Hello treasured readers! This is going to be a long one. I’ve compiled my favourite comments made on both blogs since May of 2006. Unfortunately I had to remove the images because they require more memory than text does. Some are pure compliments, which I reprint indulgently because it’s one of those days when believing in myself and what I do is especially difficult. Others are from people sharing candidly what the drawings or writings brought up in them, along with their own experiences. I’ve omitted too-personal references and signed with an intial, or not at all, out of respect for people’s privacy. As you can probably tell in the discussions about self-portraiture and body-acceptance, a number of readers sent photos, while others experimented with drawing on their own.
So without further ado, in the spirit of Intimography, I bring you a retrospective celebration of Victoria’s Sex Blog through readers’ comments. Please continue to follow on www.intimography.com, to uphold this cause of changing perspectives on sexuality. The sister site will continue to explore how inimate images showing love and tenderness or other forms of respectful sexual activity (no matter what the act!) can be seen from angles other than pornographic.
Love and thanks, Colette Coughlin, for Victoria
“Hi Victoria, I viewed your site and drawings today for the first time, I have been a nudist all my life and always thought bodies were beautiful but your drawings really show love-making as a beautiful thing, something to be cherished.”
“It’s so great to see someone take a stand for something they really believe in. Such an important cause: transforming self-hate into self-love in such a concrete way.”
“I’ve been reading your site regularly for awhile now and always enjoy your daily musings. The one comment that stays in my head most was from awhile back: “Simple but not easy… sex without love is like fast food”… that is so very true.”
“Hello Victoria: Your work is very much needed and appreciated. I am a product of a very strict religious and societal upbringing. The results in my body are total disconnection from it on many levels. At the age of 48 I am now trying to connect body and soul in order to feel sexual emotions. Your work helps. In my mind I totally believe what you are saying. My ongoing work is to integrate it so that I feel the truth. Keep it up for me and others like myself.”
“Greetings from Madrid, I arrived to your blog by chance and I read some post from your blog. I have seen a lot of blogs with sex as subject, but the vision of sex that you give to your blog is unique. I like your blog, and I will visit you often.”
“I have been reading your blog for the last few months and must say it has had a profound effect on the way I think about sex and intimacy and overall has been a really therapeutic experience.”
“Grounding myself in my body has been my personal transformation and I’ve managed to find this through yoga… all this bullshit about beauty and having the perfect body HAS GOT TO STOP. Botox, facelifts, teeth capping, tummy tucking. Why do I want my face to freeze and lose the ability to express anything? The world is insane… there is a drug out there now to stop women having periods? What’s next? Women are forcing themselves to become barely human? One way to stop is to refuse to do all these absurd things and then be VISIBLE and VOCAL about it. And to not give up. Which is what you are doing Victoria. Keep drawing!!”
“Victoria has been an amazing friend and supporter. Her help and encouragement has been liberating for me, allowing me to begin to make some peace with myself in many, many ways. My biggest obstacle has been to allow myself to think that I can draw something other than stick figures, and her advice has been wonderful. I owe her far more gratitude than I can possibly express here. Here’s to we “normals:” it is time for us to take back our world.” (that, of course, is Beejay)
“As always, poignantly written and illuminating. Facing your fears with such eloquence shows how far you have been able to push whatever barriers have been hindering you in the past. To read how you met each little doubt and slipped past is a beautiful example of how fast we can change if we truly desire. Thank you again, Victoria. I will continue to draw more of myself in order to work at this fear of mine and push it further away.”
“Dear Victoria, I think I exhausted myself last night reading every word of yours I could get my hands on. I love your voice and the way you draw — I experience so much clarity, relief and self acceptance from both. Thank you. I used to be really, really scared of pornography. Like my whole body would freeze up in terror. Well, when I moved to Germany years ago, getting confronted with pornography took on a whole new level; sex tourism is a big industry here. SO… I had never imagined this concept of transformation… It makes so much sense. I think transformations happen with just slight and subtle shifts of energy and perspective.
One reason why I experience your project as a relief is you spell out these slight shifts with crystal clear serene wording which go into my body and heart effortlessly. It just happens. Every word and stroke builds upon each other, and I can only speak for myself, your work works on my soul, reconstructing and constructing a way toward soft intimacy. Okay, I don’t want to overwhelm you, but I definitely had to let you know the experience which has happened in my heart. Thanks for making and sharing your beautiful work. Love, D.”
“Dear Victoria, I have just spent the last hour on this very windy night here in Toronto reading your e-zine. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s beautiful. The layout, your sense of design and the colors. It all pulls together so cleanly. I am in awe of your work. But then what really put me over the top are your glorious drawings of bodies. They are so sensual and tender. I felt as though I loved every one of them. They are remarkable in their homage to the strength of spirit inherent in the softness of a body. It was revivifying to know that a project such as yours has made it onto the net. Thank – you for taking a stand on this. It’s made a space, a clearing for others (like me) to find. It is so the right time for this.
Your site and all of your collaborators are quite extraordinary. It shifted something in me last night. I had such a peaceful sleep. It resonated so deep in me. It was truly like a moment of grace had descended upon me. For the rest of my life I will carry the feeling of that shift. I am very disturbed by the porn that has infiltrated our everyday lives. It shows very little (if any) respect for the preciousness of life. Or as you say “tenderness”. Tenderness encompasses so much more of all that is good, real and loving in life. As I write this my eyes water, overcome with the emotion of feeling it. Tenderness. I will end my note here, so that I can linger in tenderness… what a gift. Thank you.”
“Hi Victoria, I’d just like to say what an incredibly brave person you are – you know; when I first took a look at your pages I was horrified at my own reaction. It was that preconditioned response of shock and recoil which so many of us have been programmed to feel. Like, hey, this is way too uncomfortable, pornographic, or, day I say it, real…? I grew up in an atmosphere of complete sexual repression – I could never have broached the subject of sexuality with my folks, thus from teenage years and onwards sex/intimacy/closeness become some great secretive, not up for discussion, topics, with, as you point out, the pornography industry benefiting from all of the pent up repression in people.
I have kept coming back to your site, gradually weaning myself off of the squeamishness, (how sad is that?), and now find it totally liberating to read and view. I have always known I am a tactile person, needing to touch others for closeness, but have always repressed that for fear of sending out ‘incorrect’ signals to others. I have deeply sensual, sexual feelings, but these have been mostly closeted away, except for exposure during a now ended, monogamous marriage. Since the end of the relationship I have started to reconnect with and rediscover all of these feelings within myself, and what a joy to discover somebody like yourself who was brave enough to bring it all out into the open! Keep up the good work, the words and images are sure helping me to slowly gain acceptance of my own feelings, and to accept that they are normal and legitimate; not shameful! Love, T.”
“Hi Victoria, Reading your blog gives ME goose bumps. Do you have any idea how amazing your blog is? I can’t believe how powerful your message is… how healing it could be for so many people who desperately need to read this and absorb it.
People are crying out to talk about their sexual fears, problems, and relationships. After I separated from my husband I talked to everyone very frankly about what the problems had been and I found that most people would then immediately open up unprompted and tell me their sexual stories, so relieved to be able to talk and admit that their lives were not storybook perfect. That they had no one to share their sexual fears or issues with. How alone that made them feel.
Thanks Victoria, your work is having an effect… please don’t stop… you rock!”
My readers rock too. Thank you again, everyone who has followed my blogs, drawings, writings, exhibits, etc… and taken the time to understand why a nice girl like me draws people (often myself!) naked, masturbating, and actually having SEX (gasp!). Thank you for these and the many comments that have helped me keep the flame alive for so long. Just imagine a world where no one is ashamed of their looks, their body, or their sexuality… on intimography.com, we’re going to show you what that actually LOOKS like! xox Colette
For me, one of the most precious things about being a sexual person, and allowing my sexual nature to be expressed, alone or with others, is exactly that magical aspect of letting go of the mind, of allowing the body to speak, hands to roam, lips to graze and bodies to move in a way that they lose themselves in giving and receiving. All of these sensations can be so overwhelmingly beautiful they become like a euphoric drug that we just can’t get enough of. But these wonderful sensations cannot live in isolation; they just don’t happen if the hands are not connected to a brain, or the heart, to a penis or a nipple, and it works best when all of these aspects come together to entwine people freely giving what flows through them from a place of not only desire, but also of love, mutual respect and compassion.
