To display a boudoir photograph with a child in the home?

[Notgoingononlyfansyet]

I ‘won’ one of those boudoir shoots and bought some pictures. It was just a bit of a fun, but the pictures are AMAZING. They honestly make me feel capable of anything and really brought home to me that everyday me isn’t all I can be. That with a little extra expertise and resource I can do something very, very different. It’s such a great concept to get my head around and apply in general. (Also, I look smoking hot and who doesn’t love that?!)

I really want to display some of the pictures. They aren’t tacky or sleazy. I’m wearing more that I was on the beach last month. Full Bra, brazillian pants, and a jacket in some shots. No stockings, thongs or bondage type undies. No handcuffs, but some hobby props (a hat and a book. Some pearls) She sees me naked all the time (but I respect her privacy however she prefers and I don’t brazenly wander about naked. We have dogs that open doors, it’s unavoidable, not deliberate or overtly liberal. She locks the bathroom, but will happily yell for me to get her a towel etc. All no big deal in an all girl household) But the pics are overtly sensual. I don’t have a partner and her father is permanently out of the picture for over than a decade. I do sometimes date and she knows about that in age appropriate detail.

My biggest concern is that she will connect it with my dating (which is fairly new and not unconnected in that both are because I feel more sexy than I have for years) but it’s not that dating leads to needing to change to be attractive for dates. It’s feeling more attractive and exploring that through dating AND how I present myself now I have a bit more freedom from lone parenting. How much do I share?! Is it creepy? Is it tacky, even though the pic itself isn’t? Or is it empowering and celebrating myself? (I could have one without my face in and make put it’s not me, but that seems even weirder!)

I’m not going to hang it in the sitting room, but she’ll see it often in my room. So will her friends as they come in and out of her room, because the only blank wall faces the door and our dogs open the door. We’ll have to have at least a chat about not telling my mother/all the neighbours/the greengrocer’s cat about it, what to say to her friends and not to let them photograph it! I just don’t think she’ll get it. I wouldn’t have got it at her age. (I wouldn’t have got it 12 months ago!). Is it unreasonable to expect her to get it with the right framing or should I wait? Until
when?!

All views welcome, but be polite! (Apologies for length, I’m thinking out loud)

The problem isn’t the nudity or underwear or whatever - it’s that these photos show you/the subject in what is intended to be a state of sexual arousal.

Making your child participate in that as an unwilling observer is wrong and would be borderline abusive. Sorry to be so blunt, and I understand you don’t intend it to be like this - but it is.

As an aside ‘boudoir shoot’ is excruciatingly vommy - twee and euphemistic, but also somehow deeply creepy. Something that Alan Partridge’s sex people would say.

Every single word of that.

The pp who mentioned it being the same as being seen in a bikini at the beach has obviously never seen a boudoir photo.

I take your point (and many others) However, she is thirteen. She is old enough to understand the difference between secrets and privacy and consent to be photographed. Consent and rights to privacy are really, REALLY important concepts for teens to learn and very distinct from shameful secrecy, don’t you think? We have absolutely discussed those already and I have called out people who don’t respect hers (for example, she is ND, and rightly chooses herself who knows that). I have modelled that it’s her right not to share things she doesn’t want to, or to share with only some people, without being embarrassed or ashamed of them. She is fully aware that a secret is something someone else pressures her to keep about herself. Privacy is something she herself chooses to how to share about herself. That secrets are imposed, and generally unhealthy and surprises (which have an end point) generally OK. That if she is concerned about a secret she can tell ANY trusted adult to check. A trusted adult is one I have previously left her alone with. There is no shame in privacy. Privacy for something in a bedroom IS distinct from something in a communal area of a house. I don’t think the secrecy problem is a valid argument. I just need to make it clear to her. The social suicide point some people have made certainly is. But then surely I am entitled to have things I share with family members, and no further. We all are (unless you have toddlers. Sorry mamas. They grow)

I am proud of my pictures. But they should be my choice who to share it with. She has the option of socialising downstairs if she wants to. We have two reception rooms and she knows she can use them and I will leave them to it. There’s only the two of us. Perhaps it’s time to consider that only people entitled to that level of confidence for both of us are invited upstairs? Perhaps it will help her to stop considering my bedroom as the communal space it has been up till now?

The dogs can open the door. I could fit a lock, I suppose, but it will get left it open often, same as the kitchen they aren’t supposed to be allowed in. If have your hands full it’s SUCH a pain. There is no wall space in the en suite and my wardrobe doors fold. There’s my office, but it’s the same set up. Only wall space faces the door and dogs
and kids in and out. Up until now, I’ve welcomed that unless I’ve specifically asked for time to concentrate (rare)

I suppose I’ve just never bothered much with my privacy. She didn’t sleep through until she was 12, so was often in and out of my room. The bloody dogs sleep with me too (one has a chronic digestive illness and frequently needs to go out at night. I don’t love it, but it’s better than the mess)

IMO only three people should see a "boudoir" photograph:

1. The photographer
2. The subject
3. The subject's spouse or partner

End of story.

Privacy about regular family nudity is totally different than privacy about sex.

Even someone who sees you naked every day in the swimming pool change room doesn't want to see your boudoir photo, just like they don't want to hear you having sex.

I also find the idea of becoming the sexual object of one’s own gaze really disturbing and not at all empowering- to me it only demonstrates how few arenas there are for us as women to inhabit our selves, be our own subjects or express identities that are not contingent on the male gaze . But that’s a whole different conversation.

Sorry OP, it's just completely inappropriate even after reading your response. Don't inflict those pictures on your daughter.

I’m not asking her to keep a secret. I’m
asking her to respect my privacy. On something in MY BEDROOM. Seems like an important lesson to me.

That absolutely may not be appropriate at thirteen. When would it be? I respect hers, (unless it’s a health issue)

One of her friends will take a photo of it and share it. That cannot be undone. Keep it in a drawer and hang up when required

Just don't. Really really don't.

The cringiness isn’t about what the image shows, the cringiness is the insecurity driving the whole thing - the desire for attention, the desire to ‘show off’ - secretly hoping your daughter will be, what? envious? That her boyfriends coming over think you’re a ‘milf’? It’s a bit desperate. And inappropriate in a home shared with people other than a sexual partner.

Come on now. You made this post because you already know these photos aren't appropriate for display in your home. Keep them in a private album for yourself.

Hell nope.

Mum had a picture of her and it was very embarrassing. She had a beautiful figure {I can see now} but just a great big no if you have children under the age of 50.

No, especially as you don't have a private space to display it. If you have a private walk in wardrobe maybe in there, otherwise keep it out of sight. I don't need to see friends, family or anyone like that.

Why do you need to look at yourself all the time in one of those photos that never looks like the real person?😂

Without going into too much detail, this is very similar to my friend's situation. When word got out amongst her children's friends that she was 'racy' the gossip and bullying her kids had to endure, particularly the middle one, was unbearable. I'm not being a prude, but if its something you wouldn't want your mother to see you don't want to run the risk of this ending up the subject of school gate gossip. The middle child went from being bubbly and outgoing to shut down and depressed overnight. I am sure you look lovely in the pictures - I posed as a nude model myself when my son was a baby, and there was one portrait in particular that I really liked and reassured me that my post baby body was still beautiful. The artist gifted me with it, and I really did love it. My son has never seen it, tasteful though it is. So, I do know how you feel. But you have to understand that the world your daughter lives in can be merciless. She's in secondary school for God's sake. They're fecking monsters.

God almighty I think I would have passed away if my mum had done this.

This is the sort of thing my mother would have done. Teenage me would NOT have been a fan.

I really want to display some of the pictures. They aren’t tacky or sleazy.

They are. They absolutely are.

Ewwwww tacky chavy tacky, yuck

No but I wouldn't put up photos of myself in a bikini or underwear on the wall.

Also I really don't get why somebody would want to display a promiscuous photograph of themselves (presumably in risqué clothing) in their home?

In your bedroom I think its fine and that you are overthinking it.

If you were to put one on each wall of every reception room in your house.....not so much, but in a room that anyone would reasonably be consider to be private, not inappropriate at all! Frankly anyone who looks that closely into a room that is seen accidentally does not get the right to be offended by what they might see!

Well there is an intelligent reaction. NOT.

So calling someone chavy is fine but displaying a picture of oneself in ones own private bedroom isnt?

Eww No.