Pamela Madsen
Few woman like their bodies. Ask any woman at any age about her body and you’re more likely to hear about soft upper arms and cellulite rather than words of self-love and appreciation. We are surrounded by images of the photoshopped youth culture and the hard-bodied fashion models. All of us are surrounded by standards of beauty that often have nothing to do with real women of any age.For woman of “a certain age” (post-50), it can become even more of a challenge to find anything that we (Yes, “we”—I am over 50) love about our bodies. To make things more challenging, there are few images in the media of mid-life women looking both authentic and sexy.
But there is now a movement afoot to change all that; post-50 women are showing up to do Boudoir Photography where women strip down or put on lingerie for the camera. And, it’s getting the attention of the media, sex educators and bloggers.
For many women, posing naked or nearly naked is one of the bravest things they will ever do. Women have that much shame about their bodies. The idea of getting naked and reclaiming the idea of their body as beautiful is a radical and provocative act of self-acceptance. I know this; I have been doing photo shoots as a part of my own healing with my own body image since the age of 40.
I know personally the extraordinary healing that can happen for a woman on so many levels when she decides to create her own cultural shift of what feminine beauty means to her. When she steps in front of the camera, intentionally showing up as sexy, she is reclaiming herself as a sensuous being in a very vulnerable way. Women report “feeling beautiful” during the shoots, and then have the extraordinary experience of seeing themselves being sexy when they get to see the images.
As a sexuality coach specializing in women, the transformations that have occurred from doing a Boudoir Shoot have been so extraordinary that I have started to include them as one of the focal points in my retreats for women.
It’s an exciting time to be a boomer, mid-life, after-50 woman. Women are showing up to celebrate their bodies in brand new ways that will shift everyone’s perspective. They are standing at a crossroads of cultural norms, willing their aging bodies to be celebrated and acknowledging their desires for living a full vibrant life that does not end with a birthday. The message is clear; women after 50 want to embrace their bodies and their sexuality full-on. They are acknowledging to themselves that their bodies bring them and their partners sexual pleasure and they are no longer willing to be invisible.