Unfasten your belt.
Unzip your pants —
let them fall.
Pull down your underwear.
Now, leave your dick to hang in the breeze of the climate controlled classroom.
—
In any other school situation, surrounded by a professor and students, following these steps would probably get you expelled and secure you a spot on the area’s registered sex offender’s list.
But, in this classroom, it is art.
Looking at the body as art strips it of its subjectivity, transforming it into solely an object.
The feeling of being an object is one like no other. When I nude modeled, I felt stripped of my humanity.
Clothes are used to highlight our personalities and create a consciousness of our bodies that all other species do not have, but here, I had none.
I was in my most vulnerable state —
Naked.
Nothing physical held back.
My most genuine me viewed through the lens of an object to craft.
Every twitch in my muscles and limbs was analyzed to the T. Listening to the professor talk about focusing on the structure of the neck or the jaw furthered both my status to others, and consciousness to myself, as an object.
Although it seemed to be completely focused on the art, at times, the penetrating gazes from students drawing your every limb made the experience feel much more complicated. It felt something more. It felt, as explained, vulnerable. Maybe my own inexperience with art contributed to these thoughts. But, the students seemed to have the same awkward experience. The unavoidable moments of eye contact left the student to quickly glance to their sketch pad and my eyes to refocus on counting ceiling tiles.
I did enjoy the moments of complete serenity during the drawings. It was akin to lifeguarding, but without the responsibilities. I could let my mind wander without worrying about anyone else — contemplation on the movement of my life, while physically stuck in a still pose. It was a sense of bliss and daydreaming that was only interrupted by intermittent concerns of getting an erection — creating an elephant in the room (no pun intended), and reassuring my tired limbs that the pose was almost over.
I have since run into some of the students who drew me around campus and it was more awkward than during the modeling session itself. Their awareness of my true self that is known only to people I am intimate with created this sort of tension and uncomfortableness in public that may have led to them not acknowledging me. Or, maybe I am wrong, and they just couldn’t recognize me with clothes on.