In her column, “In Good Company,” Les explores the most intricate aspects of our personal relationships: romantic, familial and platonic. In her latest installment, she writes on the photography series she worked on this quarter and the inspiration behind it.

Content warning: This article contains references to sexual harassment.

i. 

I remember the first time I got catcalled. I was wearing a strappy green tank top with rhinestones all over it. My long hair was wavy after being in a braid all night and I couldn’t stop playing with it. My mom let me wear her pink chapstick. I felt so pretty.

I was leaning on the open window in my stepdad’s car, partly to take in the fresh air but mostly because I wanted to show the world how pretty I looked. Suddenly, I got wolf-whistled at by two men that looked to be in their forties. They had fully grown out beards and mustaches, their beards having strands of white hairs in them. One of them bit his lip, winked at me, and then blew me a kiss as the car started moving again. I frowned, pulling my tank top up to my collarbone and rolling up the window. I was quiet the rest of the way home.

That was the first time I remember getting catcalled. 

I was six.

ii. 

I get the same icky feeling getting catcalled now at twenty-one that I did back at six years old. I grew up in New York City, so I should be used to it. My leg shouldn’t be shaking so fast as I’m sitting in COHO writing this. I shouldn’t keep licking my lips, feeling them dry up as soon as the moisture on them goes away. And my heart most certainly should not be beating this fast. Still, it does. 

Every time I go into SF for the summer to see my partner or my friends, whether a man is walking, biking or driving, I get catcalled. I tell my partner about it immediately; he gives me a hug and a forehead kiss, apologizing for how disgusting some men are. I feel safe in his arms, despite him being part of the same species that causes me to fear walking at night. 

Despite still being afraid when I’m alone, I don’t let the fear deter me from wearing what I want and doing my makeup the way I want. Feeling pretty. Feeling sexy now, at twenty-one years old. 

iii. 

Our current political climate serves not only to make me more afraid, but to make me angry. Who the fuck said it was okay to see women as theirs for the taking? Who the fuck were those forty-year-old men to think it was okay to catcall a little girl? Who the fuck do men think they are that it’s okay to touch me while coming out of a nightclub? 

I feel sexy. And I do it for me. Not for anyone else. 

This anger and passion led me to create my photographic piece: “Divine Feminine.”

I took Intro to Photography this quarter with Professor Jamil, a class in which I expressed my feelings in the best way I know how: through my art. 

iv. 

“Divine Feminine” is a photo series exploring the intersecting themes of sensuality and sexuality. As a photographer, I wanted to show my skills in still photographs of people and make you feel the emotions through the photo. In this photo series, I define sensuality as how you feel about yourself, how sexy and sensual you can be, while sexuality refers more to a physical viewpoint of how other people perceive your body. 

In these especially turbulent times where the government wants to control women’s bodies, I felt this was an essential intersecting theme to explore. In each of these photographs, I told the model to portray different expressions on her face depending on the phase of the shoot. For the sexuality portion of the shoot, I instructed her to pose her body in the way she would while trying to seduce someone, looking either at the camera or away from it. I wanted to capture her raw expressions. For the sensuality portion of it, I let her pose and make her face as she wished. As part of the sensuality piece, I also took pictures of her getting ready for and unready after the shoot. I edited the colors in these photographs to highlight the red in things like the model’s clothing, makeup and even the props she used. 

When having a photoshoot with this model, I asked her how she felt after the sessions, to which she responded with things like, “This is a really good self-love project” after seeing the results of her session. This project aimed to make people feel more in tune with their sensuality and comfortable in their skin. 

It took me a really long time to take back the word “sexy,” to have confidence. I had to fake it till I made it. You say it enough times and it eventually becomes true. Say it in the mirror. Say it out loud. You’re sexy, for yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with that.