It's been a while since I last was able to meet with a photographer or model to make an interview for my blog. I had planned to meet several photographers in Paris mid of 2020, but due to Corona, this was impossible. As the internet is so full of creative people and we barely know each other, I still find this section of my blog one of the most interesting — and I hope you do so, too.
During the pandemic, I realised there's a growth of self-marketing activities among models. Sites like onlyfans and patreon were advertised everywhere and I thought, it would be nice to have a look on the other side. On instagram I came across a model who calls herself Video Girl Ary. The name is a reference to the famous manga figure Video Girl AI.
Ary lives in Italy and she is in excellent shape. She has always been an exhibitionist and a bit of a narcissist. On the side, she is working as a model, but mainly she poses for herself. She learned to know herself from all points of view and closely checks the results to improve her pictures over time. These self-portraits take up many hours of her day. About 90% of her time goes into this.
When you spread sensual photos on social media, you can expect a lot of feedback. Both from men and women. Her favorite audience is female, Ary explains. Women seem to value her artistic approach more. But she also takes advice from men who are interested in her art.
Inspiration comes from following trends and enjoying the works of colleagues who work in the field of self-portraiture. But the most important thing is to truely love eroticism and you can read it in a few glances of her sets.
Ary prefers filming videos more than taking photos. Seeing a body in motion increases the tensions and it also is proof that what you see is real.
I used to be a demure woman.
Before being an erotic model, she was very demure, Ary admits. She felt ashamed in front of other people. When there is a lack of culture and cultivation in a society, such things happen. Unfortunately in a bigoted society, it's hard for those who work in her field. But, meanwhile she has the ability to understand and decide for herself what is good and what is bad.
Luckily, where she lives, she does not have to hide her identity. Her family knows about her work. And actually, everyone in her little town Ferrara knows what she does, at least, they think they know, but most probably they assume wrong things.
I asked Ary, what erotism means to her. She says, for her, it's a way of being, it is not an accessory you wear, nor a dress, nor a part that you decide to play. Eroticism comes from within. The attention is not on being explicit. There are many women Ary has met who she found erotic looking, simply by how they stroked back a lock of hair with a finger, for example.
Ary can't be that narcissistic, though, because she did not want to tell me what she finds erotic in herself. She prefers to hear from others what they see, like or imagine to see.
Eroticism and feminism must be sisters.
When we spoke about feminism in today's world, Ary told me that we live in a world where we no longer know what feminism really is.
She gets angry with women when they claim to speak for the female sex, but it's only about how you grow hair under your armpits, what haircut you have between your legs or if you shave your legs or not. They talk about gender equality without knowing the true meaning. For Ary, eroticism and feminism must be sisters.
We are in 2021 now and the media landscape has changed. Meanwhile, anyone can become a content creator. It is nothing that is reserved for publishing houses, magazines and newspapers any longer.
And so, Ary is teasing with content on social media and you can sign up for deeper insights on sites like patreon and onlyfans — a new independence for models.
