My sexual orientation

The fact is that it keeps changing and evolving as I do, as new people step into my life, and as I am processing PTSD.
I thought trauma shaped my sexuality, and in order to survive I had to protect myself, but now that dissociation and triggers are dissipating and are a bit more in control, I can clearly see who I am.

I am not here to talk about PTSD, I will at some point in the future, but not today.
Today I want to tell you the wonders of labelling myself in order to navigate my sexuality, my connections and relationships, and just enjoy my mind and body at full capacity. It is still work in progress but I feel calmer and like I don’t have to fight with myself anymore and I don’t have to proof anything to anyone.

This is who I am, take it or leave. I hope that reading my story, you will find a little bit of yourself, or will realise that you are either holding yourself back or repressing something. I am here to tell you that there is no need because you owe nothing to anyone.

My first sexual impulse started at the age of 12 towards those who identify as women and own a vulva. I didn’t know what that was yet, as nobody straight or queer really knows much about sexual desires when they’re kids because there is the right time for everything, but I fully embraced my fascination. I observed my best friend R as she would talk, because her lips were beautiful and it was impossible not to watch; I remember constantly looking at her ass as well, whether she danced or walked, I felt hypnotised by her movements. I found the same feeling but this time more aware and active when I was 17. I looked at G, who then became my girlfriend, and her sinuosity just took me to another planet. I loved her laughter and how her expression quickly shifted in mood when she cared about something.

And yet... I mostly dated those who identify as men and own a penis. It never started from a physical impulse but as I would get to know someone better and would find them interesting and intelligent and stimulating, something sexual would eventually arise. Today I have a word for it, and it is “sapiosexual”. I am attracted to people’s minds and how they use them, so if nothing clicks on that spectrum I simply feel asexual, or I arouse my brain on my own, creating ideals and scenarios, and of course the reality would never meet my expectations.
I think there was also some post traumatic dissociation linked to penises but that would only kick in halfway through the intercourse, so I have the reason to believe that I just never felt that attracted to bodies with penises regardless.

This leads us to my next label that I find myself very, very comfortable with: demisexual, but only with those who identify as men, whether queer or cis.
Despite my low libido around penises, I recall mind blowing sex with some of my exes, and I am now in a relationship with a man I love to pieces and I am incredibly attracted to, which means that when there are deep feelings and a smart brain involved, I am then sexually activated.
So, I am sapiosexual/demisexual when it comes to people with penises, regardless of their sexual identity. Fun fact... when I am in love with someone’s brain, and when I am fully aware of my love on a long run, what they have between their legs doesn’t even matter anymore, so I always wonder if that puts me on a pansexual spectrum. But can a sexual orientation shift halfway through with the same person but remain intact with the rest of the world? I think it can.

Also, I am definitely pansexual when it comes to people with vulvas and vaginas, whether they identify as queer, non-binary, trans, or cis female. I am still exploring that side of me and trying to allow myself to enjoy these feelings and sensations in my body and mind, but I don’t fully understand it myself, so I am in no position to explain the concept. When it comes to vulvas and vaginas and their owners, the intellectual connection doesn’t have to be as deep and powerful – though it is better when it is -, but my sexual arousal can pop up from a pure physical attraction without much verbal interaction.

Confusing at first, I know! But owning these labels helps me relax and enjoy whatever comes (tee-hee). I feel like I can be myself and when I don’t like something, I have the right way to address it with myself and the people that want a sexual connection with me. I don’t have to explain and out myself every time I want to fuck someone, it mostly helps me to feel more comfortable in my skin, but it’s nice to be able to tell the world who I am in that moment in life if it is relevant to the conversation or a need me and my sexual partners share.
I’ll make an example. Not too long ago I was explaining some of it to a couple I am dating (you know who you are), and I felt liberated and understood, and it helped them to understand better some of my behaviour. All this for a better friendship, to improve the quality of our sexual time together, for the humanity...

There are so many other little details floating and shifting but I try to accept them first, then observe them from aside and see where they want to go; it is incredible to realise that they usually lead to amazing experiences on my own or with others.
Another example to help you understand: if me and Hoss play with other people together, I am naturally more prone to involve people with vaginas, but one of my fantasies is also to play with him and another man or with other two men in general. I don’t know if it’s just a juicy fantasy in my brain or if I’d actually would enjoy it in the physical reality, but I am willing to try and I don’t want to repress that only because I find myself comfortable navigating demisexuality with people with penises. So... I just let it be. And you know what? It feels great to be me.

I’ll leave you with something a dear old friend of mine once said when I messaged him on the verge of a panic attack saying “I think I’m gay”.
He answered: “So what? We will just accept you and love you for who you are”.
I was freaking out because I was with a person that identified as a man and I loved him but I couldn’t understand why penises in general made me feel naturally uncomfortable and why I craved women and vulvas so much. Demisexuality would explain that. Also not wanting a monogamous relationship was a big factor there but that’s a story for another time.

Sex with you

The position is right, or at least it usually is, and I feel horny and I can’t just get enough of you. And yet, something is not right. Maybe it’s the pressure in my womb? I start wondering what time of the month it is, maybe it’s the physical effect of the PMS? I also think the condom is rubbing against my inner labia now and it’s not like it really hurts but it is catching my attention now, I think that if we keep fucking I will get eventually more wet and it will be alright.

It just doesn’t feel right. Do I not deserve the absolute pleasure and the absolute best I can get from a fuck? Why bother otherwise? What’s the point?
I stop and say “no” firmly, you look at me and you don’t even hold that expression full of wonder anymore, you just know and you are ready for me to take the lead and decide what’s next. And maybe I am still a bit frustrated but I am so happy that when I feel not ok, sex doesn’t have to stop, it can just be adjusted.

So we change the position that I think it’s going to work and I like how quickly and readily you take me, and how patient you are as I am grabbing more lube. I like the lube, I like it in huge quantities as a statement of my humanity, because I am not an endless source of sexual fluid, I am not a machine.
So we fuck and from the first couple of hits, I know this is not going to work either.

I say “no” again but this time we are both smiling, finding my body behaving in quite interesting ways, as if we were watching a film in which a character is creating drama for nothing again. Besides... this is not “nothing”, this is my tool of pleasure and I feel like it is being respected by both of us, and I don’t think I’ve ever had this much patience in me.
You’ll have to be on top, I suppose, just at the right angle so that your dick can go in smoothly without upsetting any of my inner physical self, because we are here to experience pleasure, not discomfort.

And so... we fuck and I forget how the inside of my vagina feels like, exactly how I like it. I just know you are inside and I can feel my body reacting and relaxing and opening to you. I think we found the perfect position for today. I want to let go but I also want to cum stimulating my clit, why haven’t I thought of keeping the doxy closer? Well, maybe because life is not a fucking porn film, so I have to stop you again and grab the vibrator, and add more lube, and reposition myself, and find the right angle together and all that jazz.

Now.

It feels fucking amazing. I can clearly see your face, and it’s close enough to kiss you, I can see your dick sliding in, I can feel it in all the right ways inside; my legs are open wide and are slightly up but not too much so that the doxy is on the magic spot on the side of my clit, a bit to the left, pressing hard between the clit and the outer labia so that the vibration gets all the way though to the GI spot. You can fuck me really hard now, going deep without hurting me, I feel the glans pressing on my GI spot in addition to the vibration and I don’t even fucking know what’s my name anymore, I just know that there is this point in which a fantasy becomes reality and all those times I thought of you on my own and came imagining that you were watching become true.

I want you to see the effect you have on me, I love to hear your moans in reaction to my pussy tightening around your dick, I can feel every inch of it and the time is slowing down. I lose control over my body but my hands remember to hold the wand tight.
I cum so hard I can’t breathe, I am completely paralysed. And you. Oh you just keep fucking me hard and fast and this ecstasy I am a slave of keeps flowing throughout my entire life, everything I suffered for has been collected and channelled into this moment of pleasure that I deserve for the simple fact that I exist. This is so intense I burst into tears, and it keeps coming, and I am laughing now and I don’t know where this air is from because I have no oxygen left in my body.

Breathe.

I deserve this. I keep telling myself that I deserve this and that sex is not perfect and it doesn’t have to be. Sex is mistakes, attempts, changes, talks, learning, teaching, asking, showing, and what works one day might not work the next day. My mind fluctuates in a world full of wrongs, and I have a chance to make it right through my body.

Sex with you is wonderful in so many ways but not only because we are naturally attracted to each other and we are good at it, and we are highly sexual and we feed from that energy to live the best life, but because you don’t take anything for granted, and you listen, and you are patient with me and it’s effortless because those adjustment moments are for you just as part of sex as anything else in the moment, and you don’t see them as interruptions but rather like commas in a paragraph that binds our stories together.

I love you. Thank you. I am addicted to you in all the wrong, co-dependent, enmeshed and intense ways but only because you are very very very good at being a human and I’ve never been addicted to anything good until I met you. Take it as a compliment.

Nina

"Sorry! I thought..." - A model is not an object

I’ve recently got back into modelling, probably giving it a more erotic twist than in the past and that’s only because I was able to learn from my mistakes and I can now stay safer but expose myself more. I probably shouldn’t call them mistakes, I was 19 when I started posing and the amount of creepy dudes with cameras was and still is embarrassing.

I know I told you some horror stories before, so I won’t repeat myself and will mention only few experiences I think were not ok but they didn’t leave a deep scar but more an annoyance I have with ALL genders that showed the asshole side of their personality. Some of the individuals I worked with were just stupid and entitled, some of them actively and consciously psychologically abusive, and worse case they were a combination of all these elements.

I want to point out these behaviours as NOT OK, and then you can judge what level of not ok it is for you based on your mental set, work ethics and morality. I will make sure to make comparisons between a model job and a sale assistant job to give you some perspective and help you see things clearly. Let me polish this for you: nudity is not a synonym for sexual consent that goes beyond the pre-shoot negotiation, nor it gives you the right to strip the person off their basic human rights; you don’t have any physical or intellectual ownership over these models.

I am starting this little series and I will call it “A model is not an object”.

Let me start with Mx Sorry I Thought.

He booked me for a two hour shoot in West London during late fall or beginning of winter. We agreed on shooting some lingerie portraits and full nudes. His main idea was to shoot on the terrace, partly exposed to the main street from which the upper deck bus audience would have enjoyed my bare ass, and, no need to say, it was incredibly cold. I was not aware of the situation I was going to find. I know that fine art models are supposed to suffer, it’s written in the devil’s contract they make you sign in exchange of your dignity (the deal of your life), but there are human limits and safety issues that have to be addressed and respected!

I could only resist that much; when I was able to endure the cold, I felt incredibly uncomfortable being half naked with the risk of being seen by strangers, of which some probably kids. I communicated my concerns to the photographer and he agreed to carry on indoors. He took a couple more shots and then said he didn’t have any more ideas because he mainly wanted to shoot outdoors. I know now that when a person says things like that, is to guilt trip you into something, otherwise they respect your human boundaries, they take care of you and find another way to make it work, or don’t mood board without making sure the human being they are going to photograph is capable of enduring cold, heat or any other physically challenging situations.

We shot some more full nudes to complete the session and as I was about to get off the window seal (classic), he gave me his hand which I thought was there to help me but he pulled me towards him instead and looked right into my eyes for a long embarrassing moment. I stood there, puzzled. He then seemed to come back to himself and said “Sorry! I thought...” and I intervened with “don’t think, I am here to do my job (which is not sex service)”.

So, that was odd. I got dressed, took the money (which I now ask beforehand, learned from my SWer friends and decided to apply to all the body work situations), walked to the bus stop, got on and asked myself “what the fuck is wrong with people”. Did he premeditated that or was it the inspiration of the moment? Did I do something to make him think I was a sex service worker under cover?
I know you are imagining an old creepy sleazy dude, but you’re wrong. This was a very handsome attractive young man according to the societal standards. And yet...

It is not ok to assume someone is up to something only because you want it. If you want to pay for sex, use appropriate channels and stop harassing people from other fields. Nude modelling doesn’t equal sex service. A nude model can ALSO be a sex worker but they don’t necessarily want to combine the things in one go, and their availability is not to be taken for granted. Generally, it is inappropriate to ask a model that’s posing for you if she’s up for a fuck, just as it would be to stop a sex worker as they’re, dunno, grocery shopping. You know why? Because it’s out of context, and violating on so many levels. Just don’t. Even more inappropriate is to assume something based on your fantasy and misinterpretation, and then make a physical step without any pre-negotiation.

I know a love story out of a photo shoot is possible but the dynamics wouldn’t be like the ones I described above, I know it because I’ve been  >>>there<<<. I’ve seen beauty. I’ve seen horror too.

Imagine yourself standing naked in front of a person twice your size and just generally stronger, you had a difficult shoot because they were not happy with you not being able to endure the cold naked, and they suddenly pull you towards them assuming you want to kiss them and fuck them. You don’t like them, you don’t feel attracted, you are working and your trust has just been broken. How does that feel?

Imagine a shop assistant serving you in a sports shop, or a camera gear shop, or a supermarket. They help you navigate the isles, they check a couple of items for you, they even assist you because you need advice once out of the changing room, they swap sizes for you or they exchange that expired product. Doing their job, right? Because they are genuinely nice, they crack a couple of jokes and make you laugh and overall you are having a good experience, you are having so much fun you decide to take their hand, pull them towards you as if to kiss them and when they just stare at you terrified you find yourself surprised and embarrassed. Is this normal? Are you normal? I don’t think so. When you do this to your models, it’s not normal either, it’s inappropriate and violating. Pull your shit together.

Yours,
Nina

That’s me posing for Adolfo Valente, an absolute pleasure to work with, professionally and humanly speaking. Subscribe to my newsletter to see more of shots like this.

The weight of freedom

I thought I’d tell you something a bit less romanticised this time. Don’t get me wrong, I love transforming my life into a book, I do it constantly in my head and you get like a 4% (random estimation) of that fictionalised mess. But when your friends are busy (aka you’re too scared to ask for help) and you can’t, you just cannot have another break down right now when you feel so positive and full of energy but also tired and lonely and something is still bothering you, you write a journal, or better, you write a public journal. Worst case scenario you get criticised by people that have their life so together it’s boring to the point of reading your pathetic journal, or you get wonderful messages of support and understanding and so far I must say it’s been the 99% (correct estimation) of the cases.

Do you remember this post? Right. I call it the breakdown-with-class-journal-entry. It’s when I have the absolute meltdown and the only thing that keeps me together is a sequence of words that form sentences of encouragement for myself, and by the end of the story I come up with some sort of hope. I thought I had it together by the end of that entry but a few days later I’ve got an email from one of my dearest friends and I was not even half way into the message when I burst into tears because it looked like he was able to spot what the real problem behind my eczema was. Of course it’s mostly triggered by stress, and admitting that to myself, acknowledging that the problem is there to begin with was a big step forward but I was far away from solving anything because I didn’t exactly know what caused the stress to begin with.

My friend pointed out few things, with a lot of tact and making sure he wasn’t telling me I was doing something wrong but he still expressed his concern on my work in the sex world. I am a sex worker and I do many different things from a creative perspective and being a full time artist means occasionally struggling for money but making sure that when you have a big chunk of money coming in, you are not throwing your ethics out of the window and you still know who you are and that you are doing something you really want to do. It’s a constant battle. I did many things to survive and though I was ok with the concept of some of them, I did lose bits of myself on the way and started to feel empty. D pointed out that maybe slowing down and considering my choices a little bit better could help me, so I would not have to give up the position I’ve been fighting for as long as I can remember but I would be under less pressure.

I didn’t realise how isolated I feel most of the time because the only support I have is Hoss and the sex positive community, so when Hoss is struggling on his own because his work is the flip side of the same coin, and when I don’t feel like sharing such intimate thoughts with my community, I am on my own. And it’s not even the worse part! The absolute horrifying feeling of isolation comes when I step out of my sex positive bubble of kinky, non-monogamous and creative people and I find a post apocalyptic world of shame and repression our society wants us to live in. The amount of pain I went through in the past year is so huge and sticky, no wonder I am traumatised, sleep deprived, terrified, sad or apathetic when the weight is just unbearable. I had friends judge me, the kind of people that say “I don’t judge BUT...”; I had friends ignore my concerns without making an effort in understanding why I’ve chosen the path I am walking only because they think I am after “easy” money. I am not creating sexual content because I’d rather do this instead of serving coffee or selling bags, I’ve chosen art over hard working comfort because I love sex, I am highly sexual and I know that erotica will save the world one fuck at a time.

I don’t need pity, I want and demand acknowledgment because my job is a real “fucking” (tee-hee) job and I won’t shut up as someone suggested many months ago when I’ve decided it was going to become my full time job; I will become louder and the more uncomfortable the society will get with me allowing myself to be loud during sex so I don’t bother my neighbours, the more change will happen. And change is the only thing that pushes humanity to evolve, and the more uncomfortable the better, the thirstier the hungrier the angrier the better because that’s what stimulates our species to do things we can’t explain but can only feel.

I am tired of the stigma weighting on my freedom. I won’t tolerate people telling me I don’t have to constantly express myself about what I do, I won’t tolerate people brush me off because we haven’t invented the right terminology to talk about non-binary and queer human beings... and I had that fucked up behaviour thrown at me from someone who was meant to protect me in the “ethical” adult industry. I won’t go quieter when talking about PLEASURE, VAGINAS, VULVAS, PENISES, DICKS, PUSSIES, NIPPLES, TONGUES, FUCKING, LICKING, THREESOMES, ORGIES, SEX PARTIES, BDSM, PLEASURE, PLEASURE, PLEASURE.

Sex is not only beautiful but it’s also... normal. I want to normalise sex work and erotic art, so that the intensity of it would be defined only by how much passion one channels into a conversation, so that it’s not taboo but it can be private. I want to be able to talk about my work, and my art and what I love doing, so that it wouldn’t sound different from a painter talking about his subjects, or a thriller writer, or a shop assistant enjoying their career, or a chef explaining her choice in the combination of ingredients.

The issue is not in my work per se but in how sex is perceived altogether. Next time your neighbours are fucking too loud behind the wall, ask yourself if you are annoyed because you’d rather be fucking yourself or if you just need silence in that particular moment, and if it’s different from when someone is talking loud or practising piano; why are you so tolerant with way more annoying noises than people having pleasure? When I hear humans enjoying themselves (especially when they own it and sound so genuine in their pleasure), I feel activated and alive, I am happy for them and if I am not already, I wish I was doing just as great. And if I am annoyed, I check if I masturbated that day, or if it’s maybe time to buy those sound isolating headphones.

I am not saying you have to be like me, we all express freedom in different ways, I am asking you to gain some more perspective and be less judgemental and listen more and talk less because, and I promise you that, if you allow yourself to just let go and absorb the good in the world, your life will improve drastically and you will see me for what I really am... not some avant-garde sexual alien, but a gender neutral human being that enjoys sex to the point it cannot be contained anymore so it becomes art, or just a creative job.

I am a human, just like you.