Hannah McKnight: Body & Soul, Part 2

This is a continuation of Body & Soul. Click here to read part 1.

I think being naked isn’t just limited to removing your clothes. There’s also an aspect of vulnerability when it comes to emotions. I mean, it is called baring your soul, right? You are trusting someone with a part of yourself that most of the world doesn’t see. You are sharing your body. You hope that the person you are opening up to will be kind, to be enthusiastic, and to see past what you perceive to be flaws, the parts that the world has told you are flaws, and the parts of you that you are insecure about. It’s an intimate, personal side of oneself that you tend to save for a lover.

I think for people like myself, people who fall somewhere on the non-binary or gender nonconforming spectrum, we are used to the anxiety, the hesitation, the desire, the fear, the need, to come out. We know the feeling of building up our courage, overthinking and rethinking our words, backing down, and inevitably working our way towards “the talk” again and again.

When I came out to my wife while we were dating, I had committed to telling her on an upcoming Friday. I knew I would have to, and I knew I wanted to, and our relationship was progressing at a rate that even if I wasn’t ready to come out, I would have to. I spent the next few days as a nervous wreck. Choosing the right words, the right tone, the right everything. I also had to contend with the possibility that this revelation would end the most beautiful and fulfilling relationship I had, and will ever know.

Long story short, this year we will celebrate sixteen years of marriage.

Between coming out to my wife, and eventually my mom and my siblings, I became accustomed to baring my soul and all the preparation this requires. However, baring my physical self was a different story. In my last article I mentioned how my clothes, whether it was a dress or a corset or shapewear or my thigh pads or breast forms were similar to my armor. These items protected me. They gave me confidence. Without them, would I have the same courage?

Corsets and forms give the impression of a traditional feminine shape. I don’t REALLY have this figure, I don’t REALLY have these hips or thighs, but I can achieve the look. Without them, you’ll see my body. My real body. My rectangular, blocky, boring, masculine proportioned body.

I knew what it felt like to be a “man in a dress”. This is a normal feeling when people who are assigned male at birth express their gender identity by wearing traditional feminine clothes. Sometimes we just don’t feel cute, even when we are wearing the cutest outfit in the world. We all have our ugly days, so to speak.

I knew what it felt like to be a “man in a dress”

As I prepared for my first lingerie shoot, I accepted that I would likely feel like a “man in a bra”. The Breast Form Store had sent over two beautiful bra and panty sets and I was terrified how the delicate straps would look over my masculine broad shoulders. How would this cute panty look on my shapeless waist and non-existent hips?

When I present as masculine, I rarely give a second thought when I go to a beach or swimming. Masculine presenting people aren’t held to standards of beauty and “acceptable” physical appearance. Because of this privilege, and that’s exactly what it is, “he” doesn’t really worry about the weight I gained during COVID.

But “she” sure does.

Having two gender identities and essentially two different lives allows different perspectives based on the different experiences I have from the different genders I present as.

As the days lead up to my shoot, I agonized over everything. The COVID weight, my shoulders, my feet, my skin… every single inch of me. I am used to a my corset or a dress hiding these parts of myself, these parts that I am told are my flaws. I am used to my forms and pads giving me a shape that the world expects a woman to have. I knew I would feel exposed (I mean, I was going to be almost completely naked) but I would also feel exposed as, well, someone who isn’t as physically feminine as the world might think I am.

I get messages from guys telling me they love my body, but part of me thinks that what they see isn’t REALLY my body. It’s my body with a lot of help and a lot of… redistribution, lol. I think I look sexier fully clothed than I do naked and part of me felt like I was about to prove it.

The day of the shoot I wheeled my suitcase into the hotel, checked in, and took the elevator up to my room. I waited for my photographer to arrive. I hesitate to call my photographer that, if I am being honest. I have known her for almost ten years and she has been a very good friend over time. She has taken almost every photograph of me that I have ever posted and has helped me feel beautiful and safe and confident. I don’t easily trust people, and I am almost always skeptical when people say nice things about me so I feel I am very fortunate to have found not only a very talented photographer but also a dear friend.

My friend arrived and we chatted a bit about the room, the light, the small little patio, and the view. I was wearing a really cute vegan leather dress and we wandered around the hotel taking photos of it. This was, in a way, intended to break the ice, if you will. I am not a professional model by any means. I reallllllly have no idea what I’m doing. If a picture turns out it is because of my friend’s artistry and skill and the outfit. I just stand there and listen to her, lol.

It does take a bit for me to psyche myself up for a shoot. I need to mentally step away from my everyday life and the things I am thinking about and just live in the moment, if you will. I value sincerity over almost everything and I think a good photo is when I am just in the moment. Feeling at peace, feeling confident, feeling beautiful…

If I am thinking about my job and listening to the constant ping of work email notifications it tends to kill the vibe.

After I eased myself into “photo shoot mode” we returned to the room and I knew it was time. I stepped into the bathroom and changed into a very cute white bra and panty set. I was already wearing beige thigh highs so I kept those on. I almost always wear stockings because not only are they sexxxxxxy they also even out my skin color.

I stepped out into room and trembled. Here I was. Without armor, without protection.

To her credit, my friend was so encouraging and I couldn’t imagine a shoot like this with anyone else. I tentatively eased myself into a chair and pulled my legs up in an effort to shield myself. It was instinctive, it was protection.

It was also kind of a blur. In a way I kind of piece together the afternoon by looking at the photos themselves. The lingerie shoot started with the aforementioned white bra and panty set, with me curled up in a chair. As the camera clicked away I could feel myself relaxing a bit. Well, perhaps not relaxing but ignoring my nerves.

I moved away from the chair and explored the room a bit. I still gravitated towards only allowing photos when I felt a little more protected, a little more shielded by my arms and legs.

I think we can all recall the moment we bared ourselves for the love of our lives and the emotions that went with that. For this shoot I noticed that my mindset was similar to a doctor’s visit. Your doctor will probably see parts of your body during a physical or whatever but I don’t think anyone would consider the exam erotic or stimulating. It’s more along the lines of “yes, this is my body”. The shoot wasn’t sexxxy or arousing. After all, the camera was being held by my friend and we kept it light and silly and laughed. This comfortable vibe made the whole thing less awkward, I suppose.

Oh, and it was cold, lol.

The next outfit was a floral bodysuit and I paired it with black stockings. I was more comfortable in this because it covered more of my body compared to a bra and panty. I was, and will always be, self conscious of my tummy but the bodysuit hid that. This was a different type of armor, if you will. A very lacey, a very pretty type of armor, but armor nonetheless. It’s also easy to feel confident in black stockings and garters.

Courage was starting to grow and I took photos actually standing up, lol. I wanted to show the pretty lingerie but I also wanted to show off my legs. Despite what all of this may imply, I like my body although I am critical of it. I do like my legs, though and I think everyone’s look amazing in black stockings.

As the afternoon passed I changed into three other lingerie sets. A really pretty lilac bra and panty, a classic black bra, black panty, black garter skirt, and black stockings, and a corset.

I could feel myself getting used to this. The photos, viewed in chronological order, show me going from trembling like a leaf hanging on for dear life in a hurricane to strutting around as if I was a goddess of all I surveyed. I mean, the only thing I could survey was a small hotel room but it was enough.

I’ve referred to clothes as armor a lot in my writings but it’s my corsets that I feel are my most essential piece of clothing. I think corsets have the sexxxiest reputation, if you will, of any type of lingerie, but there’s a practical aspect that I don’t feel they get enough credit for. And yes, there’s nothing sexxxxy about practical clothes. I mean, who wants to wear “sensible” shoes? Strap me into five inch stilettos, baby.

But a corset is different. I mean, my posture looks amazing when I am properly cinched. Corsets also redistribute parts of yourself. It’s still my body, but parts of it have been pushed around. I feel that I should mention that it can be very harmful to improperly wear a corset. Please do your research before committing to one and please understand that a corset is absolutely a commitment.

Standing as statuesquely as I could, I realized that I was wearing a different armor. But the armor wasn’t a dress or shapewear or forms, it was my skin, my body. My confidence was now coming from within. I was doing something that a year ago I didn’t think possible. I was doing something even an hour ago I didn’t think was possible.

All my life I was very much aware that my body wasn’t the body that many people had in mind when they thought about beautiful women. This was reinforced for decades through every form of media imaginable. But here I was, having a body that few people think is appropriate for a lingerie model, and I was modeling lingerie.

Of course, this all sounds very grandiose and perhaps even naive and egotistical but at the heart of it the person I was defying was myself. The morning of the shoot I told myself again and again that I don’t have the body a lingerie model is “supposed” to have. I don’t myself that I don’t have the body a woman is “supposed” to have. I knew these things, and without my armor of clothes and pads to alter my shape and minimize and enhance aspects of myself, the world would see all my flaws and imperfections.

Standing in a hotel room in a corset and stockings became a moment of clarity and a pivotal moment in my life. I had overcome any notions of what I thought I needed to be. I shook off the world’s insistence of what is thought of beauty.

My body was coursing with power and confidence. I opened the door to the patio, my body shaking but it was trembling from the bitter February wind, not my nerves this time. I overlooked the city, and the camera clicked again and again.

The confidence that I gained from this vulnerability is unlike anything I’ve experienced. I did what I felt was impossible and I’ve never looked back.