summarized being Indian as being a believer. “There are hundreds of Hindu gods who each serve a purpose, like bringing luck or fertility,” he said. “We don't have them memorized, but we know they’re there. I don’t practice as much anymore living abroad, but my nonna would sooner welcome me being Christian or Buddhist than an atheist. At least Christianity is believing.”Was having faith in India based on the act of belief rather than the subject of that belief? It took me being in Varanasi to value this concept of religious intersectionality and question my assumptions of worldly versus otherworldly. Homes in the city held both Christain crosses and Shiva sculptures. Wandering holy men sacrificed their bodies in the name of enlightenment but still posted on Instagram. I tried to bind faith exclusively to religion, a singular religion, because it's what I knew, but it didn’t fit India. I wanted to believe in the mala necklace Nagababa had given me. Maybe a rudraksha was just a seed. Maybe it would bring me divine luck. Either way, I liked how Navin saw it. “It’s better to not know but believe in something than it is to believe in nothing.”

I ask Maestro about dieting, and he replies with a story. I can tell he’s really connected with it just by the way he looks at me and animates his words with his hands. “When we first start to diet, we are like one leaf, very thin and very weak and easily able to tear and rip,” he says. “Over time, we add a leaf with each diet finished, and the leaves begin to layer and get thicker and harder to tear away, making us stronger and readier for life experiences.”We both exhale tobacco smoke, and I sit with the simple and profound example he has laid before me: a strengthening of the core of our being, like layered leaves, more resilient to what life will inevitably bring to us.

La Dieta Is the Spiritual Pillar to Amazonian Life

I first met Don Rogelio in 2013. I was seeking to further follow the call to sit with the folk plant tradition of Amazonas. Having had a serious nerve disease that nearly took my life, I encountered great healing amongst the plants in the Peruvian Amazon of Iquitos years later. In the beginning years, prior to Don Rogelio’s tutelage, I had considered that I was in good hands studying under a Westerner who was hodgepodging his way through on this plant path. Being young and naive, I didn’t know he was cutting out a massive part of the tradition. I can see this with the way that most people are exposed to these sacred entheogenic plants, which largely misses the mark.Having spent the last years returning to Don Rogelio and his family, I have been able to begin the art of dieting. When this is initially shared with someone, nine times out of ten, it is assumed that it's a focus on weight loss. This is understandable given the modern use of the word, but weight loss, which inevitably happens, is only a side effect of the experience.So what is the dieta? It is, above all, a central pillar to Amazonian life and spirituality, which can be said to be inseparable. With each distinct group, and even within each family, the requirements, style and form can be somewhat different. In the way I learned it and continue to practice, the dieta is the abstinence of salt, sugar, spices, oil, sex, alcohol, cannabis, dairy, any intense foods, any drugs and meat (except very bony vegetarian fish like bocachico).Normally, alongside abstaining from these things, the participant lives in isolation, the only contact coming with their teacher—or, if the dieta is less demanding, based on previously agreed on terms, the participant has contact with other dieteros or the teacher’s family (commonly called a ‘“social dieta” or “soft dieta”). All of this is achieved within at least eight days and at maximum, as long as one needs or is prescribed.

Stripping away all creature comforts and daily experiences that we deeply take for granted always brings me to a place of peace and focus.

Many Participants Hope to Learn and Heal From the Plants

Stripping away all creature comforts and daily experiences that we deeply take for granted always brings me to a place of peace and focus—after, of course, the chaotic monkey mind settles down. It can be hard to see what we carry if we never have a chance to put it all down, so to speak.The call to do such a thing is usually through one of two avenues: healing or learning. I have seen some people show up with cancerous tumors, near-death alcoholism, addictions, nervous system disorders and more. I have also met others on the path who feel a deep pull to learn more about the mystery of the plants, for various reasons. Yet, it seems, inevitably, that these two reasons are really one—the healing becomes learning and the learning yields healing, correcting incongruent human behavior and attitudes that do not aid in our journey here on Earth.Each plant or tree has its own particular spirit or personality, one could say. These jungle beings are often referred to as “master plants,” carrying the ability to teach us. They are very much alive and make themselves known in various ways via dreams, waking life or in the deeper ceremony work. The spiritual connection is subtle (at first) and worked on through the process of dieta, each plant and each session leaning us deeper into the world of the plants.

Numerous Plants Have Practical and Spiritual Benefits

The idea of attempting to put words to these experiences is both challenging and hilarious in that they evade the expected descriptives and will continually surprise us, even when we think we know them. That being said, I’ll attempt to introduce a few plants.For the first diet, usually Don Rogelio would serve ajo sacha (Mansoa alliacea), also known as wild garlic. This plant has the spirit of protection imbued inside it and is relied on for cleansing the impurities from our bodies and mind. It’s got massive green leaves that smell exactly like garlic once crushed. It’s also used in baths to help cleanse the participant’s spirit.Ayahuma (Couroupita guianensis) is a deciduous hardwood that bears along the bark incredibly beautiful blooms that turn into rather large brown fruits with bright pink or even blue aromatic flesh inside. Ayahuma was translated to me as “that which kills the head,” which seems accurate if you had a picnic beneath a dangling stem. Of course, spiritually, it has the affinity to “break open the head” and inspire more heart-centered activity.Chiric sanango (Brunfelsia grandiflora), a shrub in the Solanaceae family, is a very powerful plant deeply respected amongst anyone that has ever consumed it. It’s fatal if not properly administered, and the roots are normally served and soaked in water for hours or days. It evokes the most intense of body chills, numbness and waves of a cool heat, if that makes sense, across the body. Energetically, the plant has the power to pull up deep-seated trauma that is stuck in the nervous system, its area of focus. The things that come up to the surface then have the potential to be worked with, accepted and integrated.

The diets help to give the spaciousness that is so often missing in our current glorified culture of excess.

La Dieta Forces Us to Embrace the Grand Mystery of Life

The teachings and lessons that get bestowed upon us in these fasting states are simple and profound and take time to integrate into our lives. It seems to me that any tried and true spiritual discipline is based on a patient unfolding, as opposed to the rushed running from one experience to the next, hoping for “it” to happen already. The diets help to give the spaciousness that is so often missing in our current glorified culture of excess. The break from obligations, family, friends and work is not forever, and upon returning, the community can see the benefits that come from such labor. The powerful experience can lead one to be more centered, more inspired, calmer, energized. The absolute potency and awe-inspiring effect of being with such plants and trees in this way begs us of the perennial questions: How? Where did they come from? Who made these? Who discovered them? Reflecting on these questions leaves us in a position of great faith and acceptance of the grand mystery. It’s a surrendering process that sits at the center of this practice, allowing the plants, and therefore our Creator, to work through us.

In 2021, we’ve made great strides in our pursuit of equality. Through the Stonewall riots to the marriage equality act in 2015, we’ve pushed forward in our endeavors despite what the conservative cishets of the world had to say. But there’s one thing that is holding us back. It’s something rarely discussed within our circle, but it’s something we need to bring to attention before we let it destroy all the progress we made.We are the problem. The standards we hold for straight people to accept us are significantly higher than the standards we have to respect ourselves. The truth is that straight people aren’t our worst critics. No one hates gay men more than gay men, including me. I hate gay men, too.

I hate gay men, too.

I Thought I Could Hide My Sexual Identity at My Christian High School

Growing up in a predominantly Christian environment, I waffled back and forth with being accepting of other gay people. My cousin was a lesbian, one of my classmates had a lesbian foster mom and I performed in the theater with other queer people. I was nothing but accepting of them because that was how my parents raised me. In my own coming out journey, I tried to avoid it by developing crushes on girls. Those were, of course, very awkward and usually lasted no more than a week. It all changed when a cute brown-haired boy told me I was cool for pursuing the arts. “Oh shit,” I thought. Now what?A few years went by before I came out to anyone and, when I did, I was outed to my Christian high school’s administration. I was given the option to stay in the closet or leave. I chose the latter and, in retrospect, I wonder if that was the right choice. In a way, I felt like I belonged there. I still consider myself a Christian and, at the time, I felt maybe I could work on hiding my attractions. Not full-on conversion therapy style but just enough to where the other boys in my class wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.I watched how my hands moved, how my hips swayed and made sure to never walk on the tip of my toes. I hated how my voice sounded for the longest time. It was exhausting. Trying to pass off as “straight” was soul-jarring (as if I was fooling anyone). Part of me thought I would come to embrace my sexuality. I know I didn’t “choose” to be gay. I wasn’t molested as a child (which was ignorant to think).

My First Gay Male Friendship Turned Into a Lie

I was 16 years old when I developed my first friendship with another gay guy. We were both performing a play in our local community theater. We ate lunch together and had deep conversations about coming out. There was a sort of ease talking to him. Like I could let my guard down. It didn’t feel weird that he was 32 years old. Until it became weird. What started as platonic camaraderie turned into subtle flirtation (on his part; I never reciprocated). It turned into him asking if I would go out on a date with him once I turned 18. Needless to say, I became uncomfortable, and we talked less and less. At the time, I wasn’t interested in entertaining the idea of intimacy, let alone with someone twice my age and as a minor. Not for any prudish reason. I just didn’t need it. A few weeks later, rumors began to swarm around how this 32-year-old man was having sex with the other 16-year-old gay boy in the cast. I try not to judge people, but I felt played. I felt like he was only nice to me because he wanted to sleep with me. After the production, I kept my communication with him to a minimum, even when he asked me again for a date on my 17th birthday. “I’m sorry. I’m not interested,” I said.“Fuck you,” I wanted to say.

Promiscuity and Toxic Masculinity Is a Persistent Issue in My Community

Because of that 32-year-old, I went on to view older gay men as filthy perverts. In college, I became sexually active. I went to a drama conservatory program in the middle of West Hollywood. Thanks to Grindr, my options were endless. My standards were low. I was sleeping with anyone who was available. Most were one-night stands whose names and faces are completely blurry in my mind. I did it for selfish reasons: to handle stress and unwind. Nothing more. I felt numb every single time. I didn’t care about getting to know any of them. I viewed them as opportunists, too. I was scared of getting played, so I played them instead. If ghosting were an Olympic sport, I would have won gold. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed a similar pattern with other gay men. Promiscuity runs rampant in our community. Barebacking, poppers, partying and all other aspects of hookup culture are embraced wholeheartedly. Sex in itself is not a harmful thing, but the expectations from it are. The different tribes—including twinks, otters, bears, muscle bros and pig bottoms—contribute to internalized homophobia. The toxicity of this manifests itself through gay male social media apps like Grindr (it’s not uncommon to see profiles that boldly state “no bottoms,” “no Asians,” “no fats,” etc.). We demoralize each other.Like straight men, we view dominance in the bedroom (being a top) as “manly.” I know I did. I’ve never made it a point to bottom for fear of giving my power away. I felt like bottoming was a sign of weakness. Being a top, or simply presenting as masculine, is seen as the only way gay men can survive in a heteronormative world. TV shows have promoted the “closeted homophobic athlete” trope, such as the character Monty on Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. The more we pass off as the majority, the better. There are gay men who are masculine and embrace their feminity. It’s perfectly healthy to do so. Straight men can do it too. But some gay men who identify as “masculine” are really denying themselves. Whether it’s going to the gym most days of the week or finding “normal jobs,” gay men are doing their damndest to not let their femininity slip through the cracks.

If ghosting were an Olympic sport, I would have won gold.

We Need to Develop More Respect for Each Other

There is no simple answer to fixing this. Conversations regarding diversity are being brought to the forefront, so we should learn how to embrace them. But, to be candid, I have yet to get there myself. I struggle with deconstructing learned biases instilled in me from my personal experiences and Christian upbringing. The best way I’ve worked on this is by taking it day by day. When it comes to sex, I start asking myself why I’m engaging with this person. Do I respect them? Do I want to know them? Do I need to put myself through the transfer of energies required? If I say no to any of them, I back away. I follow different social media accounts to educate myself on the experiences of other gay men. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort in order for our community to reach an even level of respect and compassion for one another, but it’s through this work that gay men can break down their walls and be honest with themselves. I’m not the same person I was at 16. I implore other gay men who are struggling to take this time to do the same thing.

I have always had an uneasy relationship with style.For many people, finding a sense of style involves striking a balance between making a statement about who you are and fitting in with the crowd. “Clothes make the man (or woman),” we have been told, a message that what you wear plays a significant role in whether you achieve or fail in your career, social or romantic life. Finding my own sense of style involved walking a different kind of path. I was a child of poor immigrant parents, so having any decent clothing, let alone clothing of a certain type or style, was something of a luxury. Even ownership of shoes could be a questionable proposition during the earlier part of the last century, when my parents grew up in the rocky terrain of the mountain villages along the border of Italy and what is now Slovenia. They came to Canada from Europe in 1960 with just the clothes on their backs and a few possessions in a trunk. Even in the first years in their new country, clothing choices were severely limited in Canadian stores. As my father once told me, you had a choice of perhaps a few shirts in a certain size and that was it. Maybe that’s why, when I see photos of my father from that period, he inevitably wore simple white shirts.Thus, from the beginning, I was imparted with a philosophy of thrift—not spending money unnecessarily, being happy with what I had, not expecting too much and not complaining about my lot in life.

Jeans, jeans, everywhere there were jeans.

Once I Grew Up, My Style Had Bigger Consequences

I say all this to indicate how low of a priority a sense of style would have been for my parents, one of the last things they would have taught me as they set about instilling the rules of life. Unfortunately, this set the stage for my going on to commit just about every fashion and style faux pas one can think of, as well as forcing me into some awkward situations over the years.Another element that factored into my style issues over the years had to do with the nonconformist, rebellious streak I have. Something about me just doesn’t want to float downstream with the crowd or keep up with the Joneses. For this reason, back in my formative years during the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was part of the out-crowd at secondary school, and so I didn’t conform to the standards, expectations and demands of the in-crowd. At that time, jeans were the overwhelmingly dominant choice of casual wear, worn between both crowds. Jeans, jeans, everywhere there were jeans. But I never wore them, settling for corduroys or dress pants of some kind. Jeans were (and still are) too country-ish for my liking.Departing from accepted clothing standards wasn’t too big of a problem in my younger years, as there were usually many nerds, geeks and nonconformists in the out-crowd to fraternize with. It became more of an issue in my working years, however, as projecting an “image” of some kind and positioning oneself for upward mobility became a bigger consideration.Even then, I didn’t give style much attention, as my first full-time job out of high school was in the property office of the local police department. There, I was called upon to handle and store all manners of found property and exhibits for court. One day might bring in leaky batteries or greasy motors; another, as I well recall, brought in soiled sheets and towels as evidence from an illegal massage parlor.At the same time, however, I had to be available at the public service counter and presentable enough to assist members of the public and police officers who came calling there. Given these circumstances, I wasn’t about to add any Louis Vuitton or Versace items to my wardrobe.

I Started Paying Closer Attention to My Daily Outfits

One of the first inklings I wasn’t doing a good job in the style department was when I heard one of my co-workers sarcastically remark about me to another within earshot. “Nice color coordination, eh?” At the time, I was wearing a rather cheap green, long-sleeve shirt with blue corduroy pants and black shoes.Up to that point, it hadn’t occurred to me that color coordination was an issue or that it might be a subject for office buzz. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of that rather unsettling incident, I thought I had better get with the program and find out a little about clothing and colors and what would help to “make the man.”That led me to a paperback copy of John T. Molloy’s Dress for Success, a bestselling 1975 book that studied the relationship between clothing and one’s level of success, both in business and personal life. I hoped it might be a vehicle that would bring me up to speed. Decades later, while I don’t recall too many specifics from the book, I remember it soon prompted me to show up at the office in a quality shirt, dress pants, polished dress shoes and a tie. If my color coordination, or lack thereof, had created a mild hubbub previously, my new attire created a sensation this time. I can still hear the laughter of my co-workers now.Looking back, it was an over-the-top effort to upgrade my style. It was way out of context to the work environment, and I quickly and sheepishly went back to a modified version of my previous self (paying a little more attention to color coordination, of course).

I’ve Made Many Blunders, but I’m Always Learning From Them

The next steps on my journey to garnering a sense of style were provoked by several girlfriends over the years. One of my earliest was a big fan of the color red—she drove a red car, wore red sweaters, had red everything. That red fanaticism was eventually directed my way, and when it came to birthdays and Christmas, she always gifted me red clothing. The red attire didn’t outlive our two-year relationship, however, as I didn’t believe red matched my skin tone well. It was too loud a color for my liking.A stronger nudge occurred sometime later when I had a job in another city about an hour away. I commuted by train and then walked a significant distance from the rail station to the office. For comfort, at least in non-winter months, I got into the habit of wearing white sneakers.I eventually began dating one of the girls in the office, and it wasn’t before long before she sent me an unsolicited email. It contained an article about what a turnoff white sneakers are for women. I got the point. Though functional, the sneakers did make me look like an adolescent when I was in my 30s. Out they went.Then there were the blunders that took place during my time in a classic rock band, when I had to come up with something that would look good on stage. In one ghastly photo, I wore running shoes, white pants and a god-awful flowery shirt. What was I thinking? Then the wife of a bandmate told me I had to get rid of the black belt holding up the white pants. Done.

I can still hear the laughter of my co-workers now.

My Sense of Style Is (Slowly) Improving

My current partner has been particularly helpful as I wade through my later-middle years. She can spot something that looks good on me when we browse clothing or thrift stores. She also pays greater attention to appealing cuts. For example, I had a bad habit of wearing baggy pants. Now I favor slimmer fits along the legs and have taken her advice to wear untucked shirts in casual situations for a more youthful look. That took some getting used to, as I always thought untucked shirts looked sloppy. It also turned out to be a bit of a science finding a shirt just the right length to properly fit my big torso.Today, I won’t be getting onto any best-dressed lists anytime soon, and I still don’t have a style to speak of. Perhaps “classic” might be closest to the truth. But I am happy that my color coordination is better, that my pants fit more snugly and that I untuck my shirts more regularly in casual situations. Gone are the white sneakers, flowery shirts and white pants with black belts.But as I write this, I’ve found a Forbes article describing how Steve Jobs, who was worth over $10 billion at the time of his death, wore a simple “chosen uniform” of a black mock turtleneck, blue jeans and New Balance sneakers. Maybe I actually had it right in the first place?

Adorned in the most solemn business suit and the smile of a cat who caught the canary, I enter every interview with the confidence of a dominatrix compelling total submission. How can I possibly say such a thing? Because I know something you don’t know! That’s the mindset my mother gave me as I entered puberty, and she taught me how to dress from the inside out. “If you feel pretty on the inside,” she’d say, “you’ll feel pretty on the outside.”So many trips to the mall were about learning how to “dress to flatter your figure” and what “proper undergarments” were needed under what apparel. It was the training my mother received from her mother, a 1940s Hollywood glam gal and the girl next door. We were raised to be the consort of a king, knowing how to handle ourselves in any company from pauper to prince. It saddens me to say that at least the last two generations have been raised as a commodity and not as a treasure to be cherished. Working parents, too tired to invest in their children, hand over the credit card and drive their kids to the mall to shop for their own school clothes. These kids have never had a parent explain how to tie a tie or why a slip and pantyhose can smooth lines under a pencil skirt and entice the eye of a sucker for silk and lace.

I know something you don’t know!

“Anything Goes” Is Not a Fashion Choice

Femininity used to be a prized asset in society. Now, the Karens of the world have belched out their greasy, selfish hate and attacked the ladies who embrace what it means to be a woman. Instead of a light glaze of makeup to accentuate one’s natural beauty, girls (and now guys too) spend fortunes on contouring makeup and false eyelashes that radically change how they look.I shudder to think of the poor schleps who wake up the next morning hungover and horrified at what they did the night before, devoid of the glory of the beer-goggle view. In all honesty, I find myself pitying today’s brides as so much of contemporary style demands sheer bridal gowns, showing off to all wedding guests in attendance what she should be saving for her beloved. It looks to me like these girls have stumbled upon the beauty of undergarments and don’t have enough sense to keep them covered up.Layers of clothes used to be worn every day all over the world by women in favor of—and those also opposed to—modesty. It was the style society demanded to be “decent.” Now “decent” is a dirty word, and today’s style says, “Anything goes!” But it really doesn’t. If it did, style and fashion wouldn’t be the multimillion-dollar industry it is today.

I Helped My Friend’s Wardrobe and Her Confidence

I confess to hating shopping.Because millennials and Gen Zers haven’t been taught how to dress to flatter their figures, almost everything in the department stores has the same cuts, the same crappy (elastic or polyester) fabric, a lack of quality lining and nothing more than sexy bras and sex-kitten lingerie. Slips and girdles must be ordered online, and pantyhose are hidden in the “granny-panty” section of the women’s department. I mean, really, how many girls today realize that a bra that fits properly can create the illusion of losing 20 pounds or more the instant she pulls down her shirt?I once took a colleague from work shopping for her 21st birthday. She was notorious for wearing baggy blouses, pleated skirts and canvas tennis shoes. We started in the lingerie section and she blushed crimson when I insisted she try a black bra and panties. She felt naughty and looked beautiful. Perfect start! But the process took us hours, tears and frustration beyond words. She begged me to go home. Why? Because she had quite the pooch in her lower tummy section and every straight skirt she tried on was filled with disgrace and body-shaming agony. That is until she tried on the last skirt I handed her with pockets and pleats at the waist, leading into a straight skirt that stopped just above the knee. It was lined and had a kick slit up the back. The pleats hid her pooch perfectly. We found a blouse in a deep plum color that electrified her eyes and fell over the pleated skirt as if it was a tailored suit. Then we finished off the outing with a jet-black pair of pantyhose and four-inch stiletto heels. My friend just glowed. She showed up to work the next day with an updo and drop earrings and wowed every man she passed in the halls of the hospital.Guys who never noticed her asked for her number, and she spent the day giggling like a schoolgirl. All because she learned how to dress to flatter her figure. She was a new person. Confident. Happy. Her mother even sent me a thank-you note.

She was a new person. Confident. Happy.

Wearing the Right Clothing Can Do Wonders

I wish I had the opportunity to do this for every young lady I’ve met who just needed a boost of confidence—to see the beauty she was hiding, a beauty that no one ever taught her how to polish up and present to the world.When you know something they don’t know, it’s amazing how dominant an unspoken confidence can sweep across the room.

When I think about taking photos, the early parts of my career stick strongly in my mind. They were so pure, so uniquely different than today. The community that I put together back then didn’t exist online—it didn’t cut its teeth against an algorithm. It was a community of physical people, and the photographs I look at from that time reflect that—moments of casual exchanges, unposed feelings, memes in all but the word. To say we were more innocent is an understatement; we just couldn’t even fathom what was coming, even as the foundations we stood on were shaking and shifting. It was as if we could tell that working in an industry that was really an expensive daycare, full of the best toys, was worth something in a way that hadn’t been monetized yet. That our experiences, even the slightest and most simple ones, were magically important because of the sheer ridiculousness of them. Back then, there was no complete desire yet to post every image you took, to document in static the life you led. Rather, our half-analog brains—the last in existence—found it far nicer to save them, to hold on to them and to explore them. I’ve been looking at a lot of photographs recently, memories from my past that don’t exist online. In today’s parlance, they never officially happened. When I first moved to New York to become a fashion photographer, Twitter had just emerged, and almost no one I knew was using it. Instagram hadn’t even been thought of yet. It was weird transitioning from offline to online in my career, and it's one of the things that slowly pushed me away from the business years later. As I write currently, I have taken a full break from the photography industry and left it behind for carefully painted greener pastures. But back then, I was shooting for me and for the people I thought might find my photos in the pages of magazines.

I got off the bus and felt invincible.

Blogs and Social Media Forecasted the Digital Revolution

Blogs were a hot new thing, a sort of new digital playground for your ideas. I had one, and it did feel revolutionary but not isolating. The internet could host my photos, making them available for whoever could find them in the wilderness. But the best ideas were saved for the pages. My ambition was to get them in a magazine, one that would cement me as certified. Dazed, i-D, Twin, The Gentlewoman, Love. These were some of a celebrated set of names that were like a drug—verified checkmarks without the actual mark itself. Making it meant being present and seen and the real life we lived was definitely physical and personal.I moved to New York at 19 with no money and a contact I had picked up while in Paris with the “bloggerati,” a group of original fashion bloggers, one of whom I had been lucky enough to know from my hometown. I got off the bus and felt invincible. I think the reason for the feeling was because it felt unknown—as unknown as I felt, like I could disappear and reemerge as a fully formed person somewhere below 14th Street.Luckily, New York hadn’t become a fully digital experience yet. I didn’t have to pretend to understand someone’s impact based on a numeric figure next to their name. Instead, value occurred in person. Every generation of New Yorker has their own New York state of mind. Most will tell you it was better before you got there. In all my youthful wisdom, I guffawed at that statement. I was young, and it was still a hell of a place to get lost and find yourself.Facebook had emerged when I was in high school and had become a sort of domestic social experiment, where virtue signaling was new and friendships weren’t hierarchical in an obvious way. It was a place to deposit a connection that you made in the physical world, a storage of people that you needed more time to figure out how to connect with. It was built for awkward undergrads and teenagers to hit on one another, if that gives you an idea about its innate lack of real nuance.It was the beginning of a place to interact in a more casual but direct way with the fabulous people I would meet at the parties. My experience with technology, intertwined as it was with my move to New York, was in lockstep with how I climbed up the various ladders, stairways and catwalks that made up the industry. People in positions of industry power were older and, to a degree, held their noses up at the notion of a digital fashion world. Style.com was there, but the arbiters of the industry regarded it as some sort of inside joke on the “regular folk,” pretending to give them an access point to an exclusive club. It was like crumbs for the birds. Little did they know how much they would end up scrambling to pick up the pieces as the digital rebellion took off.

Instagram Began The Rise of Influencer Culture

There is an iconic picture, taken in Paris in 2009, in which my friend, the fashion blogger I mentioned earlier, is seated in a row with Hamish Bowles and Anna Wintour. By this point, the bloggers had no longer been relegated to the fringes; they were seated directly alongside the old guard in the front row. Looking at this photo now, one thing jumps out at me: the way that the bloggers’ very presence completely demystifies the people sitting around them. The fashion executives look downright human. The blogs had done their job by being the torch in the darkness, showing with sheer analytics the power of digital democratization. Money could be attached to the digital personas emerging. By the time Instagram arrived in my third year, bloggers had grown to be parodies of themselves. The industry all knew the power of these bloggers now, and their masks came back on.In turn, their photos became retouched to death and over-stylized. What we ended up with was a cheaper version of the editorials we saw in the magazines. It was peak meta, or so everyone thought. The previous digital platforms had catered to the collective, favoring mass adoption to any sort of editorial consideration, but Instagram with its “medium as message” was only made for the people with lives to show.It was back to the individual again. Young photographers began to experiment with curating their offline life for an online visual experience. Models paralleled this phenomenon. The platform provided a unique opportunity for them to realize their own individual power. In one post, they could share work, establish their role and job and align themselves within preexisting power structures. But their next post could show inside their apartment, creating a separate entity and foreshadowing what would change the industry again.This online group was a sleeper—it had always been online, but it had been kept out by the gatekeepers—and with the digital platforms unlocking the gates themselves, it hit the ground running. This group would become known as influencers, composed of people from various walks of life, another edifying chapter in the utopian gospel of digital democratization. The originals who laid the blueprint for future adoptees, especially in the fashion/celebrity world, however, weren’t pulled from a broad spectrum. They were the progeny of the wealthy and powerful, the new generation: young, rich and pretty in a very particular way, real-time versions of a fashion-staged tableau. They had been vacationing their whole childhoods in the same places fashion shoots took place. They all knew each other from various exclusive schools and family alliances. They arrived so dramatically that the industry couldn’t separate itself and was forced to adapt to them.

I didn’t have the last name, or the money, and had entered the business when a sense of sheer stupid determination was enough to get you in the door.

My Artistic Vision Was Co-Opted by Metrics and Traction

I can remember distinctly seeing this in real-time. At this point, I was shooting and working with a legendary casting director in the city as his assistant, a position that saw me interacting with all levels of the business. We were sort of unicorns, halfway between creative and business, seamlessly bouncing between the politics and the fantasies of the brands. We worked directly with the designers, helping to create the magical worlds they saw in their heads by curating a group of young women and men who could embody their vision on a runway or in a magazine. However, we were also responsible to the editors and the stylists, who themselves were responsible to the advertisers. Which meant there was a delicate balancing act going on behind the scenes like a giant game of Jenga. While working for one such designer—an absolutely legendary vestige of the old fashion world glamour—we encountered one of these later-dubbed influencers. The model’s agent and our marketing team explained that this model “needed” to be in the show so she could get digital traction. She was valuable because of her following, and although she didn’t fit our vision, she had to be included. I believe there are correct times to mandate this for reasons of inclusivity and diversity. This, however, was done for profitability. My boss accepted this requirement with some apprehension. When she was due to arrive, I was instructed to “suss her out.” I stood in the foyer of a Midtown building, and the elevator doors opened revealing this particular young lady. She was dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, standing far shorter than the other girls that had come and gone throughout the day. But immediately, I was struck by something about her: She had none of the concern or fish-out-of-water energy that most young models had. She seemed almost bored to be there.I chatted with her for a bit, and I admit she was charming and rough in the way that only highly polished people can be. After some time, I led her into the main salon room to meet the designer, a page-perfect older woman who had survived 50 years of changes to the industry. She glanced up from the girl’s portfolio book that laid on her lap, adjusted her glasses and slowly pronounced the girl's last name with a syrupy-thick South American accent. Then she asked her if she was related to someone else. “Yes, that's my gran,” the model said. And just like that, she was in. The industry embraced a new beacon in a way it never had before in such obvious terms.

I’m Nostalgic for the Time I Could Experiment Offline

A couple of years later, I moved to L.A. and turned my back on the industry to some degree. By my reckoning, if it was going to turn its participants into semi-celebrities to keep its shareholders happy, then I figured I should work with the silver-screen celebrities. Or at least that's what I would have captioned under my post of the Hollywood sign. In reality, I left because I no longer felt invincible in the same way. I didn’t have the last name, or the money, and had entered the business when a sense of sheer stupid determination was enough to get you in the door. There would always be those who skated by on the work their parents or family had done or not done, but there was a level of anonymity that people like me and my friends had been able to find. That's not to say I didn’t embrace social media, but I miss the time when I was allowed to experiment offline with the work I wanted to do and the people I wanted to know. I built my dearest friendships and creative connections before there was a personal fact-checking device. People didn’t hang out or work with me because of my following or my influence but because they actually either liked the work I did or liked me, un-fluential as I was. Or maybe they just thought I was cute and I’m as delusional as the people who live and breathe strictly on the platform these days. But as I click through 35mm film scans on an old hard drive of faces who were once the creme de la creme a la mode, I wonder if I should make a book. A real physical one, with pages and everything. Make it wide format, not square, with multipage layouts that are resistant to swiping. And then not sell it or even give it away to anyone so that it could never exist online. But hey, I guess then it wouldn’t be real, would it?

The myth of the fashion industry isn't new: expensive clothes, thin white women, fierce competition and way too many egos. Nor is it inaccurate. The way the fashion world is portrayed in movies is far from fictional—anyone who’s seen The Devil Wears Prada or Cruella has had a real glimpse at what the life of a fashion professional is like.So why do so many women, even the less egotistical bunch, dream of working in this industry and often accept mistreatment and ridiculously small paychecks once they make their way in? I can tell you one thing for sure: It's not only a case of having masochistic tendencies. Amidst the bitchiness, the posing and the questionable behavior, you'll also come across the kind of creativity that makes your hair stand on end, visionaries that challenge you intellectually and make you dream again. And if we are being honest, there are some pretty sweet perks too, be it free designer handbags, paid-for trips to Milan and Paris and access to fancy events in fancy places that will give your Instagram followers a serious case of FOMO.

The Toxic Fashion Industry Is Romanticized, to Say the Least

In my case, it was a mix of the perks, the creative stimulation and the fact that I got to make my childhood dream come true that led me into the glitzy world of fashion magazines, despite the serious red flags I saw along the way. I might have had to ask my parents to help me buy groceries at the end of each month, yet I got seasonal Net-a-Porter vouchers and at least one Michelin-star dinner per week, paid for by a luxury brand looking to woo journalists in exchange for positive coverage. I might have seriously compromised my own sanity when I had to deal with office bullying for over two years as a junior editor, yet at the same time, I got to interview legends like Tommy Hilfiger, sit front row at fashion week and connect with some of the industry's most powerful CEOs as part of the job. As the years pass, the money gets a little better, your skin gets a lot tougher and you find yourself becoming part of this monster of a system. You find yourself playing the fashion game, posing in borrowed designer clothes that you pretend are yours, showing off your seemingly glamorous life and mastering the resting bitch face, just like those that came before you. Does it feel good? At times, it does. Getting a seat at the table and a taste of the lifestyle of the rich and the famous after shedding literal blood, sweat and tears will no doubt make you feel good about yourself. But it's a very short-term kind of satisfaction that feeds your ego rather than your soul. Once the initial “pinch me” moment wears off, you start to notice the social and ethical issues in the fashion industry, the cracks in the system and the questionable morals behind it.

The money gets a little better, your skin gets a lot tougher and you find yourself becoming part of this monster of a system.

It Took Time, but I Eventually Saw the Problems in the Fashion Industry Culture

How can this editor lose sleep over something as meaningless as missing out on the exclusive news of a luxury brand's store opening when the rest of the world is grappling with a pandemic and lives are being lost? And how come fashion week goers haven't learned anything from our yearlong lockdowns and the collective trauma we’ve experienced? Why are people still putting lives at risk to crowd backstage at Dior just for the sake of getting a shot with A$AP Rocky? This lack of perspective and priorities has saddened me, to say the least, and forced me to question the relevance of the industry itself. At a time when community, kindness and mental and physical well-being need to be at the top of our agenda, what's the point of a fashion industry that promotes unrealistic standards of beauty, fleeting trends and a rate of consumerism that very few can keep up with?Of course, there have been conversations about rewiring the industry to respond to the times we live in, but in reality, genuine change is almost nonexistent. The fashion crowd is already back to promoting too many luxury items on Instagram, posing in head-to-toe designer looks and faking a perfect life.

Environmental, Social and Ethical Issues in the Fashion Industry

There are also bigger issues that are harder to swallow. Namely, the sexually abusive behavior of some of the industry’s most famous photographers, its issues with overproduction and pollution, and its inherently racist attitude. Over the last decade of working as a reporter in the fashion industry, I’ve followed and covered stories about models being abused by supposed legends of fashion photography like Bruce Weber and Mario Testino. I also regularly report about fashion being the second most polluting industry in the world—apparently a truckload of clothes is dumped in landfills around the world every single second—and brands producing way too many collections a year, leaving garment workers in unsafe conditions, while refusing to change in the name of capitalist gains. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the industry’s diversity issues have also been exposed, with fashion professionals finally speaking up about the racist behaviors and bullying that takes place in the industry behind closed doors. Apologies were issued and some big bosses were forced to step down, and yet people of color are still made to feel like outsiders inside these glitzy fashion offices while entry-level salaries remain so low that it’s almost impossible for working-class individuals who can’t rely on financial support from their families to get their foot in the door. “It’s embarrassing to be part of a business that has such outrageously antiquated ideas,” I recently heard Tommy Hilfiger say during a conversation with Halima Aden, one of the industry’s first hijab-wearing Muslim models, who recently decided to step away from modeling given the lack of sensitivity to her modesty requirements shown by stylists and photographers. But isn’t there at least a tinge of hypocrisy in what Hilfiger and so many other fashion professionals are saying—myself included? We find it embarrassing to be associated with a business that’s racist and culturally insensitive, yet continue to make our livelihood from it. Our relentless work and dedication keep its wheels spinning. We—or should I just say I?—find it outrageous that our colleagues are ignoring COVID-19 and rushing back to fashion week, yet sooner or later, I will probably start dressing up (in gifted clothing, of course) and return to the front row myself, reporting on new season collections, even if I know that their production is killing the planet and no one really needs any more new stuff. There’s a major push and pull of contradicting forces at play here. On one side, my love of creativity, beauty and writing about all things sparkly and glamorous. On the other, my moral compass and exhaustion from being surrounded by egos, superficiality and resistance to meaningful change.

We find it embarrassing to be associated with a business that’s racist and culturally insensitive, yet continue to make our livelihood from it.

I Have High Hopes for How the Fashion Industry Changes in the Future

It’s certainly not all doom and gloom. There’s a new generation coming to the fore that is challenging the power of the gatekeepers, smiling instead of hiding behind dark sunglasses and resting bitch faces, creating clothing out of trash to make a statement about sustainability and speaking out against racism. I’ve found glimmers of hope when I speak to the young women building successful circular businesses and offering women the chance to rent out clothes instead of buying them at inflated prices. Or all the Gen Zers who have made secondhand cool—the old guard wouldn’t be seen dead in anything old season—and turned Depop into a billion-dollar business. At fashion week, too, you are more likely to spot healthier-looking models. Backstage at runway shows, it used to be champagne and nudity all the way, and believe it or not, no one would flinch. Now there are new regulations in place to ensure that models are above the age of 16 and that they’re offered food on the job, as well as a private space to change.In the world of glossy magazines, budgets have shrunk and editors have had to ever so slightly come back down to earth. While some still loudly mourn their “old glory days,” a new crop is turning frontline workers, activists and creatives of color into cover stars for a change and working to make their offices more inviting for people who aren’t skinny, rich or white. There’s a long road ahead, but it makes me happy when I now overhear interns excitedly talking about how (some) editors-in-chief now strike up conversations with them in lifts. A mere few years ago, I was more likely to find them crying in the bathroom or looking petrified, simply because they couldn’t secure the best dinner table for their bosses at the Ritz. This willingness to challenge the status quo—and perhaps the occasional Net-a-Porter gift voucher—is what gives me reason to stay in this ambiguous world and try to change it from within.

My Current Relationship With the Fashion Industry

Having had a year off from the fancy event circuit, I had time to breathe and regain the parts of myself I had lost to the fashion bubble. I now have the courage to call things out if they feel wrong, to say no to stories that serve no purpose but to glorify a luxury conglomerate, to spend less time in fake networking events and more time volunteering as a mentor for young people from lower-income or minority backgrounds looking to find a way into the industry, even if they don’t have connections and fancy degrees. This has made the job more meaningful than any freebie or trip to Paris Fashion Week could ever do. Do I still feel hypocritical about working in fashion instead of an NGO or a sustainability startup? Of course. Every single time I’m asked to write about yet another new luxury store opening or expensive handbag launch, those conflicting feelings rise back up. For now, I have faith that as the industry presses restart, there will be fewer new handbags and Instagram trends being pushed onto people and a renewed focus on unhindered creativity, inclusion and fashion made to be worn for more than a single season. But if the big guys have their way and it’s back to business as usual, will it be time to give up the teenage dream and say enough is enough?

I come from a polygamous home. I have two older, beautiful sisters and a really tall, masculine, younger brother. This means that I have three maternal siblings. As is the case with most people, it was assumed that my effeminacy was due to the femininity of my elder sisters rubbing off on me, considering I was born immediately after them. Naturally, I spent the most amount of time with them, and I remember constantly wearing my mom’s laces and scarves when I was way younger. I was a pretty young boy, just over 7 years old, doing things I loved, without caring about the circumvented effects of what I did or the interrogations I would receive from others. I just wanted to be happy—and I was. After wearing my mom’s clothes, I moved on to my elder sister’s wardrobe— I still wear her clothes, by the way. I like to tell people that I was pretty blessed to come from a family of amazing people who never questioned my effeminacy or how and where I found happiness. All they cared about was that I kept my very chirpy demeanor without hurting anyone in the process.I then transitioned into wearing a pair of jeans because, after 24 years of my existence, I realized that the average Nigerian has to follow stereotypical social conditioning and that impacts our modes of dressing. Anything other than conformity is seen as immodest, and those who perpetrate such are regarded as outcasts.

Watching men in these shows made me understand that I wasn’t alone and that my effeminacy was something to be embraced rather than discarded.

The Fashion Industry Has Allowed Me to Grow My Self-Love

As I grew older, I began to find myself loving the ideas of fashion. The creation process, the inception of ideas, the sourcing of fabrics, the illustrations, the symposiums and seminars and even the fashion programs and shows. When I wasn’t on the streets getting inspired, I was either looking at the clothes of street dwellers or dissecting them in my head, thinking up ways that the designs could have been different. Half of my time was spent watching iconic designers make show-stopping, artsy clothes. One time, I sat in awe for hours watching Valentino’s AW18-19. I am still shocked at the amount of work that collection consumed. Watching men in these shows made me understand that I wasn’t alone and that my effeminacy was something to be embraced rather than discarded. It helped me see the need for self-expression. So, I made a conscious decision to attend fashion shows here in Nigeria. I look at myself these days, and I thank the fashion industry for the growth and self-love it has allowed me to harness for myself. For a lot of us, these shows are a time when we can fully express ourselves without worrying about social conditioning. They’re truly a time to live freely and aloud, making all forms of elaborate and exaggerated poses in front of the camera. Although this can be done outside the shores of shows and exhibitions, they’re undeniably one of the platforms that spearheaded living truly and authentically.For a visibly effeminate Nigerian man like me, with loads of criminalizing laws hovering over my very existence, one has to be careful when expressing themself, even with fashion. The country’s Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act is a draconian law set by the Nigerian government to police queer people in the country. Showing any form of relationship with the same sex or showing any stereotypical ideas of queerness in the way you dress could mean looking at a 14-year imprisonment term. You could get profiled by Nigerian police for painting your nails or changing your hair color as a man. You could also get profiled for putting on anything that doesn’t show conformity—skirts, earrings, platform shoes, anything. Worse still, you could get beat up if anything matches a display of effeminacy or "womanish behavior."

Fashion shows helped me see and meet others like me.

Fashion Shows Make Me Feel Like I Belong

I know of the blatant stereotype that there are loads of effeminate queer men in the industry. Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t. However, one thing that is certain is that queerness and effeminacy have found comfort and space in fashion. For a long time, I’d struggled with acceptance, thanks to the rigid standards that men have been forced to live within. Fashion shows helped me see and meet others like me—young, wild, free, nonconforming, fashionable people.I now look forward to attending these events because they have allowed me to see that I’m not alone—I can surround myself with people who share the same story as me. I have managed to build a community of really talented, fashionable young men who made me appreciate myself more, and I hope that others do too.

What if I told you that six years ago, I was wearing Target shirts, Best&Less trousers and K-Mart sneakers, outfits all carefully curated by my mom? That’s a roundabout way of suggesting that good style was not on my radar. I had a sense of it, but it seemed to fit into the zone of “18-year-old boy only just figured out what cologne was.” Yeah—not an aesthetic you’d want to own.OK, fast-forward to the present. What if I told you that the boy with the head-to-toe variety store outfit now wears designer clothing, heel boots, sassy slogan tees, every type of hat imaginable and dresses like a Skittles variety pack? Wait, let me clarify. I’ve worn every single color combination you can think of, and yes, even the worst ones.I know what you’re thinking: How the hell did you go from variety store fits to a living Skittle? Well the answer is through trial and error, testing which style I liked and what made me feel confident. After all, confidence is the key to pulling off literally any style.

I Graduated High School and Also From My Mom Being My Personal Stylist

I grew up in a small, conservative area in Sydney, Australia, with a conservative family whose careers were in typical nine-to-five office roles. Fair to say, I wasn’t exposed to the idea of expressing myself creatively and didn’t even dream of it until the latter part of my teenage years.I wish I could say that I bloomed into this super confident and expressive person overnight. The truth is, it took a few years to become the most authentic version of myself. In an area where something as small as wearing the color pink was seen as “sissy” or “gay,” I knew expressing myself would be a challenge—but with that, creative freedom would be totally worth it.In 2015, fashion had a rocky year. Trends like super skinny jeans and extreme drop-crotch pants were still in vogue. They were fading (good riddance) but still popular. So, there I was, lightly treading on this already rocky fashion terrain of 2015, beginning my style journey.After high school, I grew out of my personal stylist (my mom) and decided to dabble in and out of current trends in the mid-2010s. Yes, I think we have all been there wearing skinny jeans, but let me tell you, my jeans were offensively skinny. I paired this with all-white Adidas Ultraboosts and my pride and joy pink Anti Social Social Club T-shirt. Wearing this, to put it simply, made me feel like a bloody fashion mogul. Looking back, I dressed like a VSCO boy who followed too many hypebeasts on Tumblr. Not the ideal aesthetic. One of my friends even said I tried to dress like the rapper Tyga. Jeez, that was a total blow.

Would I appear too feminine?

I Learned the Importance of Contrasting Colors

I dabbled in different styles and consumed other people’s styles on social media, using them as inspiration and driving my desire to experiment with other looks. From dressing like Ali G to one of the band members from Good Charlotte, I had my fair share of trials and errors.It wasn’t until 2018 when I discovered my main talent when it came to fashion: color combinations. There used to be a fashion YouTube channel called PAQ. One of its hosts, Elias, opened my eyes up to color, mixing materials and explaining that confidence is the make or break to your own personal style. With this freshly found inspiration, the experimenting began again. This time, I had more of a clue of what direction to take—like not wearing all yellow and red and looking like a walking, talking McDonald's Quarter Pounder value meal. Instead of contrasting such harsh tones, I paired bright colors with subtle colors, such as pink and brown. From there, my knowledge grew, and it’s a skill I still use when styling myself to this day.

How Social Media Changed Fashion Forever

As I consumed a lot of my inspiration through fashion content creators on Instagram, I started to think, “Why can’t I do that?” Soon after, I began using Instagram as a platform to showcase my style and put myself out into the fashion world.With that came fear. Would I appear too feminine? Would I have to bother my friends to take my photos? I didn’t want to be seen as narcissistic and wondered if I’d be perceived that way. What if people didn’t like my style? While it doesn’t seem like a huge deal, as a creative, these are the questions that haunt you when you consider putting your ideas out into the open.Social media, of course, can be a toxic environment, especially if you’re into fashion and live in a small, conservative area. In my community, everyone knows each other, which stunted my confidence at first. But realizing I didn’t need my small suburb’s approval was the turning point of my confidence and style.I’m still prone to the odd comment. In one case, I went to a festival wearing yellow and blue, and some random person yelled, “Hey Slim Shady!” Though not an insult, it was really just…inaccurate. When has Eminem worn all yellow and blue? And what’s up with me being compared to rappers? Over the course of time, you’ll get many more compliments than insults. Receiving them as validation doesn’t mean everything. Although, it is nice to be recognized for doing something right and resonating with people.

Let them stare.

I’m Embracing the Bending Gender Norms in Fashion

Listening to a lot of female musicians has definitely shaped my personal style more than anything else. Artists such as Lil’ Kim and Britney Spears have given me major inspiration to inhabit their style but put a more masculine spin on it. While I don’t particularly dress extremely femininely, I like throwing in some feminine aspects to my outfits to defy the standard masculine expectation in fashion. That includes low-rise jeans, cropped tank tops and boots with a slight heel. It’s a slight push, and it’s made my outfits feel more like me.Female role models have also shaped my perspective on fashion. My mom raised me on her own, so I looked up to her for everything, including her fashion sense. She was my non-official stylist growing up, and I still turn to her for advice. The scary thing is, she seems to always be right.While experimenting with your own style can be daunting at first, creativity, flair and freedom by far outweigh the occasional negative comment or look you might get from strangers. In fact, you get used to it. Let them stare. Looks can’t kill. Like seriously, what’s wrong with wearing cowboy boots, purple-flared trousers, a sassy slogan tee and a pink Kangol bucket hat to the grocery store? Wait, is that too extra? OK, it might be. But has my fashion given me the confidence to try it?Absolutely.

Just out of high school, my mother had a brief stint as a runway model in Namibia. She was tall, slender and could rock a fur coat with the grace of a gazelle, even in eight-inch heels. Whenever I look at pictures of her at one specific show, I ask about the heels. “How’d you walk in them?” I’d ask, to which she’d almost always answer: “Carefully.” From there, she went on to be an airline stewardess. How she picked two of the most objectifiable jobs in history, I don’t know, but she loved both. She didn’t mind how much her feet killed her as she did every eight-hour shift in heels; she didn’t mind that she was forced to wear a full face of makeup or do up her hair in a prescribed way. She took the lustful gazes of men as compliments as they “admired” her uniformed body with catcalls, and when her mediocre pay came in, she was probably just happy that she had enough to put food on the table. It didn’t make her a bad woman. It made her someone who grew up as a “nice girl” in a Namibian, Afrikaans household in the ’60s and ’70s and found herself having to navigate an oppressive, sexist society in the ’80s without any knowledge of it even being oppressive or sexist to begin with. Not much has changed in 50 years. Girls are still being raised to be “nice” instead of calling out shitty behavior, but that might be a conversation for a different time because right now, I’m more focused on the one thing that’s trying so desperately to be a tool for empowerment but remains shackled to the male gaze: fashion.

I’m more focused on the one thing that’s trying so desperately to be a tool for empowerment but remains shackled to the male gaze: fashion.

Misogyny Has Poisoned the Idea of Female Style

I own two shirts that were purchased three years ago when the feminist in me truly awoke. One says “Feminist,” the other “Equality,” and although both are wonderful sentiments and great conversation starters, I know better than to think that one piece of fashion will go very far in bringing about real societal change. Not for a lack of trying. Women across the world have revolutionized not wearing a bra or tried to take the power of the stiletto back. In some cases—think Blac Chyna and Amber Rose’s at the 2015 VMAs—fashion has served a purpose in making an impact or raising awareness, but regardless of its power as a political tool, its tendency to demean is still far greater. Not because of fashion itself but how a misogynistic point of view has poisoned the narrative surrounding female style. Throughout my life, wearing something revealing was labeled slutty, but wearing the opposite would make me a prude. If I wore something too tight, I’d be easy, but the opposite was too boyish. If I wore something pink and floral or overly feminine, I was most likely dumb, but the opposite was never girly enough. And then, of course, there’s the worst one yet: Questioning whether I’d be “asking for it” with whatever outfit I’ve picked out, when wearing the opposite would still be “asking for it” because women somehow always are, despite history repeatedly showing us that covering up doesn’t exactly render you invisible from predatory eyes. If that were true, I wouldn’t have had some stranger’s hands roaming across my breasts and vagina when he was supposedly patting me down in a mugging when I was 12. I had done everything right; I’d worn bell-bottomed jeans with a light, long-sleeve shirt. I had no skin showing and was on the arm of my boyfriend at the time, but none of that mattered at all. It made me sick. And society is seemingly brainwashed into believing women are to blame for being dragged into an alley, for being pinned down, for being beaten into submission, for being raped because of what they were wearing, when I get catcalled wearing sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt.

Not much has changed in 50 years.

Fashion Still Seems More Like a Tool to Police and Place Blame

Is it really so difficult, then, to believe that women would dress not how we want but what would get us by without a catcall? That I’d switch out a summer dress or denim shorts for a floor-length skirt or completely formulate my style based on what would keep me safe instead of what would bring me the most joy? There’s no real freedom in fashion. Not when female soldiers in Ukraine are being forced to march in heels. Not when the Norwegian beach handball team was fined for not wearing bikini bottoms when male counterparts got to play in shorts and tank tops. Not when heels are still associated with sex instead of power or ambition. Not when a skirt invites men twice your age to gawk at you. Not when every outfit you wear is seen as an invitation for someone to comment on your body. And especially not when sexism, oppression and misogyny continues to masquerade as style. Fashion is meant to be an extension of my self-expression, a way to give the world a little snapshot of myself, but as much as I’d like to showcase the alternative side of me—the one who wears fishnet stockings and pleated skirts, sheer blouses and lace crop tops (because I have it all in the back of my closet somewhere)—self-expression and non-judgment just don’t seem to walk hand in hand out here in the real world. I’d know because the last time I tried venturing out in a mini denim skirt with stockings, I had to grit my teeth through two “hello, babies,” a couple of wolf whistles and a man literally turning around to watch me walk down the street. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much more of an unbearable experience that would’ve been without the stockings. Right now, fashion still looks more like a tool to police or blame than something that provides freedom. But my pursuit to turn it into something empowering doesn’t end here. Who knows? Maybe there’s a lesson in my mother’s discomfort after all. Maybe breaking the strangling hold that systemic sexism has on me personally is about pushing past the boundaries and wearing the labels like badges of honor instead of shying away from them. Maybe being a slut, being easy, being dumb or boyish is also the key to being free.

In 2008, I was late to my first period history class so often that if the teacher hadn't been a few months away from retirement, he would certainly have flunked me. I told him, and anyone who would listen, that it was because the bus was late. In reality, I had no idea whether the bus had been on time or not—I should have caught it, but I'd been standing in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom. For an hour every morning, I tried on every piece of clothing I owned, working myself up to a near hysteria, until I settled on the combination that made me feel the right mix of invisible and ready-to-be-viewed. For most of that year, it was a pair of American Eagle boyfriend jeans and an oversized, long-sleeve cotton T-shirt that covered the top of my thighs. I was convinced that it was the real-life equivalent of Lindsay Weir's jacket; if anyone wondered why I was always wearing this unglamourous, masculine garment every day, they'd understand that it was mysterious and cool, that there was a story behind it, that I was effortless and low maintenance.This daily outfit was followed by many other regrettable ones during my freshman year of college. Fixated on what my thighs looked like or concealing certain parts of my body or emphasizing other parts that I thought were thin, I put together a series of ensembles that had neither the advantage of being the same as everyone else's nor being uniquely stylish. They were simply strange combinations of garments that satisfied my dysmorphic need to display my collarbones while concealing my waist. American Eagle skirts, Target tank tops, push-up bras, empire waist dresses, black leggings covered with T-shirts that reached almost to my knees.

At some point, I stopped hating my body.

I Got Tired of Hating My Body All the Time

None of my concerns were about the real shape or size of my body. I was obsessed with an imaginary version that I projected in the mirror but, more importantly, felt when I was shoving my limbs into tight low-cut jeans or the on-trend 2000s layered cotton shirts that smothered my torso and required constant rearranging.Enough. We're all familiar with the eating disorder/body dysmorphia story. It's so boring. And most of all, it holds us back from fun and enjoyment and creativity. At some point, I stopped hating my body. There are any number of tidy anecdotes I could use to explain the shift, but, the fact is, I simply got tired. Around the time I was 24, I'd been worrying about the amount of calories in food and the way my thighs squished out when I sat down in shorts for nearly a decade. I'd worried my way into and then out of anorexia and bulimia. I was exhausted. I could, I reasoned, either feel this way the rest of my life, or I could decide to accept my body as it was (is). I chose the latter.It was remarkably instantaneous, like a switch had flipped. I wasted no more time accounting for how my body was perceived. But I was left with a conundrum. After so many years of dressing with the sole goal of making my body seem small—or rather, to fit the distortions that my brain had made of my body—I was without guidelines. That's when I found my style.

My Fashion Sense Is Inspired by What Feels Comfortable on My Skin

I dress now for pleasure, for the way clothes look and drape, but mostly for how they feel, the textures and the way they cling that makes me conscious of, and pleased with, my body. The guy I’m sleeping with lends me warm clothes—a running pullover in a vibrant cobalt, caressingly soft fabric, an extra coat to wear over mine. He gives me a scarf and a buttery thin cotton T-shirt that he won’t wear because it’s for a rival soccer club, which I think is stupid but, God help me, endearing. I wear it with a strand of pearls and a pair of thrifted jeans that fit nowhere except exactly at my natural waist.I dress less for what “looks good” rather than for sensation—for the silk sliding against my skin or a sense of something hitting satisfyingly at my waist or the layered, downy safety of multiple borrowed items at once. Jeans that obscure the shape of my legs. Turtlenecks that tuck up comfortingly around my chin. It’s fun, and it allows me to take a renewed pleasure in getting dressed each day.I don't tolerate discomfort. I cut out tags that nag at the sensitive skin of my stomach and throw out bras with stretched elastic. I don't wear skirts that are so tight they give me heartburn, even if they show off my ass. This is my body, no one else's. It's a site for expression or invisibility, to be covered in materials that soothe my skin, to be bared to the sun or rain when necessary. Strangely, I get many more compliments now than I ever did trying to be or seem thin. From this tactile pleasure in my clothing comes a new chicness and confidence. When I was dressing to hide my body, I entered every room afraid someone might see behind the curtain. Now I carry myself into a room comfortably because I am, literally, comfortable. What anyone else sees can't negate what I feel.

“Why do you care so much about your clothes? Fashion is so vain and vapid! There are better things to invest your time and energy on, you should know that—you went to fashion school.” The number of times I’ve heard this is insane. Yes, I went to fashion school, and yes, the fashion industry as a whole can be incredibly controversial, but at the end of the day, we need it. Fashion and the clothes that aid us in developing a personal style are a basic human need; they allow us to express ourselves and connect to others in a way that spoken language could never let usNow, most people think I’m crazy when I first say we need fashion to the point of it being a basic human need. Why would we need an industry that’s so widely problematic and known for its pollution and human rights controversies? Sure, a lot of the negative things that are said and written about it are true, but there’s good and bad sides to pretty much everything in life, and the fashion industry is no exception. At its core, fashion is about self-expression, and we need it because it gives us tools to express ourselves that we would otherwise not have. Our personal style and the way we choose to dress every day are a direct reflection of who we are as individuals. It is connected to our very essence as human beings, and it has been this way since the first humans roamed the Earth. Throughout history, clothes have played a monumental role in the development of societies (why else would there be entire museum exhibitions dedicated to the clothes of ancient China or India or the Maya?). Every culture has had its own codes and interpretations of clothing and the way they’re worn, but the general consensus is that clothes have meaning.

The general consensus is that clothes have meaning.

Self-Expression Through Fashion Has Always Been Important to Me

Once I was allowed to pick my own clothes growing up, I knew I wanted to look different than my classmates, something that my parents weren’t entirely fond of. I clearly remember begging my mother to let me wear a long-sleeved, purple, camo top and bell-bottom jeans under a denim miniskirt for school picture day. I also remember her saying no and me sneaking the clothes out in my backpack and wearing them anyway. What can I say? Even as a child I was obstinate and had a bit too much chutzpah. This constant need to express myself through my wardrobe has stuck with me throughout my life; my style choices have evolved and grown with me. Now, as a woman in her late 20s, I continue to use fashion as a way of self-expression and self-discovery. I’m that fat woman who is not afraid of bold prints and crop tops and being looked at (maybe even envied a little?) for having the guts to wear whatever I feel like without carrying the weight of what others might think is “appropriate” for my body type, gender or age over me. My love for clothes led me to pursue a career in fashion design. I spent four years of my life falling deeper in love with fashion and learning how to translate my personal feelings and ideas into pieces that would resonate with other people and allow them to see a piece of themselves reflected in that item. I was taught to connect with every collection I designed. Every single piece of clothing I have ever made carries a piece of my soul, made tangible with the help of a little fabric, a lot of thread and a sewing machine. When someone else likes it—and wants to wear it—it means that there is some sort of unspoken understanding between us; we have somehow connected, even if briefly. And while sure, the interpretation of the piece might be different, the connection we made is still there; we both felt the need to express whatever it was we were feeling with this same item. Fashion allows this to happen; it allows us to communicate with others without even having to speak. After graduation, my life took a series of twists and turns that eventually pushed me away from the design room and into personal styling territory. As a personal stylist, I’ve only confirmed my belief that fashion makes the world go ’round. There is a special link between a stylist and the person who is being styled, whether it’s a client who wants to revamp her whole wardrobe after a significant weight loss or a friend who needs help finding their wedding suit a few weeks before the ceremony. Helping someone refine their wardrobe or pick an outfit for a special occasion allows me to peek inside that person's soul: their insecurities, their opinions of themselves, their hopes, their daily lives. It’s not just “this fabric is itchy” or “this color makes me look washed out”; it’s “this print reminds me of my grandfather’s favorite vacation hat” and “this olive, tweed suit makes me feel like I belong in a vintage photograph and feels a lot more like me than the blue suit did.” Personal style is about thoughts and feelings; it’s not just pretty clothes put together in an aesthetically pleasing way (although yes, there is some of that). That’s the beauty of clothes and fashion. Whether we care to admit it or not, clothes have meaning—they are more than just artfully put together pieces of fabric. They allow us to find our kindred spirits; they are a language that doesn't need to be spoken because, in one way or another, we all understand it. Our wardrobes are carefully curated physical and visual manifestations of our moods and thoughts. What we choose to wear is an extension of our personalities.

I realize my closet has been a reflection of my emotional and mental health.

Fashion Helps Us Show Our True Selves to the World

We add emotional value to clothes that are tied to moments or feelings that meant something to us, and wearing them again helps us relive those moments. That’s why so many of us have a favorite piece of clothing that we love and keep coming back to. Maybe it’s a parent’s ring that you wear after they passed, the sweater you wore on your first date with your now-spouse, a vintage baseball jacket with your favorite team’s colors, or a very fancy, silk, emerald green dress with a deep V-neck that you wore when you went out for “casual” drinks on your birthday (yep, that’s mine; I’ve never known how to do “casual”). There is no such thing as grabbing the first thing we see in our closet and wearing that without a second thought. We subconsciously gravitate toward the clothes, colors, textures, fabrics and prints that make us feel something—or that make us feel part of something. As a student, I dressed exclusively in baggy sweatpants, oversized T-shirts and fuzzy Elmo slippers (ironically, fashion students are the least fashionable people; we don’t have the time or energy to get dressed when our finals week is actually a finals month and a half). After graduation, I felt like I had to live up to this idea that designers are überstylish people who are always put together, so I filled my closet with trendy pieces that I was bored with six months later. Slowly, I started developing my own personal style. Looking back, I realize my closet has been a reflection of my emotional and mental health; there've been times when it’s all black, and there've been times where it’s filled with green and red (both colors that are generally associated with positivity and energy, according to color psychology). Currently, it’s a mix of this and a mix of that. A little color, a little black and a lot of denim. In one way or another, we all care about what other people think of us and of the clothes we wear. We care how we’re perceived, which is why we ask for opinions when we go shopping, why we follow fashion bloggers on social media or why it’s so common for brides to take their friends and family wedding dress shopping. Personally, I’m not a fan of shopping with a crowd. I feel like it clouds my judgment, but I have definitely been known to text my best friend or my partner photos of whatever it is I’m buying if I’m on the fence about a specific item. We want to be accepted as members of society while still retaining some sort of individuality. It’s human nature, and the clothes we pick for ourselves are a reflection of that. Even those who are famous for “not caring” about what they wear or are known to wear the “same thing” every day have meticulously curated a capsule wardrobe for themselves—think of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Hillary Clinton. All of them have carefully selected the clothes they wear to give a message and portray a certain image of themselves. While I personally felt a bit lost when I briefly attempted a minimalist capsule wardrobe, it was thanks to people like Jobs and Clinton that I learned to analyze my outfits more thoroughly. I’ve become more critical of my style choices. Do I really need that tan leather jacket, or am I buying it because it’s trendy? What does it say about me? Through this process, I’ve gotten to know myself better, and I am thankful for it. The bottom line is, fashion isn’t frivolous or vain. Clothes, and how each individual adapts them to their personal style, have always been and will forever be a reflection of the times we live in. They are a universal language and storyteller. This is why I care about fashion: It’s a silent historian ready to tell us everything we need to know about a person or a specific time in history. Clothes are not just a collection of threads, they tell a story—our story.

I have a walk-in closet full of clothing. I also have nothing to wear. I know it seems like a First World problem (probably because it is), but getting dressed sucks. Seriously, there are days when I am to the point of tears because nothing in my closet fits. And then comes the guilt as I’m literally standing in a closet full of clothing, crying, because I feel awful about my body and how it looks when I try to create an outfit that’s cute, comfortable and appropriate for whatever the weather is doing.Some of that is my own fault—hello, weight gain of the 30s combined with the stress of the crazy world we live in. But, mostly, women’s clothing is completely stupid. And it leaves me wondering: Why is that? So many things about the options available just make no sense to me.

See-Through Everything

Exhibit A: women’s clothing is generally paper-thin, if not thinner. It’s basically transparent. And, if you’re unaware, we women typically wear this undergarment called a bra. Creating a shirt or a dress that is thinner than the paper shooting out of my printer is just mind-boggling to me. What’s the point? And, when summers get hot and humid, the last thing I personally want to do is layer a tank top under another tank top to keep people from seeing my underwear. But alas, unless I want to show up to a business meeting with my bra clearly visible to the businessmen in the room, double tank tops it is. Maybe it’s a conspiracy with the deodorant and perfume manufacturers, since all that layering in hot weather causes lots of sweat and odor. Case in point: I just attended an outdoor music festival in our tiny town. The high of the day was somewhere in the 90s, complete with a sky-high humidity level. After struggling to find something cool and comfortable to wear, I settled on a pair of denim shorts and a tank top that was entirely too fitted for my ample stomach. However, I just went with it because the tank had some lining (in front only, of course) so I didn’t have to double tank it up.

What’s the point?

Letting It All Hang Out

Speaking of bras: What’s up with dresses that have a slightly narrowed cut right at the shoulders where the bra straps fall? I’m not even talking about halter tops or off-the-shoulder dresses here. It’s not enough of a narrowing to justify the hassle of finding a strapless bra. It’s more so that the designer decided to curve the dress straps inward just enough to where bra straps become impossible to hide. Looks great on the hanger, not so much on the person.And that tank top with a front-only lining that I wore to the outdoor music festival? It dipped a little too low in the armholes while shifting down just the right way so the sides of my bra were unfortunately hanging out. It’s like someone is playing tricks on me with an evil little scheme: Let’s make this shirt fit in all other ways except this one.I mean, yes, people generally know that a lot of women wear bras. That doesn’t mean, however, that all of us are comfortable with our bras hanging out.

How Do I Wear This Thing?

Trends irritate me. Trends that make getting dressed even more difficult really irritate me. This year seems to have an overabundance of crop tops. In every single department of every single clothing store. It’s like Oprah went off the deep end and said “You get a crop top! And you get a crop top! Everybody gets a crop top!” There’s no way I’m showing off my pasty white belly unless I’m in a swimsuit. And come to think of it, I have a tankini so I don’t even do that. And don’t even get me started on complicated shirts. Wrap shirts, in theory, are beautiful. In reality? I can’t figure out how to get the dang thing on! Huge cowl necks are also a problem. Do you let it all hang out in front? Do you fluff it? Do you tie it in a bow and throw it over your shoulder? After three decades of struggling to find cute clothing, I have finally made a rule for myself that I cannot buy something if I can’t easily get in or out of it. So far, it’s working pretty well—I haven’t gotten caught in a shirt with no way out in at least a year.

No Zippers or Buttons

Along those lines, who decided that dresses should have to be slipped on over the head? I have a feeling I can’t be the only woman on Earth who does her hair and makeup before getting dressed. I also put deodorant on, which inevitably gets transferred onto whatever dress I am struggling into at that moment. Seriously, why not just add a zipper?

No Standards

My husband can go online to Levi’s and buy 12 pairs of jeans and just know that they’ll fit. He just looks at the style number on his jeans and orders himself a few new pairs. And somehow, they just magically fit. Me? Not so much. Me trying to find well-fitting jeans is something I don’t even like to think about.For one thing, sizing is all over the place with women’s clothing. Case in point: I wear an extra small in the Michael Kors brand. However, I’ve got clothing hanging in my closet from Ann Taylor Loft that’s something ridiculous like a double zero. Vanity sizing does no favors for anyone. Can somebody please make some rules about measurements and sizing in women’s clothing?

Sizing is all over the place with women’s clothing.

Boob Pants

Any woman under five foot three knows the struggle of finding pants that fit in all the right places, including in length. There’s this thing called the petite section which, in theory, should provide the solution to pants and jeans that are miles too long. This is where boob pants come in. You know the ones I mean: elastic-waist slacks that have such a high rise to them that they double as underwire. They’re generally marketed to women of a certain age, and hey—more power to you if you can rock those things. However, I do not wish to wear pants that sit just below my boobs. I don’t find it terribly flattering. Or comfortable, for that matter. And it baffles me that clothing manufacturers have yet to understand, in 2021, that not all petite women are over the age of 80.

Can Someone Fix Women’s Clothing?

From sizing issues to silhouette issues to weird ways to get in and out of clothing, not to mention the boob pants, I find it hard to fathom we don’t have a better way of creating fashion for women in this day and age. Can someone please fix these stupid issues in women’s clothing? I would be eternally grateful. And, heck, I’d even help you design them.

Way before boys captured my heart, there was fashion. Like my first kiss, my earliest memory of clothing has been etched in my memory forever. It was while I perched in front of the television with my mom gazing at old Hollywood starlets. Marilyn Monroe’s nude cocktail dress dripping in beads from the 1959 movie Some Like It Hot; Audrey Hepburn’s black sheath dress from 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s; Vera-Ellen’s homage to Christian Dior’s wasp-waisted New Look in 1954’s White Christmas. Each movie showed me how an outfit, no matter how simple or extravagant, had the power to depict emotion. I went on to learn that stepping outside my front door every day in clothes I’ve chosen is like giving strangers a key to my heart, an insight into my personality.As I grew older, I was the girl who wore navy-tailored trousers and a cropped blazer to a street party celebrating Prince William and Kate’s wedding; a little black dress to casual after-work drinks; a red fishtail gown with a scooped back to a wedding; red lipstick to work. Underdressing seemed like committing a crime; overdressing for something—anything—altered my mood and made me carry myself with my head held high. I was ready for whatever the day ahead threw at me.Throughout life’s difficulties, whether they be going out for dinner to regain some normalcy after spending three weeks in hospital with a Crohn’s disease flare-up or clinging onto writing a luxury-brand insight while recovering from said flare-up and a horrific breakup, fashion never let me down. Even if I felt like I was falling apart inside, on the outside, my hair would be brushed, lips coated in red—a color that represented power and strength—and a blazer hung around my shoulders like a coat of armor.

Even if I felt like I was falling apart inside, on the outside, my hair would be brushed, lips coated in red.

My Post-Pregnancy Wardrobe Consisted of Only a Few Items

Then in 2020, the coronavirus spread uncontrollably across the world, forcing us to stay home and isolate ourselves from the world. At the same time, I became a new mother and everything changed. It was like I no longer bothered to carefully consider my style choices. Now there were just a few options I’d rotate throughout the week—various workout leggings, elasticated faux-leather joggers, hoodies, loose shirts and T-shirts—while my face remained bare and hair pulled on top of my head. “What was the point in making an effort when I was just going to stay home or attend a baby class?” I’d ask myself.Staring into my closet each morning felt like peeking into someone else’s life, a snapshot of their memories: a tomato-red trouser suit worn to her 33rd birthday after a troublesome year; a black midi dress with tiered chiffon layers that hid her early baby bump but brought with it a maternal glow when she’d been feeling so sick throughout the first trimester. What does it mean when I’ve spent a year in workout gear throughout lockdown and dressing a body I no longer recognize post-pregnancy? Has it made me reject fashion? As I gazed at the black jersey leggings and pale pink hoodie, I asked myself, where has that girl with the red lips and blazer gone? Where is the girl who was so fascinated by the story each designer told through their catwalk shows that she slogged through four years at university and worked until 10 p.m. to become a fashion writer?But what was bothering me the most, for the first time in my life, was that I didn’t know how to dress my new body without waking up that negative bully in my head.

Dressing Postpartum Was No Longer Fun

After giving birth, I no longer fit into clothes that made me feel as strong as a warrior; instead, my mood dropped each morning with the task of choosing what to wear. All I felt was self-conscious. I didn’t fit into anything I’d loved pre-pregnancy. Those jeans that felt like reuniting with an old friend didn’t move past my newly expanded thighs, and the blazer’s fabric pulled across my shoulders and felt too snug around my arms. But what triggered painful emotions was my bloated and painful tummy appearing worse above my C-section scar, reminding me of my chronic illnesses: Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome.I suppressed my emotions by choosing workout gear from my closet each morning. It didn’t matter if I was working out or not. And yet, I dreaded dressing up for friends’ birthdays out of lockdown. What once was an enjoyable experience was now making my body tremble with fear and paranoia over what others might assume (“Was she pregnant?”). Instead, I concentrated on raising my daughter and crawled my way out of the dark hole that postnatal depression and postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder had left me in. However, I figured out I wasn’t feeling myself mentally or physically, which had made me question who I was now. Was I just a mother? Or was there still that fashion-loving woman buried deep inside me somewhere?

Has it made me reject fashion?

I Eventually Embraced Postpartum Fashion

As the months flew by, and with the help of antidepressants and therapy, I started to feel like myself again. I wasn’t going to get my old body back or the life I was mourning, but I didn’t want them, either. My new normal meant I was a mom, first and foremost, and it was the most rewarding yet challenging job in the world. But I was also still me, a modern woman who wanted to show her daughter that Mommy worked and earned her own money doing something she loves: writing, whether that be about clothes or mental health, topics related to how I felt. One day, I put my fashion knowledge to use and bought clothes in the silhouettes that suited my post-baby body: pleated or wrap skirts; shirred, smock or skater dresses; tops with a peplum hem; stretchy paper-bag waistbands. Then I cleared out my closet and filled four garbage sacks of clothes that were bought years before pregnancy and no longer felt comfortable on my tummy or for my mental state—the black midi dress with a tiered skirt, the jeans that were faithful friends—because life moves on, and we grow apart, even from those closest to us.

Getting into modeling was a combination of the support of others and hard work, but my first break came by chance. I was wedding dress shopping with my sister, and the moment we stepped into a fancy boutique in Cheshire, a sleek, manicured assistant looked me up and down and said, “I'm sorry, but we have made a business decision not to sell dresses over a size 12.”I made my exit mildly angry but mostly bemused. Why in a country where the average dress size is 16 would any business want to limit their market share? It didn’t make sense. The next shop we went to specialized in plus-size wedding dresses, and half an hour later, I was in the dress and feeling superb. Lily, the lady that owned the shop, grew to be my friend over the next couple of months as I went back for fittings. One day, she looked at my reflection over my shoulder, her head cocked to one side appraisingly. "You are beautiful,” she said simply. “Would you model for us?”That was it. My first gig.

Growing up, I hated my body.

I’ve Learned the Importance of Being Proactive as a Model

Growing up, I hated my body. Puberty hit me hard and early. My father would point to my puppy fat and disdainfully exclaim, “You have more spare tires than the Michelin Man!” When I complained to my mother, she shrugged and suggested I eat fewer sweets. For years I covered up in baggy clothes. Where the other girls at school were rolling their skirts up, I was pulling mine down, lest anyone have to bear witness to the horror that, looking back, was a perfectly normal teenage body.Around 17, I had a “screw this” moment. I was tired of trying to disappear, tired of being depressed and decided I would give myself until I was 20 to find some kind of happiness. If that was impossible, I'd follow my father’s example (he killed himself when I was 14) and drive into a tree. After some much-needed therapy and antidepressants, I found to my surprise that I wasn’t fat and stupid—I was curvy, smart and savvy. I began to feel attractive and capable for the first time in my life.Fast-forward to 2017 and I'm on the train to Manchester, a portfolio of images tucked under my arm and a list of agencies to visit. I walked up to the first one, located in an attractive red brick building in a smart part of town. Inside, everything was a cool, luminous white, the walls lined with hundreds of headshots of gorgeous models all looking down at me as I perched on the sofa while the model manager flicked through my portfolio, her lips thin, an eyebrow raised. I was waiting for the inevitable rejection when she suddenly nodded and smiled. “We can get you work.”At this point, I naively thought that now that I had an agent, I could sit back and wait for jobs to come to me, but I quickly learned that this wasn’t the case. To be a successful model, work ethic and attitude are just as important as aesthetics. Being proactive is a must. Just like most other contracting or self-employed people, if I’m not managing my clients, updating my portfolio or keeping up to date with my agents, then no one else is going to do it for me.

My Job Requires a Lot of Physically Taxing Work

In terms of a beauty regimen, I have what is referred to as a “clean commercial look,” which, for me, means keeping fit and taking good care of my hair and skin by drinking lots of water and spending a lot of time in salons. The clean aspect of my look means fresh-faced and natural. Clients will often reject models with my look who have body modifications, such as prominent tattoos, piercings, lip fillers, false lashes or unnatural hair colors.On assignment, I need to be ready to put in long days of physically taxing work. If I'm shooting images for a clothing website, for instance, I may need to wear upwards of 60 outfits during one photoshoot. Fashion shows can be even more intense, with some shows requiring you to be able to completely change outfits, including bra and shoes, in less than a minute. I thought that sounded like plenty of time when I first heard it, but I was very mistaken. Even with a dresser, it’s tough.Seasonality is a key factor in the fashion industry, and shoots often take place long before the garments become climatically suitable. I'll often be shooting knitwear in July and bikinis in January. In short, modeling means you will always be either too hot or too cold and your feet will hurt most of the time. If you can do all that looking like you're having the time of your life throughout and without moaning, then you may have the right mentality to model. The trope of the diva supermodel is embedded in popular culture, but the truth is that no one wants to work with people who are difficult, entitled and demanding. These people tend not to last long, regardless of their beauty.

Modeling means you will always be either too hot or too cold and your feet will hurt most of the time.

Many in the Modeling Industry Must Rely on Side Hustles to Make Ends Meet

Modeling is a multifaceted industry, so it’s impossible to generalize too much on what a model should look like. Take, for instance, the extremely tall, willowy women that walk the catwalks for the largest fashion houses; those very assets may rule them out of many assignments. While there is no defined look for models, there are some commonalities. Good skin, great bone structure and a proportional build are deemed highly desirable. As a curve model, the proportional element is very important. I have a natural 10-inch difference between my bust and waist, giving me a natural hourglass shape. My genetics also blessed me with very pale, clear skin and high cheekbones, all things that photograph well. I’m also tall but not too tall, as most female models are less than 6 feet. I’m pleasant to look at but not so beautiful that if you were looking at my picture in a magazine, you would ignore the outfit I was wearing. This point is critical: At its core, my job is to advertise a product or service on behalf of my client. I’m there to help realize whatever their objective is, whether that’s selling jeans or producing a corporate recruitment video. Payment for assignments ranges widely and can be incredibly lucrative, but most of us don’t rely completely on modeling to pay the bills. I have a few side hustles, including selling designer goods online, but I’ve met models who do everything from personal training to architecture. One surprising quirk to this industry is that it's one of the very few where women are generally paid more than men.When I first entered the industry professionally, I was expecting to need thick skin and a spine of steel to counter all the cutting remarks and requests from agents and clients to slim down. Again, I was wrong. I now have several agents throughout the U.K., and not one of them has ever requested me to change my appearance or weight at all. That said, if I were to make any radical changes, then there is always the possibility that they could drop me from their books, so I am somewhat constrained over what I can do with my own body for as long as I wish to continue this career.

People Accuse Plus-Size Modeling of Promoting Obesity

I have a small presence on social media, where I share some of my pictures and promote body positivity and mental health. Only once or twice has someone written that they think I'm fat and unattractive. As some of my size 6 colleagues get the same messages from time to time, it’s fairly easy to ignore. The worst are the DMs from creepy guys sending me unsolicited pictures of their genitalia.The accusation of “promoting obesity” is a theme closely associated with plus-size anything. I need to be in good health to do this job, so I don’t feel like I'm selling an unhealthy lifestyle. Many models openly smoke, and there is no ire aimed at them for promoting their unhealthy habits, so perhaps it has more to do with the unsettling notion of a person being happy in their own skin than genuine concern over their health. Serial killer Joanna Dennehy said at her arrest, “It could be worse; at least I'm not fat.” Is being fat really worse than being a killer? It’s a quote that’s always stuck with me as bizarre. Do we really despise the overweight so much so that being a murderer is seen as a lesser evil, or, like the lady in the bridal boutique, would we rather turn business away than cater to the average woman?You might think that given all this, walking out into a crowd of people at a catwalk event would be intimidating, but I find it empowering. I regularly get the biggest applause from audiences, not because I'm so stunning but because the people clapping are just delighted to see an average body shape up there. Maybe they feel a little more confident about themselves seeing someone who looks like them walking with strength and confidence. I hope so.

There is no question that circular fashion has come into prominence over the last few years. With the rise of apps like Depop or Poshmark and the uptick in the popularity of thrifting and upcycling, regardless of intent, the push toward these concepts of individuality and vintage styles is apparent. To address said intent, I believe most people are following this as a trend because of influencer culture, the gamification of thrifting and the excitement of finding clothing that is genuinely exciting and on-trend (which is built into many major corporation business models like T.J.Maxx or Forever 21 or even Zara).In a way, this small thrill is organic to either system. With thrifting, the entire nature of the industry is to sell clothes from individuals that flow in at random, and with fast fashion, the trends cycle through so quickly (an average of about 50 new styles every two weeks) that you never know what’s in store. The difference in this approach is that thrifting does not adhere to trends or current fashions—they’re always dated, but in a way that makes them constantly up-to-date, as fashion constantly recycles old styles (most recently, the ’70s and ’00s). Fast fashion, however, is constantly outdated and generates more waste. In every way, thrifting is the more economically savvy model, the more “sustainable” model and the one that continues the fashion cycle while allowing for greater individuality.After watching countless documentaries about the exploitation of garment workers and the mass amounts of waste generated by the fashion industry every year, I developed an interest in the ecology of it. I am currently pursuing an ethical fashion and supply chain degree in New York City as a result. Over the past six or so years, I have more or less forgotten about the existence of labels like Shein or Missguided, and it’s strange to have become a sort of voyeur of that kind of consumerism.

Society constantly objectifies us as commodities, and we have to advertise in the most acceptable ways for the times.

I’ve Learned a Lot About Fashion and Feminism Living in New York

Fashion is at one of the most prominent intersections of art and commerce. It’s a way to express yourself, but that way is heavily monetized and strategized to place a burden on the consumer to “keep up with the Joneses.” This burden is mostly placed onto women and feminine-presenting people—society constantly objectifies us as commodities, and we have to advertise in the most acceptable ways for the times, always changing to suit consumer (read: male) needs.We are given the illusion of choice, as there is a constant bombardment of fashion brands and a constant influx of new styles. But all they do is generate nearly identical items at varying price points to create a unity in the “worth” of each woman. Your niche style becomes a way for men, or anyone with internalized misogyny, to judge you while walking down the street. There is no free will, just a manipulation of the way we feel free as we market ourselves better and better, regardless of whether anybody stops to think if we have any interest in men at all.Stepping back has allowed me more clarity of the current state of femininity and fashion. As much as I may protest this current system, I do still exist within it because I will be objectified either way—that is the nature of the patriarchy. As a result, I have spent my time in New York (which was a sort of new beginning for me, as it tends to be for most people) exploring my relationship with clothing and all that ensued as a result. A lot of trauma from my past has come in the search for self and self-expression (attempting to also understand the difference between who we are and what has happened to us), but it’s also allowed me to heal my relationship with clothing and take power in the role of being a consumer that has been forced upon me.

Fashion and Femininity Have a Paradoxical Relationship

Catcalling is common here and, for most people, presents an unwelcome Catch-22: Not being catcalled ensures safety but also means you were deemed unattractive. However, being catcalled indicates danger but means you succeeded in the backward way of being attractive. Men are seldom catcalled and therefore claim this to be a privilege or that women are asking to be catcalled by what they are wearing. Yet there have been days in the dead of winter where I was too depressed to change out of my grossest groutfit (gray outfit)—consisting of slip-on shoes, worn-out sweatpants and a huge crewneck sweater—and I still have been heavily objectified. Then there have been days where I wore a cute sundress and few people do so much as look twice. That argument falls flat on its face on a daily basis for me. I don’t claim to be especially attractive (an entirely subjective term); this is just my experience.For the longest time, oversized clothing was how I attempted to protect myself from the world: If nobody could see my body—if nobody could see me—then I would be safe. This mindset meant that I was constantly in hiding, crossing the street whenever the only other person was male presenting, in fear of being followed or harassed or assaulted (all of which have happened to me, all of which have been by male perpetrators). Dressing in oversized clothes did not hide me. I was still treated as an object day in and day out by strangers and peers alike, my armor turning me into a shell of a former self. It meant that I rejected my desires daily for the sake of safety. Nobody could say that I didn’t take the correct precautions because at the end of the day, dressing promiscuously isn’t what causes these incidents. The attackers are what cause them.

Our existence should not be monetized for the sake of male entertainment.

All Fashion—Fast or Slow—Means Something

How we dress is an intensely personal experience, and the relationship between clothing and personhood is one in the same. How we adorn ourselves has always been a source of pride and a status symbol, so much that I have used it as a mask my entire life. We all do, really, whether you’re a person who follows fast fashion and adheres to the illusion of choice within the industry’s cyclical uniformity or if you’re a person who participates in slow fashion and crafts an external identity for yourself with your clothes. Clothing is a constant form of self-expression, and as a feminine-presenting person, what I wear is how I beg the world to give me my humanity. For all my neutral tones and all my neon colors, it is simply my attempt to show I am alive. I will not hide. I will reflect the society I see and show you what you have done.But this art has become survival—visible in the way combs have become secret knives or pepper spray attaches to keychains in varying colors (mine is pink, a small attempt at irony). So, until the fall of industrialization is achieved, every single outfit worn on a feminine-presenting person is a feminist statement and an attempt to take back power. And every inappropriate gesture or catcall is a microaggression, leading us further from pure expression of life to a constant protest: Our existence should not be monetized for the sake of male entertainment.

I have a love-hate relationship with Victoria's Secret. The hip-huggers and briefs help my periods feel a bit chicer, the workout gear is long-lasting and actually fits well, the pajamas are epic. But that's where the love ends. They don't stock my bra size, and Victoria's Secret is not as popular in the U.K. as in the U.S., so stores are pretty rare. But that's not my main grudge against the brand. My issue is their recent direction. After years of creating lingerie for the male gaze and dictating what constitutes beautiful, sexy and cute, the powers that be in Victoria's HQ have decided to join the “femvertising” trend of empowerment. They have ditched the stick-thin Angels and replaced them with real, more relatable models, which to me, feels empty and uncouth. It's like saying, "You are the opposite of what we, the corporate Misters, deem beautiful, therefore you are perfect for our new empowering campaign." I can appreciate that they have taken steps to become more female-friendly by hiring women in leading roles. But ultimately, it is still a male-dominated company. Its image of perfection will always be part of Victoria's DNA. A recent look on their website shows that there are 95 pieces of activewear available for a size medium, but only 31 for XXL. You really have to wonder how committed they are to this new empowering direction.

The use of the term “empowerment,” quite frankly, annoys the fuck out of me.

Why I Loathe Femvertising Ads

I'm not often irked by advertisements. As someone with a master's degree in public relations, I understand the importance and influence of words. However, the use of the term “empowerment,” quite frankly, annoys the fuck out of me.To put it into context, empowerment has two meanings: The first is, "The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one's life and claiming one's rights." The second is the "authority or power given to someone to do something."As a stand-alone thought, the latter is not really that offensive; as humans who have been conditioned to behave a certain way all our lives, we do occasionally need permission to do something. But when it's plastered across a cleaning product or on a box of cereal, I can't help but think, "Are they honestly giving me permission to clean and eat?"In the case of the cereal, are they really empowering me to take care of my body while also telling me that my body shape is wrong and I should only eat two bowls of this awesome cereal until I look socially acceptable? The same can also be said for the endless host of empowering panels, workshops, and female-led communities. They claim to be empowering, but the only feeling I'm left with is inadequacy and despair. According to these wonderful “communities,” I have no excuse to not have my shit together because not only are there so many resources for me to take advantage of, but the law of attraction says that anxiety is just a choice, and you control your mindset.Apparently, it's that easy. Who knew?And I get it. Empowerment does spark a reaction. It does make you feel like anything is possible. And it does draw the female crowd. But when it comes from an external source, does it not feel sort of empty?

You Don’t Need Affirmation to Experience Self Empowerment

When I think back (and you are more than welcome to do this exercise as well) to the times I felt truly empowered, it was on my own terms, and it brought a sense of pride—not to mention a big-ass smile across my face. These truly empowering moments have changed the direction of my life. For example, I graduated in 2012. The global recession was coming to a close, jobs were few and far between and starting salaries were garbage. In PR, employers were only recruiting those who had half-year and year-long internships. As someone who needed to work through university, I was not one of those golden recruits.So I took matters into my own hands. I ignored all the advice the older generation had given me, I disregarded my parent's expectations and I joined an airline on the other side of the world.It was the best decision I ever made. I have seen the world, eaten the most delicious foods and I have done things people only dream of. I was empowered, and I was happy. After my emigration, I would continue my personal empowerment spree, taking solo travels to Jordan, Ecuador and Europe, and generally living my absolute best life (not to sound cliche).My next moment of empowerment would come five years later when I decided to leave a toxic relationship. I looked back to my earlier empowered days—how I acted, how I felt, and I decided I wanted to be that person again. So once again, I took control of my life. I left him, moved into my own apartment, took steps to get me feeling like my old confident self and never looked back.Don't get me wrong, I'm still scarred. It will take me a long while before I get into another relationship, and who knows what triggers will appear then. Even this article itself is empowering for me. It is my first published article where I am talking about myself and expressing my opinion. It is a huge step in creating the life I want post-flight attendant. Pitching to editors and putting myself out there in a very competitive industry is scary, but writing is how I want to spend my life, so here I am.

You won't see advertisers trying to empower the male population.

The Last Place Women’s Empowerment Should Come From Is a Product

Knowing what I know and experiencing how empowerment feels, it's difficult for me to get behind all these empowering products and events. Because, if you ask me, empowerment is the former definition. It is "the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one's life and claiming one's rights." It's not something you need permission for. It is a personal experience that comes from within and feels almost divine.It certainly does not come from a product or service.That product or service might support you in a way that helps your confidence, but the empowerment to make the change came from you. I'd also like to point out that the decision to not do something is just as empowering and liberating as deciding to do a thing. You can decide not to date, to not take that high-pressure job or even to not do any work for a couple of days.While I recognize the irony of me telling you that empowerment is a personal experience while also telling you what empowerment is not, I want you to consider that there are no empowering male products. You won't see advertisers trying to empower the male population because they already do what they want, when they want. They don't need a seal of approval from society.So the next time you see something empowering, ask yourself what the real message is, and remember that you have control over your life and decisions.

When the barrel of the gun was pointed between my eyes, I raised my hands with reluctance. I shouted at the two Peruvian boys who had my fiance and me in a stickup in broad daylight. There were better ways I could have handled being robbed in a foreign country, but I was indignant—they were kids. We had been traveling for only three weeks out of our planned 52 weeks on a journey to get married in Greece. We needed the money.My fiance, strong and intimidating, with a beard and full sleeve tattoos, was rational and complied with the demands of our armed assailants. I was vocal and furious, barking with naivete, ignoring the gun and my surroundings. We consented to empty our pockets, including our iPhones and $200 fresh from the ATM. Then the boys scurried off like we’d given them coins to chase a departing ice cream truck. My fiance and I ran in the opposite direction toward the beach, toward a crowd of people. I was torched by anger, infuriated by how we had failed to keep our things. My fiance took a few deep breaths while I fumed wondering why no bystanders had helped or intervened. I was angry at being powerless, and a sliver of me was angry that my fiance hadn’t somehow overpowered the two. Then he turned to me and held my face between his hands. He looked at me. He said nothing. His eyes were soft as if a ghost had run through him.

We had joked with our family and friends that we were taking a trial run at marriage.

The Year-Long Journey Was Filled With More Adversity

I realized the full weight of what I meant to him. Yes, there was an engagement ring on my finger, a promise made that if we could handle traveling together, we could handle forever. But these facts were dull in comparison to the raw expression of longing and relief set on his face as we stood safe on the beach. We held one another with more intimacy than the thousands of times we’d embraced before, but I was unsettled by how much I had expected a different outcome with some Hollywood action scene. I had stirred and fussed at the robbers putting both of us more in danger, whereas my fiance had done everything rational to keep the two of us safe. He seemed to understand the value of our lives and the value of a bigger picture, whereas I had defaulted to what I knew was important to me in America—money. It was our first passage through trauma together, and I was struck by how our reactions were opposite.A lightbulb exploded in my head. Could I handle being an us on the road? The first speed bump in our plans and I had been risky and petty. I knew I loved him, yet I had gambled anyway, and I was unnerved by an unseen selfishness emerging as we traveled. The setting of us was changing, and so too needed to change the mechanics of our partnership as we spent day in and day out moving through foreign spaces for a year. I would need to trust our relationship, and we would need to rely on one another thousands of miles away from anything familiar, something we had never done in the previous three years. Before our departure from Colorado, we had joked with our family and friends that we were taking a trial run at marriage: If we could make it a year traveling together and if we still liked each other in the end, then we’d get married in Greece, where we first traveled together. A joke, now on the road, that was transforming into a test. We lacked a guarantee of coming away from this trip a happy, budding couple, despite having assured everyone we would by sending early digital invitations with a date for our wedding.We continued to move south, and the journey catapulted challenges our way. We became tangled in more obscure and unexpected situations after the robbery: We got caught in a bus accident in Colombia; we rode behind a drug mule across a border; we were stranded on a three-day trek in Peru short of food and water; we got injured at Machu Picchu; we were brought down by parasites from untreated water; and we’d botched immigration requirements for visas. We were also tackling the challenge of breaking customs, like the distractions of work, hobbies or friends, to dilute any tension. Our constant presence together meant a higher possibility of friction between us, where simple notes of what to eat ignited a full-blown quarrel, usually about money.

We Found Unique Accommodations Overseas

In our fourth month of traveling, we caught a plane across the Atlantic to Auckland, New Zealand. We had $1,500 in credit card debt from a blown budget and had yet to find work. My anxiety about our survival in the country kept me awake on the 13-hour flight. Had we been in Colorado, I would have keeled over in a funk and worked excessive hours. My gut twisted at the thought of starting from nothing in a place we’d never been, but my fiance noted our triumph thus far and how we’d always found an answer to our problems. He was right. We found we could work in hostels, earning free accommodation. We met other broke travelers from all over the world who became our friends, and we all created a system of finding work and supporting future travels. My fiance and I began to manage financial stress by grounding ourselves in things we could attain. The two of us moved into a 6-by-6-foot shack behind our landlord’s house and settled into working odd service industry or agricultural jobs. We made enough money to pay our debt and buy plane tickets through Southeast Asia and on to our wedding in Santorini, Greece. At the beginning of our trip, I imagined our journey to get married would be Instagram glamorous, and for a few months, I tried to frame it as such. We posted photos of us grinning on the beach or cheersing on a rooftop, when sometimes it was forced after a long irritating journey or a fickle fight. There was a facade to uphold for people back home that shaped my perception about what my future marriage should look like, somehow empty of life’s mess. I was also waiting to feel some overwhelming sense of being someone’s wife, an article of identity I sought to pick up somewhere along the way, but there was no polished moment unveiling a Prince Charming nor a princess. Yet, as a couple, we were cohesive. And in the company of each other, corny as it may be, we were happy.

There was a facade to uphold for people back home that shaped my perception about what my future marriage should look like.

Our Journey Helped Us Adapt to Discomfort and Thrive Through Instability

I was amazed at our ability to mend a lifetime of relationship challenges (in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse) while traveling. Our relationship hiccups were magnified by the road, but each stitch enabled us to discover the triggers and strengths of one another. I was learning to be an equal partner for each challenge we overcame. I replayed the robbery incident in my head, more confident I would act in the interest of us rather than me in the future. We had adapted to discomfort—in one another, in ourselves and in the world—and we had grown with a common goal to move forward together. We stopped updating people a few months before the end of our 12 months—and before our wedding. I cared less about what our journey or our relationship looked like from the outside, maybe because I was less concerned about outside factors supporting or destroying us. We had made it this far, intact and still doe-eyed for one another. Our future would be unstable by nature because of the instability of our lifestyle, but through this, our relationship was thriving. The thing in our lives that remained constant, foundational and true was us and our will to take on anything—a recipe, as good as any, for a lifetime together.