The Woman Who Took Off the Flannel: A Spell for Releasing the Conditions

It was November 2023, and I had decided to gift a book full of saucy photos of me to my then-husband for Christmas. If I'm being totally honest, it was something I wanted to do for myself, too. I had lost about seventy-five pounds and was starting to feel at home in my body again for the first time in a long time. For the ten years prior, I had been steadily gaining weight. I just couldn't seem to muster the energy to reverse course. But then I did (that's a story for another day). I wanted to remember this season of my life. I wanted evidence that I could do hard things. And I wanted to share that feeling with my husband because I loved him and hoped it would make him happy too.

So I got a mani-pedi, ate a light breakfast, packed my favorite of his flannel shirts, and headed to Allison Pamela Photography. Well, first I spent several hours trying to quiet the inner voice insisting that I wasn't thin enough, sexy enough, or beautiful enough to deserve professional photos. Worse, there was another voice whispering that my husband might not even like them. That one was harder to ignore.

The experience wasn't what I expected. I think I imagined the photographer saying things like, "Make love to the camera," or, "More seductive, daaaahling." Instead, it was just a couple of women in a simple photography studio. One had a camera. The other had a giant box of makeup and a curling iron.

After the fake eyelashes were satisfactorily attached, I went into the bathroom to change into my first outfit: a simple white bra and matching thong. I looked at myself in the mirror and pinched the soft cushion of skin around my belly. My eyes traced the stretch marks that mapped years of change. I negotiated with my reflection. Think about where you came from, babe. You're loving yourself better now than you ever have. It's okay to celebrate this. Perfection is a fool's mission.

I managed to pump myself up enough to leave the bathroom, but I kept my husband's flannel wrapped around me like a protective spell. Allison told me I was beautiful, and I almost believed her. Then she patiently guided me through the poses. Move your hand this way. Arch your back a little more. Tilt your chest toward the light. It's kind of a workout, if I'm being honest.

After a while she turned the camera around and showed me one of the photos. I liked it. Not in the polite, obligatory way you're supposed to like photos of yourself. I genuinely liked it. For the first time that day, I thought perhaps I could do this. Perhaps I wasn't crazy for wanting this. Perhaps I wasn't ridiculous for trying to turn doubt and grief into something beautiful.

I worked up the courage to take off the flannel. And then the bra, too.

When Christmas Day arrived and it was finally time to give my husband the finished album, I was nervous all day. Maybe I should have gotten him an Apple product. Or another suit. Or something for golf. Or a canoe. Men seem to love canoes. Nobody has ever looked disappointed opening a canoe. But the gift I had chosen to give him was pictures of me.

I toggled between two competing thoughts: What kind of narcissist thinks pictures of herself could be a Christmas gift? And: Women do this for their husbands all the time. Sex and intimacy are gifts too.

When he opened the gift bag and rustled aside the tissue paper, my stomach tightened. The box was elegant and heavy, lined in red velvet inside. I had spent an embarrassing amount of time choosing it. I watched his face more closely than I watched the gift itself.

He opened the box and flipped through the pages. "Ooh, sexy," he said, smiling. "When did you do this?"

"I took a day off work in November and made a whole day of it. Got my nails done. Went to have the photos taken as a surprise."

"Oh." He set it aside.

Six months later, I was kneeling on the bedroom floor sorting donation piles and winter sweaters when I saw the familiar gift bag tucked into the corner of the closet. The tissue paper was still folded neatly over the top, crisp and undisturbed, as though Christmas had happened yesterday. My stomach dropped.

The first thought that went through my mind was: I should have gotten him something better. The second thought was worse. What's wrong with me that my husband doesn't want to look at this?

I continued sorting clothes and choking back waves of grief.

When he came home later that day, I asked whether he liked the album. "Well," he said, "you said you did it for yourself. It wasn't really for me."

In that moment, a dozen questions surfaced all at once. Who is my sexuality for? And if it's only for me, is it a zero-sum game? Does claiming it somehow prevent the man I've chosen to spend my life with from enjoying it too? Are we so far apart from each other that a win for me no longer feels like a win for us? Did I hurt him somehow? Is he put off by me?

I didn't like the answers implied in those questions, so I never asked them out loud. Perhaps I should have. Instead, not too long afterward, when I decided to walk away from that marriage, I made a beeline for the album. I gently lifted the gift bag from the closet shelf where forgotten things went to disappear. I slid it onto the passenger seat beside me and drove away. Not out of spite. Not out of malice. Simply because he didn't want it. And I so desperately did.

I wanted to remember that I am capable of change. That I can do difficult things. That I can leap outside my comfort zone. That I can, dare I say it, look sexy—with a considerable amount of assistance from a kind and highly skilled photographer.

But perhaps that is what I was trying to give myself all along. Not permission to be desired. Permission to be seen. The photographs were never proof that I was sexy enough. They were proof that I had stopped waiting to earn my place in my own body.

For years, I believed sexuality was something granted by another person's attention. Something that could be confirmed or denied depending on whether someone looked, wanted, approved, or reached for me. But sitting in my car after I left that marriage, the album resting beside me, I began to wonder if that wasn’t quite right.

Maybe my sexuality is not a gift someone gives me. Maybe it is a gift I give myself. And maybe the right partner won't feel threatened by that. Maybe he'll delight in it. Maybe he'll see my joy in myself and experience it not as competition, but as an invitation.

The album still reminds me that I can do hard things. That I can change. That I can step in front of a camera while arguing with every insecurity I possess. But more than that, it reminds me of the woman who finally took off the flannel. The one who decided she was worth seeing, even if she wasn’t sure anyone else would be looking.

Download this spell to add to your grimoire here: