Learning to See Myself Outside the Male Gaze

How I’m finding ways to express my sexuality for me — not for men

The first time I left my body, I was 12 years old. I had very quickly developed breasts and suddenly, adult men were openly gawking at me, and the boys at school were bullying, harassing, and assaulting me every single day.

The only way I could deal with it was to hover somewhere near my body, but never too close. It was too risky. I didn’t like the way I felt inside it. It didn’t feel like it belonged to me, anymore — it belonged to men. And as such, I was terrified that one day, I would lose total control of it. One day, a man would take from me whatever he wanted and there would be nothing I could do about it.

I had all kinds of tricks to keep myself out of my body. I ate. A lot. Whenever my pain or fear crept in, I would grab something out of the fridge and eat, even when I wasn’t hungry.

I would stare at myself in the mirror for hours, counting and documenting every single flaw. I started to see myself as so hideously ugly. This was a strange comfort to me. Surely, no man would want this, right?

One day, a man would take from me whatever he wanted and there would be nothing I could do about it.

I didn’t realize at the time that I was trying to control the male gaze by turning myself into something I thought would be undesirable to men. Everything that I did was in response to how a man might perceive me and my body. Every thought that came into my mind was filtered through the male lens.

Even more frustrating, I felt like I had no value because I was deliberately removing myself from the opportunity to gain male approval. Some part of me wanted to lose the weight I had gained because I wanted men to think I was pretty and desirable. Some part of me wanted to paint my nails and curl my hair and look the way I thought men wanted me to look, no matter how dangerous that had been to me in the past.

No matter what I did — tried to make myself desirable to men, tried to hide myself from men — I couldn’t escape the fact that my experience of my body was totally centered around men.

When I was a little girl, I became obsessed with two of my dad’s cousins who were belly dancers. I thought they were the most beautiful, exciting, elegant women I had ever seen. I wanted to be just like them when I grew up.

In my twenties, I decided to take belly dance lessons, which was a huge step for someone who’d been living outside her body for the previous 10 years.

I loved it. I loved learning new ways for my body to move. I loved being able to experience that kind of sensual movement and experiment in a safe place, among other women. I loved feeling sexy for the first time in years — and all for me, not for a man.

When my class was asked to perform at a local event, I declined. I couldn’t bear the thought of dancing in front of others. It wasn’t staged fright that had me running. No, it was the thought of having men looking at me while I was performing those hip rolls. It triggered me so severely, I shot straight out of my body again. I didn’t want to be perceived as sexy — which is so often interpreted as “open for business.”

But I also did want to be sexy. I did want to be desired…so very much.

I just couldn’t make peace with those sides of myself.

When I started dating a handsome musician, it occurred to me that he might like to see me dance. I knew he would appreciate the music, the rhythm, and since we were sexually involved, I thought he might even enjoy the show I was willing to give him.

I loved feeling sexy for the first time in years — and all for me, not for a man.

Yet I couldn’t believe how hard it was to offer that to him. Some part of me hated the idea of performing for him. I didn’t want to feel like I had to earn his desire. I wanted my gesture to be a gift to him, something to show him that I felt sexy with him and that I wanted him.

But the truth was…I didn’t feel sexy. And I wasn’t comfortable feeling sexy.

When he found my zills and asked what they were, I decided to take the plunge, explaining their function and then asking if he wanted me to show him how I used them. I gave my hips a little sway and smiled teasingly at him.

“I think you might like it,” I said, not at all convinced he would.

“Nah,” he said. “I don’t need a lap dance.”

Part of me was relieved. I hadn’t wanted to dance for him. I couldn’t get away from the feeling that I was turning myself into a sexual object.

But I was also disappointed. It wasn’t a lap dance — it was a very old feminine tradition that took a lot of skill to learn. I wanted him to appreciate that. I wanted him to appreciate my body for its beauty and for the way it could move. I wanted him to not just desire it but to care about it. To see it as part of me, the person — not just a body that was there to give him pleasure.

Around the time I was dating the musician, my best friend was making a name for herself taking nude portraits of our college classmates. We were all young, early-aught hippies who had somehow decided that having our photographs taken naked was an act of feminine empowerment. (And in a way, it is.)

I wanted to do it so badly, but I could never quite work up the courage. I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing myself that way.

I also felt like I had to justify my reasons for doing it. Was I trying to be sexual? Provocative? And if so, why?

Or were my reasons more authentic? (Whatever that means?)

Ultimately, I wondered why I felt I needed to justify my decision, at all…

I continued to struggle with my sexuality over the years, often binding it or shutting it up entirely. When I met the man I thought I would marry, I arranged an elaborate weekend getaway for him on the first birthday of his that we spent together, including a full, printed program of all the skanky things I was going to do to him.

At 8 PM that Saturday, when it was time to perform the scheduled lap dance, I froze. I felt exactly the way I had felt with my musician lover when trying to belly dance for him. I wanted to turn him on, but I didn’t want to be an object. And by then, I’d shut myself off so completely from my sexuality that my whole body felt wooden and dry.

He was so excited when I turned the music on, but as I straddled his lap and tried to move my hips back and forth, I felt mortified. I’m not sure I even knew who I was at that moment. I wanted to be his dream come true, his sexual fantasy realized, but also…I wanted to be me. I didn’t know how to be both.

I laughed awkwardly, which ruined the moment. I was so angry at myself for not being able to perform for him and ended up turning around and bobbing my ass in his face, which was, somehow, the least embarrassing thing I could think of to do. It at least got me to stop laughing and gave him some semblance of the experience I had promised.

I wanted to be his dream come true, his sexual fantasy realized, but also…I wanted to be me.

After our relationship ended, my struggle to express my sexuality grew even deeper. He had left me for a younger woman, and in light of that, I thought no man would ever love me again. Why bother with a middle-aged woman when you can have a 20-year-old?

I grew out my hair almost down to my waist in my attempt to find something beautiful and feminine in myself. I didn’t really like my hair that long, but it made me feel like I was just a little bit pretty. Just a little bit attractive.

I tried to date a few times, but each attempt fizzled out before it had even begun. I tried so hard to be sexy, but I also felt afraid of the attention. I didn’t want to draw in any more pain.

Throughout this time, however, I felt something arising in me — a passion and sense of self I hadn’t felt in decades. Sometimes, I would get so worked up, I’d turn on music as loud as my ears could stand it and I would dance around my living room in my underwear, wildly gyrating my hips, feeling sexy as fuck.

Because no one was looking? Because at that moment I was sexy? Because I was fully and completely in my body and not afraid who might take that away from me?

I didn’t know the answer, but I longed to be able to show that side of myself to the world.

After I started writing about sex on the internet, I became obsessed with wanting to show my body to the world. I had been taking naked photographs of myself for years (mostly for the benefit of boyfriends), but now I wanted to take them for me and post them on a website or print them in a book of sexy poetry or…

I talked about this with a few people and the reactions were mixed. It seemed like most people thought I was trying to be provocative or create clickbait. Others thought maybe I was trying too hard, like a 19-year-old pop princess strutting across the stage in a costume made out of a few scraps of fabric.

I felt guilty and even a little dirty. Were my intentions questionable?

I tried to explain that I wanted to join the body-positive movement and show women that it is okay to celebrate our bodies in our 40s. I wanted to show off my stretch marks and join the voices of women normalizing imperfect bodies.

I wasn’t sure that these reasons were the actual motivation for my desire, but they sounded reasonable and certainly weren’t untrue.

But again, I felt that niggling question in the back of my mind: Why did I have to explain my reasons for this?

Not long later, I found myself in a situation in which I had to face all my old demons. Was it possible I could remain in charge of what happened to me? Could I maintain control over my body?

I felt myself defaulting into contraction, pulling back out of fear, wrapping that part of myself away again. Can I express my sexuality without inviting danger? I found myself asking for the millionth time.

Suddenly, I realized that that was the reason I wanted to share photos of my naked body. I realized that’s why some part of me wants to belly dance in front of a lover.

I want to be able to fully inhabit my body and share my sexuality without fear of someone hurting me, without fear of someone trespassing where they don’t belong, without fear that I will lose control over what happens to me.

I want to present myself, my soul, my heart, my body in the way that I see it — not through the lens of what a man might see or perceive. And not for a man.

I deserve that. It is my birthright.

My inability to experience that sovereignty is what has kept me living just outside my body for so damn long.

I want to present myself, my soul, my heart, my body in the way that I see it — not through the lens of what a man might see or perceive.

But I’m finding that I don’t have to pull back. I don’t have to contract. I don’t have to pack my sexuality away or force it out there for someone else’s pleasure.

I get to choose how to present myself. I deserve to be fully in this body. I get to say what happens to me.

I am coming to understand that men might look — and even approach — and that’s okay. Just because it was dangerous to me in the past doesn’t mean it is dangerous now.

I don’t have to be afraid. I don’t have to see myself as an object of their pleasure. I’m more than that, and I have to believe that most men — good men — will know that, too.

I want to be fully in my body now and let myself “wear” it however I see fit.

© Yael Wolfe 2019