Yes, I Draw Nudes

I had the brilliant and not-so-smart idea of putting "I draw nudes" on my Tinder's bio.

I know, I know. Tinder is perhaps not the best place to find the love of your life, but in my defense it was some of my friends who created it, saying, I quote, that I "needed some fun in my life"—but this story is for another time.

During summer, I suddenly started to draw nudes, just like that. Like an urge to create something, to shape life on my paper. Without really noticing it, it soon started to be a woman's body.

As a woman myself and as a feminist, I grew up studying my body in the mirror and trying to love it. When the unconscious part of my brain started to draw human forms on the paper, I knew deep down that it was just the beginning of a brand new series of portraits.

And here I am, in a museum full of naked and painted bodies, taking pics of my own and humble sketching in front of breath-taking pieces of art. Posting them on Instagram, with humorous hashtags, such as #ThePeachySaga. Yes, I draw nudes.

And this just-a-little-doodle-on-a-notebook started to become a passion that I was proud of, and helped me in ways I couldn't imagine.

How did drawing nudes fuel my feminism?

I already knew that I was a feminist when I started to draw nudes. I was quoting famous French faces, such as Simone Veil or Simone de Beauvoir, debating with my male and misogynists friends during class, and watching with a close interest the feminist march in the United States. The egality between sexes was already a big part of my life, but I discovered that drawing nudes gave me a new approach of feminism, in a way.

I know, it might not be obvious.

But, as I was outlining the curves of a hip, sketching the wideness of a breast, etching the bend of a back, I grew loving more and more the female body, full of grace and power—even designing battle scars on their shoulders to represent a lifetime. And the more I was deep in this trance of drawing more and more aching frames, the more I fall in love with... well, with us.

... with the women that fight every day on the battlefield, with the women who carry their past on their back, with the women who think that their bodies are full of imperfections. Because drawing these muses made me fall in love with every single one of our bodies.

And not only did it make me want to fight harder for the ones that became my inspiration, but it also made my words easier whenever I wanted to explain feminism to people. I guess there is no "perfect" way of acting and standing up for such a cause, but I really hope my own artistic way made people think twice about it, and about the role women have in the society: it's not just dolls, pretty smiles plastered on their lips and makeup on their faces.

Despite the mesmerizing curves, it's human beings, with a story, a past, a future, and a reason to live. It's somebody, not some bodies.

How did it change the way people interacted with me knowing that, on Tinder or even in real life?

I knew it was quite a risky move to share this work of mine with people I barely knew. Risky, indeed, but interesting and quite worth it when you study closer human interaction.

The woman's body has always been a source of wonder and desire. Men, for centuries and millennia, have sung the praises of these enchanting curves.

We live today in a world where sexual desire and lust have taken over rationality, and where representations of women's bodies, naked, submissive, are familiar to us. The challenge of drawing such representations was to make them less obscene than we are used to seeing: tendentious, certainly, but with a certain grace and fragility.

Knowing that a woman can draw other women has certainly fueled a lot of fantasies in these strangers who read my bio (in the same idea that two women kissing is for some very exciting).

I also spare you all the misplaced questions of the type, "Do you use female models when you draw?" Which were often accompanied by, "Are you looking for models, because I'm in," or, "Do you look in the mirror when you draw?"

So, what's the point of all of this, and of this article?

Drawing nudes changed the way people interacted with me in a way, sometimes subtle, yes. Because, for most of them, drawing naked bodies light in them a sparkle of interest, a fantasy, like when Jack was sketching a naked Rose on the Titanic.

Often, people won't understand that I do that as a hobby, and not in a way of seducing them and promising them a night full of passion and lust. If I draw nudes, it's only to tease my imagination, to push me to do better: and not to drag horny men in my bed.

Yes, I draw nudes.

And so what.