For me, the portrait of Nicole Pollard seems problematic in the way it draws attention to her extreme thinness. I find myself alarmed by the dissonance between her expression (which suggests to me power and agency) and what I see as the implied frailty of her body. I guess my question is, since your posts tend to favor thin models, how do you decide what is too skinny? Without shaming anyone for their bodies (fat or thin), how do we decide what is triggering?

Honestly, I vacillated over whether to post Mathieu Vladimir Alliard’s image of Nicole Pollard.

From a curatorial standpoint, it doesn’t fit especially well. I avoid anything smacking of ‘fashion’ and I’m not fond of the eye-contact with the audience featuring so prominently in portraiture.

Then there’s the matter of Ms. Pollard’s presentation which I agree is problematic. I may have soft-balled it when I touched on it in my post, however.

The unsubtle cues emphasizing her bony bonafides (framing orientation, hanging bra straps) bother me–I made a point of mentioning them; but for me, they weren’t trigger though I am not naive enough to think they couldn’t be for someone else. (Thus much of the hesitation about posting the image.)

The eventual decision to post was motivated by three considerations:

1. Acetylene Eyes, in spite of all its ‘intellectual’ posturing, is my own personal fuck you letter to the vast majority of depictions of interpersonal desire from which I feel irrevocably alienated; in other words: I post the shit that get my all haute and bothered. This image somehow managers to reach in and flip a very primal switch in my brain. As such, it belongs.
2. The Photoshop work–there seems to be some minor dodging and burning around the edges as well as skin tone grading which I referred to as ‘sickly’ when ‘cadaverous’ would have been far more appropriate–is rather removed from the commonplace bullshit pulled by the glamoratti. (And although disconcerting it actually serves the image here.)
3. Lastly, as you noted: Ms. Pollard’s expression–suggesting ‘power and agency’–is both haunting and thoroughly compelling.

These considerations are offered neither to justify my post or diminish the degree to which you found it triggering. I simply feel any answer would be incomplete in their absence.

I strive to make this blog an open-minded community accepting of and open to diverse expressions of desire. Sadly, I fail at that more often than I succeed and I think it’s important to own that. I would love to post more images feature a broad range of ages, more PoC, different body types and more imagery made by and for trans folks. But I refuse to post images just for the sake of appearing diverse–that’s exploitative as fuck and I have ZERO interest.

I won’t deny the obvious bias for ‘young’ and ‘thin’ w/r/t to content. I could be like: tough shit that’s my preference but that’s such a bullshit copout. So is saying that the majority of the images out there conform and it’s too difficult to find images that don’t. All I can do is apologize and admit I am struggling to address these shortcomings.

But more directly to your question: how do I decide what is too skinny? I am not sure I have a good answer or even a bad one. All bodies are different. Person A & Person B can both be 5’4" and 125lbs and carry their respective weight very differently. There’s no way to know looking at an image things like whether the person has a crazy metabolism or only consumes 350 calories a day and is constantly light-headed and distracted by gnawing hunger.

In my perfect utopian dream world, I’d like to think that as long as people eat a reasonable amount of somewhat healthy food when they are hungry and exercise with some regularity that whatever their weight is, is what it should be. In the same breath, however, if someone has the willpower to go hungry, I will be the last person to condemn them. (I take the principle of your body, your choice to an admittedly radical extreme.) What I will vociferously protest is the normalization of such behavior.

But how do I accomplish the contradictory aim of allowing an individual the power of radical self-determination while eschewing the societal pressure which seemingly demands starvation as a prerequisite for acceptance? (I am not trying to dodge the question, I just really really don’t know the answer.)

I feel–as usual–that I can only really speak in my own case. Since I was maybe eight or nine, I’ve been a beanpole. Even though I was skinny, I’ve never suffered from any delusions that I was attractive or that anyone wanted me. Now that I am pushing forty, my breakneck metabolism has slowed and I’ve more or less maintained the same diet and exercise regimen I’ve kept for the last twenty years. I’ve put on weight and I am extremely (and perhaps dangerously, if I am honest about it) unhappy with my body.

I didn’t realize how important and foundational being skinny was to my sense of self-worth until it was gone.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, as my best-friend maintains: we seek out the traits we are afraid to allow ourselves to embrace in ourselves and choose, instead, to love others who embody those traits. I think this notion serves here.

Sorry, your question is important. Beyond what I’ve said and hidden between the lines, I don’t know how to answer. Although in my admittedly limited experience, it’s the questions without answers that are the ones the most worth asking.

P.S. For those who don’t know: azura09 is a very dear friend who has an amazing mind is writing and epic poem re-appropriating all this zombie apocalypse nonsense and re-writing the book of Revelation with a radical eco-terrorist subtext and is goddamn gorgeous. (You can check out her killer guest curatorial stint for Acetylene Eyes earlier this year: here.)