Sexuality is not a pose. It is a state.
I hesitated for a long time before writing about sexuality. There is simply too much falseness around it.
Too often it looks like a performance: rehearsed gestures, a pulled-in stomach, the correct tilt of the head, and that endless instruction to “be desirable in the right way”.
But real life is different.
Real sexuality is not an image. It is the way you breathe, the way you touch objects, the way you allow yourself to exist in the moment without constantly worrying about how you appear from the outside.
Over the years of working with visual projects — photo shoots, models, photographers — I began noticing something strange. Many people live as if their body were simply a vehicle for their mind.
Intimacy — visual study
We live in tasks, deadlines, and endless internal dialogue. Meanwhile the body is always postponed — not good enough yet, later, someday when I lose weight, when I am younger, when I finally get enough sleep.
And that is exactly where sexuality quietly fades.
Not because of wrinkles. Not because of numbers on a scale.
It disappears because we are simply not at home in our bodies anymore.
“Real sexuality is not an image. It is the way you breathe, the way you touch objects, the way you allow yourself to be present.”
The most magnetic people I have ever photographed were never the most “perfect” by conventional standards. They were the people most present within themselves.
You can see it in a single movement.
In the way someone sits down in a chair without trying to hide anything. In the way they hold a gaze. In the way they allow themselves to take space in a room.
In this column I want to speak not only about beauty, but about restoration.
About how people reconnect with themselves after the hardest moments.
How the desire to live and feel returns after a painful divorce.
How self-perception changes when the body goes through motherhood or through the quiet transformations of age.
How an honest boudoir photoshoot can become a turning point — the moment when, for the first time in a long while, you look in the mirror and see not a function, but a woman.
Body & intimacy — a quiet portrait
For some people it will be a story about becoming alive again after a long emotional freeze.
For others, it will be about accepting a new vulnerability — and discovering that it is, unexpectedly, a form of strength.
Boudoir is not about lingerie. It is about honesty.
It is the moment when a person remains alone with themselves — yet allows another person, a photographer, to look.
That is an immense act of trust and courage.
It is not “look how beautiful I am”.
“Later might never come. Life has to be lived now.”
It is: "This is me — exactly as I am right now. And I do not need to apologise for it."
This column will not offer advice. It will offer experience.
We will invite people to share their stories of returning to themselves.
We will speak with photographers and artists who know how to see beauty where we have learned to see only flaws.
We will search for ways to quiet the inner critic and finally allow our senses to wake up again.
Sexuality is not something that needs to be created or imitated.
It only needs to stop being blocked.
The moment you allow yourself to feel your body again — the warmth of your skin, the depth of a breath, the freedom of movement — desire returns on its own.
Without instructions. Without performance.
It simply awakens.
Because you have finally come home to yourself.
And perhaps that recognition is where the most important chapter of your life begins.
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Personal Story
Why I Choose to Photograph Myself Nude
Model: Evgenia Zapolnova Photographer: Nikolai Zapolnov
“I am 38 years old and have been in a relationship for nineteen years.
When I was younger I experienced harassment, and very early on I learned that male attention could be dangerous.
For years I tried to make myself less sexual in order to feel safe. I hid behind humour and self-irony.
I never believed my body was good enough. I felt that everyone saw only my imperfections. Even when my partner told me I was beautiful, I assumed he simply had bad taste.
But one day I realised something simple: later might never come.
Life has to be lived now.
And suddenly I discovered that I am attractive. That I am strong enough to face my fears.
Today I photograph myself nude because this is me.
Technically my body may look worse than it did at twenty, but in reality I feel far more sexual now than I ever did then.
For me it is control.
It is a challenge.
And it is completely, one hundred percent — about me.”