I’m officially in my mid-thirties; I should be professional and appropriate by now, right?
Um…
…right?
Honestly, I don’t know that I fit into the average subjective definition of either term. However, it has been an idea that has been wriggling around on the skin of my mind lately.
I am the parent of two young children. My partner and I are both very “outside the box” people, so he and I struggle with constantly trying to teach our children to behave inside the social box. This is the sort of contentious relationship I have with social norms and expectations, but by some miracle, I have managed to balance my rebellion into measures of social success thus far in my life.
Yet, as I delve deeper into being a horror author, I find the questions surfacing again. Most specifically, as I post images of me half naked and covered in blood on the wide internet.
Professionally, I have never had much of a problem. I’m reasonably intelligent and have done well through my career. I’ve performed high at my various jobs, though the jury is still out on the new role I just started. The issue is never my work or my work ethic; rather, I might be too much “me” at work. I’ve been scolded by a Master Sergeant in Iraq for cussing too much. I’m simply a very open person. So, my other career of dealing in horror is perhaps a little too public.
I see no issue with someone executing their day job then going home to dabble in any kind of deviant art. That does not mean everyone feels the same way. Our culture is very strange and hypocritical about female expression and nudity. We are bombarded with the imagery of naked women but then told a woman who is naked publicly is morally bereft. While I have yet to encounter any negative consequences for my blatant exhibitionism, I am ever aware of the threat.
I consider what employers, clients, or future employers might encounter when they Google me. I would like to think they could separate the art from the artist and focus on my qualifications, but I simply do not have that much faith.
Am I unprofessional because I am publicly and unapologetically me outside of the “office”? Do I get to be taken seriously when I am comfortable enough in myself to lay my mind and skin bare?
Working in IT, I harbor no illusions about the internet. After working with the government and military for so many years, I am well aware of how much of a delusion “privacy” is now. I know anything sent or shared or even simply residing on a computer with wireless capability is not private. I deal with this reality but simply having no secrets, having nothing that could be uncovered and used against me.
Plus, I have an exhibitionist streak about as wide as half my personality, so I would voluntarily be advertising it even if no one would ever have access to it.
Maybe I can be professional. I can do my job well entirely separate from any extracurricular activities, even if I do post them very openly, very accessibly to employers or clients. What about “appropriate”? The word appropriate itself causes my neck to flex and my lip to curl in a hint of a twitch. I have never wanted to be appropriate because of the many ways the society that manufactures the definition is simply…wrong.
But I’m also older now. Hi, Middle Age; yeah, I see you right there over the horizon. And, more importantly, I am raising children. Get into the box, kids, so you can understand it (and hopefully then jump right out of it and set it on fire).
Is it appropriate for a 35 year-old woman to pose for pictures naked and covered in fake blood? Why not? After pregnancy and gravity have had their way with me, it is the time I have felt most comfortable in my body, given the least amount of fucks. The question sounds a lot like, am I skinny enough to wear a bikini? Now, is it appropriate for a mother of young children to do so? And more than that, be open with her children about it, share and explain the pictures. I am too observant to have not noticed the judgement on parents around me.
Is it appropriate to expose them to horror and art? I let them participate in their own bloody photoshoots, obviously without the nudity involved in some of mine.
My instinctual answer to all of these questions is: hell yes, it’s appropriate. It is my body to live in and reveal as I want. I provide my children with a safe and happy home and do not expose them to anything carelessly or without evaluation. Yet I remain acutely aware of all the consequences I could be tempting in the distance. Maybe they never come, but it would be reckless to plunge through life so carelessly. I insist on living deeply, not stupidly.
Then, maybe the most poignant question: am I safe? I hate that I even have to write that, that it is a question that has to occupy such constant real estate in my mind, but the real world is dark and full of terrors. Like I said, realities of the internet. When will I interact with the wrong person? When will I post the wrong picture? When will I share the wrong detail? When it will be too much and the consequences will be more than social?
The more I find and express myself, the more I question what it will cost me. Everything in life has its price. My brain, especially the depressive mind, quietly catalogs all the ways it could go wrong in the background. I am happy being myself. Writing dark and twisted stories. Taking pictures soaked in fake blood. Dancing on the stage. Posting about the inner workings of my fractured mind. It feels right, within MY definitions of professional, appropriate, and (hopefully) safe.
I will continue my path unaltered and see where it leads. Sometimes, I just need to stop and unpack the doubts from my head.
Fiery Pen 
You do you, lady! Own it! And as far as kids go, the way I see it is as long as you are making considered decisions you are doing better than most. Worrying that you might be making mistakes is a sign that you’re doing it right. Showing your kids that you embrace and love yourself (bloody or not) is infinitely less damaging than obsessing over fitting into a smaller size. (My two cents)
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Thanks, lady! Means a lot.
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