Since we opened Scandaleuse, both of us have been posing in boudoir settings for many reasons. To know what it actually feels like, to have content to share with our community, to be creative… But we often forget to talk about how it actually changed us too. There is definitely a before boudoir and after boudoir, even for us.
The expectations VS reality of boudoir.
Boudoir is usually thought as something you do for someone, likely a partner. People get in the mindset that they have to illustrate somebody else's fantasy, only to benefit them. We don't agree with that.
Boudoir should be done for yourself first. It's a way to get quality time with yourself, reclaim your body, see it in a new light. It's a chance to just exist without judgement and expectations. And it comes with long lasting effects you wouldn't know until you try. Even ourselves didn't know that before stepping in front of the lens. We have now been posing for 5 years and can confidently share all of the beautiful changes boudoir have done for us.
The given: we feel beautiful.
There is a lot of power behind feeling beautiful. A new energy emanates out of you, everything around you just feels lighter. It already feels wonderful in a regular setting but imagine feeling beautiful without your clothes on, which we aren't told to even think about. Now that's unlocking the next level of feel good vibes for sure!
The removal of negative body vision.
Rare are the ones who can tell they absolutely love their bodies. And who can blame us? We grow up naturally comparing ourselves to others and to beauty standards shaped by society. When something is not considered “beautiful", we are told to either hide it or to work hard to improve it. It is very easy to end up with a very negative vision of our appearance that follows us for years. For many of us, it even turns into body-dysmorphia.
Seeing our bodies repeatedly on photos without clothes on showed us what our bodies actually look like, and that is far away from what the crappy vision we had.
Don't get us wrong, it was scary at first, even for us. But what a slap in the face it was to see our bodies in an objective light. Turns out our "flaws” were not that flawed.
We are not afraid of our "sexy” sides anymore.
If you were to ask us 10 years ago if we thought we were sexy, we would have awkwardly laughed and say absolutely not. It was just inconceivable to even think it. Another prejudice we deal with: wanting to feel sexy, while being completely natural, is "wrong” so we just avoid it.
Doing boudoir photoshoots showed us that:
Feeling sexy comes in many many ways, very few of them are even being related to sex and none of them are related to pleasing someone else.
There is SO much power behind this feeling. Looking at our boudoir photos make us feel strong and badass as hell.
We had been severely missing out on it.
Deconstructing the shame around something leads to turning it into confidence. And that works for anything.
What about the impact on the confidence then?
Tapping into all of these points has led us to a pretty rock solid confidence in ways we didn't even imagine:
• Reclaiming our bodies made us shut down the negative voices of our surroundings and instead focus on what WE feel good in and show it.
• Boudoir has successfully and positively forced us out of our comfort zone. This made it a lot less scary to try other experiences like that we didn't think we would ever try.
• Doing something that is considered shameful or frown upon by many and, again, ending up having a wonderful outcome has not only removed a lot of our fears but also comforted us in all of our choices afterwards. Even when people disagreed, even if it was unconventional. We just realized we were a lot strong than we thought.
After all, isn't confidence about having a "no fucks given” energy?
We went from shy, insecure beings to free, empowered and proudly sensual women. To this day, we use our boudoir shoot as reminders when we feel down or discouraged. These versions of ourselves were always there, they were just quiet and hard to uncover. Now, we hold on to them tight and cherish them.
And you should too. Set yours free and let it shine.