A collaboration with Ulric Joseph, an artist I worked with between 2005 – 2009 in Baltimore, Maryland.

The body is not meant for consumption.

Before you continue, please read:
Consider this a trigger warning.

This is a series of artworks about sexual harassment and trauma. It has been slowly drip-released on Instagram and Facebook with trigger warning images before each work due to their possibly distressing nature.

With this in mind, I ask viewers and visitors who might be seeing this work for the first time here to go slowly and with intention. This series is difficult to take en masse, hence the very slow release. Please proceed with emotional caution.

Thank you.

ARTWORKS ARE LISTED IN THE ORDER OF SHOWING.

***

The Body Is Not Meant For Consumption
June 14, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, t-shirt, torn lace and mesh underwear, gel medium, acrylic paint pen.

Tell me /us how you really feel.

The last artwork created becomes the first in the series, the piece to close the circle in an exhibition setting. It is the beginning and the end.

I spent my adolescence and young adult life consumed by the (memories of) things I thought had ruined me indefinitely and made me unlovable. The things that made it hard for me to truly experience and accept love from others. As I was reeling and raging internally and hurting those who tried to love me, I didn’t realize that I was being consumed by the bad actors who sensed the depth of my damage and sought to take advantage of it.

As I grappled first with whether or not every decision I made was in fact an attempt to make myself more palatable to the male gaze and less likely to become a victim again, I eventually came to terms with my old perceptions of self and how those, too, had changed as I went from feeling shame about the experiences I had no control over to forgiving and accepting myself as I am. Damaged, flawed, and a hardened person who wants to be soft. Unbothered with anyone’s gaze and speaking my truth for those who can’t.

My skin suit is the least interesting thing about me. And nobody has a right to my body, or anybody’s body. I have written these true stories for those who feel unsafe sharing theirs, and for those who somehow still believe that women are lying about their experiences. These are my lived experiences in my body, which was never meant to be used by others.

Complacency makes the viewer a part of the problem, Do better. Expect better from others.

***

Four
May 18, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo, gouache, gel medium, acrylic paint, sharpie
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True story. 
Core memory.
I have always hated being tickled.
I hate that I’m ticklish. 

It’s hazy. I was so young.

I don’t know who he was. But he was associated with my father. A friend? Coworker? Neighbor? I don’t know if I was ever told. But he was trusted enough to be alone with me. He was trusted enough to be allowed tickle me. And my family often had me and my sister in dresses back then.

The whole story is in this artwork. He was sitting and pulled me onto his lap, stomach down, and he was tickling me. I kicked, screamed, cried, and was hyperventilating from the whole mess of involuntary laughter while begging for him to stop and struggling to escape. 

Where were my parents? Another room? Outside? I’m not a loud person anymore but I believe back then I screamed a lot when I thought it might help me get out of a situation I didn’t want to be in. 

I don’t remember calling for my parents. This screaming was standard when I got tickled. They might’ve heard it, might not have. I don’t know.

He stopped tickling me, and I stopped screaming to catch my breath, thinking it was over, hoping he wouldn’t start up again, as often happened. My consent was clearly never a concern with tickling. That’s when he pulled my underwear aside and put his adult sized finger inside of me. 

I think I cried. I clenched. I was frozen. I didn’t know what this was but I knew it hurt and thought it was bad. 

And then he pulled me off him, stood me up and told me ‘go on, get out of here’. And I ran. I ran upstairs to my bedroom, closed the door and cried in my Strawberry Shortcake canopy bed. Too exhausted from the crying and tickling to move but too scared to fall asleep. I just lay there frozen in bed. 

We moved to Maryland a little while later so I felt safe with the distance. Which I guess is how I always feel; escaped and safe far away. 

I hate that this is one of my earliest memories.

***

Nine
May 29, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo print, gouache, acrylic gel medium
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True story.

He and I went to the same school. He came to my house every day after we got out for an hour or two until his mom got home. We played games and Barbies and Nintendo together. Tried to dance like MJ. I thought we were friends.

Then one weekend he called in the middle of the day. He was giggling a bit as he asked me if I ‘had big tits’ if I’d ever ‘given someone a blow job’, and if I wanted to f*ck him. I was shocked, confused, and scared. I hung up on him. 

I told my mom and asked if we could change our number. We never changed our number but he never came over again. Luckily we went to different middle schools the next year. My mother and I never spoke of it again but she also never let me answer the phone after that. She screened my calls for a long time after that.

I didn’t see him again until we ended up in the same high school thanks to the changing districting of our neighborhoods. 

I kept my distance. Never spoke to him. We had one class together senior year, an AP course. I bullied him every chance I got in that class. By that point, I felt secure in my friends group and standing in the class as a whole. By then he was an easy target. 

I never told anyone about the experience or him until I had to plan a reunion and didn’t want to have to track him down. It wasn’t me who called the numbers looking for him. My best friend did that for me. 

A grown adult and I still don’t want to speak to him ever again. I’m not proud of my behavior but I’m not ashamed to admit I don’t feel bad for the way I treated him in the end.

***

Twelve
May 11, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black + white photo, gouache, acrylic gel medium
Photo: @ulric_joseph

True story.

These get harder the further back I go because now the only person who knows it all is my husband. I never talk about these underage ones. It took me a while to be in the headspace to write this. 

My family went to visit our friends and we spent the night. All the kids slept in the same room. I’m a back sleeper. I woke up in the morning to her, one of our friends, on top of me. Her hands were under my shirt and she was grinding on top of me. 

I froze, disoriented. I thought it was a dream. I stayed still at first and then when it became too much I started to slowly perform waking-up movements. She scampered off of me and away back to where she’d been sleeping on the floor.

I got up to ‘use the bathroom’ and immediately went and told my mom. 

Nothing was said after that but we left a day early. It was a long, confusing drive home. We never went back or saw them after that. 

A part of me can’t believe how many stories I have. I’m still not done. And I die a bit inside knowing that I’m not unique, which means that most of the people I know must also have more than one story. It’s them I’m sharing these for.

You never ‘get over’ something. It just becomes a part of your cloth as you move forward. I often wonder who I would be without these experiences. I found it hard to be friends with girls after that and didn’t really let many close to me for a long time. 

What or who did I miss or miss out on? 

I love the life I have now and where I am/who I’ve become. But she gets no thanks for this. 

***

Romantic 
April 18, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo print, acrylic paint, gel medium, gouache. 
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True Story.
It was the only time I’d ever lived alone. I woke up screaming. Spent the next three years reclaiming my body and control over it. Got called a slut by my peers. 

For this series, I chose to use gouache without adding gloss gel medium to it for the accent colors and hand lettering on most pieces. Gouache is extra dry and chalky when it dries and even cracks. We’ve discussed this before. 

I don’t think I need to spell out why a paint that dries like a barren, dry wasteland is good for these artworks. But it was a choice.

***

Nudity Does Nothing For Me
February 9, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white print, black and white photo, acrylic paint and gel medium, gouache, recycled/torn mesh underwear.
Photo by Ulric Joseph

From Instagram:
Nothing will make nudity a non-issue faster than a year (or four) of life drawing class. I say this all the time. And yet.

Continuing on with my anti-eroticism series with photos c/o Ulric Joseph. The writing on all of the artworks in this series is aggressive, but this one is confrontational in its specific attack aimed at the multiple creeps, some of them friends of my boyfriend at the time and not artistic at all, who thought it was ok to ask for the password to my art modeling website (long since defunct). The equivalent of asking someone you barely know for nudes.

The insolence.

Pro tip: when viewing an artwork that features a nude body, DO NOT EVER ask the artist “Is this you”? Instead, if the thought occurs, ask yourself if knowing the answer would change your perception of the artwork and/or the artist. If the answer is ‘yes’, move along, please. None of us have time for that.

***

Send Nudes
Initial Reaction
April 9, 2025
A4

Materials: art panel, black and white photo print, acrylic paint, gouache, mylar sheets, sharpie.
Photo by @ulric_joseph

This image only exists in digital form.
A lucky mistake, a fall of the cards, played it as it lay.

Sharing it here as a sort of process record before sharing the finished piece. 

I love this one. It accurately illustrates how angry thoughts in my head repeat and replay in a rising crescendo of noise until it finally breaks. 

And I was so, so beyond angry at this asshole.

**

Send Nudes
April 18, 2025
A4

Materials: art panel, black and white photo print, acrylic paint, gouache, sharpie.
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True story!

I sent a photo. It revealed nothing. Never heard from him again. Perfect. 

This is the final, finished artwork. Much cleaner than the earlier post because I want the message to be clear.

***

45 Times
May 29, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, b+w photo print, gouache, acrylic gel medium, sharpie
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True story.
In the time of Friendster and MySpace before college grads could join Facebook, I reconnected with a guy I knew in middle school. I think we had science y7 together. That was about it. I didn’t like or dislike him, it was just nice to hear from someone I hadn’t seen in a while. 

He found me online, we met up for lunch near my work once, that was it. I didn’t even let him pay. Just ‘hi, cool to catch up, back to work now!’, which was a mistake since it meant he knew where my office was. 

It all devolved from there with him telling me lies about people I went to high school with, and then telling me truths about how he’d found my sister’s profile and downloaded all of the photos she’d shared with me in them. 

I put everything to private and scrubbed the Internet of my presence, had my sister go private, deleted most of my photos online, and blocked him on MySpace. But he already had the photos. Mine and my sister’s.

That’s when the phone calls began, followed by the texts. I answered the first time to tell him not to call or message me again. So he proceeded to call me 45 times in a row, leaving me messages about which photos he was masturbating to as I drove home from work, stuck in my car in traffic, crying and freaking out about what was happening.

I called T Mobile mid-drive to change my number. At first they refused but when I was clearly a sobbing mess and explained what was happening that very minute, which they could see and verify, they changed it for me. 

And then there was silence. 
This story has a part 2 that will come later. 
That’s about the emails. 

***

Kill My Boyfriend
May 29, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo print, gouache, acrylic gel medium
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True Story.
Part 2.

After I blocked him and changed my phone number, he found my email address and started emailing me. 

This delusional, entitled scab on the face of the patriarchy felt the need to remind me that I was disabled and therefore undesirable and unworthy of love, and that he was doing me a favor by showing any interest in me at all. 

He detailed the photos he’d downloaded of me and what he was thinking of doing to me as he masturbated to them. 

Then he detailed how he intended to kill my boyfriend, who I was happily living with. In the same sentence he said my boyfriend wouldn’t take care of me into my crippled life like he would and that he would kill him to make me understand that it was necessary for us to be together. 

At that point I started taking screenshots on my phone, MySpace messages, messages between my sister and I, my call log, all of it. I blocked his email but still maintain a folder named ‘xx retraining order’ in my email account. 

I had to share the emails and screenshots with my school’s security team so they were aware of it because he knew where I worked and threatened to ‘meet me at the office with a knife’. 

This piece of shit made me go anonymous online for years. He made the Cranberries unlistenable. He made me afraid to go to work. I had to get escorted to my car for months.

He has naturally disappeared off the internet and I don’t care to find him. And he can’t afford to come find me so that’s that. 

P.S. still not crippled.

***

Couldn’t Say Yes
April 18, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black + white photo, gouache, acrylic gel medium
Photo: @ulric_joseph

True story.

I thought I was meeting a new friend for a drink at a location between our homes. I went to the toilet and left a half-finished, very weak drink on the bar. Ended up being so drunk from that one drink he carried me back to his place as I fell in and out of consciousness. 

I woke up half naked in his bed with him on top of me, his sweat dripping onto my face and his chest stubble scraping my skin. 

Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode was playing. 

I pushed him off of me, dressed myself while still totally wasted, and stumbled back to the bar and my car where I cried myself to sleep. I woke up and drove home, still drunk.

From then I either never drank while out without a partner or drove myself home drunk. Better than the alternative. I couldn’t trust anyone. 

I tried to tell my boyfriend what had happened but he didn’t believe me. 

I later ended up working at the same investment firm as him without knowing. I was so excited to have my first real graphic design job. He found my name in a group email and harassed me relentlessly from his desk in the building across the lawn. 

Instead of speaking to my coworkers or HR, I started looking for another job. My boss found out I was applying for new jobs and fired me with no notice. I never told anyone at that firm what happened. Just cried as I carried my box out to the parking lot, accompanied by a few concerned coworkers. I told people I left the job because it was boring. It wasn’t. I loved it. I just couldn’t stay near him. 

I stopped making friends with men after that. For a long time. Ghosted any male friend who seemed to have ulterior motives. Hid in crowds at clubs and pretended to have fun. Suppressed the shame.

Now I’m just angry.

***

I Wasn’t
May 29, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo print, acrylic paint, gel medium, gouache.
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True story, many times over.

How long has it taken to define and speak about all of the ways that seggsual coercion occurs and call it seggsual assault?

How many times have I said ‘yes’ just to get it over with, get out, and/or get to safety? Too many times to count.

Like the time a guy I was casually seeing came to my place and got annoyed with me for being exhausted (pre-MS diagnosis, but mere months at best) and sulked about it, saying ‘the least you could do is give me head’. I chose to lay on my back and disassociate because it’d be less work and then he’d leave. 

Or the time a guy spent three hours trying to convince me to f*ck him just this one time and did so while staying between me and the door, making me feel like the only way I’d get out was if I acquiesced. So I did. I made a grocery list in my head and meal planned until it was done.

Or the time a guy who was ‘a friend’ said I could sleep at his place when it was too late to walk home, and then told me it would be fine if I slept in his bed, and I woke up to him getting into bed with me. Like I owed him something. I thought we were friends. 

I could go on and on. But know that the ways we disassociate and compartmentalize are myriad. Just get it over with. You’re not special and this will never happen again. You’ll never see me again. I’ll never answer your call, or email, it’s done. 

Coercion crosses a boundary and is never truly consent. If you have to argue, convince or plead your case, the answer was no. And a yes after that is never happily given.

***

Daddy/Daughter
May 29, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo, gouache, acrylic gel medium 
Photo by @ulric_joseph

True Story.

I don’t remember the order of events, but he became my direct supervisor at around the same time as we initially hooked up. He was a few years older than me and wildly insecure. I wanted him anyway.

As soon as things got serious he got strangely critical of me, my body, and my clothing. It felt like he wanted control, and I wasn’t prepared to give it to him. He already had it at work. 

I was… defiant.

And then he told me about his fantasy that he wanted to act out: a young daughter who wanted to learn about seggs and asked Daddy to show her how to be a good girl. A daughter who lied to mom about being sick so she could stay home from school with Daddy. A good girl who wanted to please Daddy but didn’t know how to do it. A good girl who ‘choked on the size of it’ 🤮

He wanted compliance.

And I was laughing as I did it because of how ludicrous and unbelievable it was to me. I was ‘inappropriate laugh response’-ing the horror of it as I feigned compliance. It was traumatizing for me on multiple levels and I didn’t know how to express that back then. 

We didn’t last. 
I think it was because I knew what I wanted and asked for it. Or maybe my feelings showed themselves in other ways. He was my supervisor and I didn’t feel safe saying ‘no’.

Imagine my surprise when, after we broke it off, he started dating the ex-intern who was the right religion and a virgin waiting for marriage. She was at least four years younger than me. 

Imagine my horror when I found out she was pregnant. 

People will tell you who they are. Believe them.

I wonder if he told her.

***

All I Wanted Was a Safe Place to Sleep and What Remains: Broken Heart
February 15, 2025
9″ x 12″ and A6 card size

Materials: Palette paper, acrylic gel medium, gouache // Card stock, acrylic gel medium, gouache

From Instagram:
That time I thought I’d stay with a friend I trusted when I traveled to a different city for another friend’s wedding and all I got was SA. 

In a shock to absolutely no one, the perp stopped emailing me as soon as I left and didn’t respond to my messages after the fact. He’s got such a common name that he’s hard to find online and honestly, I don’t care enough to seek him out. Case closed, lesson learned, never again. 

It was my fourth and final SA.

(What Remains):
This is from the paint that remained after the piece but was also used to make the piece. 

I like that it looks like a broken heart. Because that’s how I felt when I realized what was happening, and what it meant: that I’d bore my soul to and trusted the wrong person.

***

“The Price (All I Wanted Was a Safe Place To Sleep)”
April 11, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, Black and White Photo Print, Acrylic Paint Pen, Mesh, Lace (torn underwear)
Photo by Ulric Joseph

The actual piece after the abstract paint. No paint here. The first three artworks in the series are illustrations of my anger and rage reactions to interactions with inconsequentials. The following artworks are more clear and direct as their messages need to be seen, to be read, to be understood. 

There is a confrontation between the initial urge to look at a nude image and then the realization that hits when what the words say is read. The juxtaposition forces the viewer to consider what their expectations upon seeing the image might have been vs what their reaction is after reading the words. 

Every body tells a story. But some have to be spoken if the damage is invisible.

***

All The Way To Germany
June 14, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, t-shirt, torn lace and mesh underwear, gel medium, acrylic paint pen.

Bye, Felicia. True story. 

I loosely dated him at Uni for a minute and taught him about astrology, which will come back later. Graduated and went on with my life, barely kept in touch. Moved to Germany and was living happily with my partner.

He got in touch, found out I was living in Germany. Asked if he could come visit since he wanted to go to the Essen car show. I said sure, come stay with us. No problem. We’ll come with you.

The schedule changed and my partner had to leave for work abroad halfway through the visit. I didn’t think it was a big deal. My old friend was here for the car show. 

Well, yes and no. Here for the car show but strangely infuriated by how often my partner and I said ‘I love you’ to each other. Sulking around cities with us the whole time. Silent treatment and exasperated exhales for no reason. As soon as my partner left, my visitor had the audacity to sit on my and my partner’s bed, telling me (shouting at me) how annoying we were together, that we’d never last, and that he knew me better than this. He then proceeded to recite a bunch of outdated shit about Scorpios that I’d taught him as if it was his own knowledge. Shit that no longer applied to me. He didn’t know me. He hadn’t seen me. He’d seen an opportunity. 

I couldn’t believe this guy had come all the way to Germany thinking he might get laid. Because that’s definitely what he intimated after my partner was gone. 

We didn’t talk for the final days of his trip. Drove him two hours to the nearest airport, dropped him off. He said, ‘see you later’, to which I replied, ‘no, you won’t’. 

For a moment driving home, I wondered how I manage to continually attract such insolent garbage. Then I remembered I’m not unique and this shit happens to everyone. 

I chose this song very specifically for the way he chose to tell me I’d be better off with him 😂👋

***

If I Wanted You, I Would’ve Had You.
December 8, 2024
A4

Materials: Art Panel, Digital print, Gouache, Acrylic paint and gel medium, Recycled/torn lace underwear, and a whole lot of anger.
Photo by Ulric Joseph

From Instagram:
No need to wonder.

Taking aim at the multiple men in my life who have crawled out of the shadows for no reason at all uttering lines like, ‘I’m worried about you’, as I am continually and unapologetically living my best life. Assuming they have some space in my existence, and perhaps even a chance with me when they didn’t manage to graze the footnotes. The entitlement or supposed right they feel they have to me and my life, which they were never invited to, is the epitome of audacity.

***

My Queerness Does Not Require Your Understanding 
April 9, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo print, gel medium, gouache.
Photo by @ulric_joseph

Nobody has to understand the unique things that make me or anybody else queer. And no, I/we don’t need to go into detail about it. I won’t. Boundaries. Google it ffs.

***

Ecstatic Consent
April 18, 2025
A4

Materials: Art Panel, black and white photo print, gouache, acrylic gel medium.
Photo: @ulric_joseph

Taking a breather from the trauma to share this very basic message. 

This is the only acceptable type of consent between adults. If it feels forced, coerced, or is not given at all due to the individual’s state, then it’s not consent. 

It’s not erotic if it’s unwanted.
It’s not a compliment if it’s unwanted. 
If it’s not reciprocated, it’s unwanted. 
It’s not a ‘yes’ if it’s unwanted.

***

I Don’t Think About You At All
October 31, 2024
A4

Materials: Art panel, Inkjet print, Gouache, Acrylic paint, Recycled/torn/cut lace and mesh. Photo by Ulric Joseph

From Instagram:
The first image I created in a mixed media collaboration with my friend @ulric_joseph referencing work we created 15 years ago. We’ve come so far and so much has changed for us and the world since then that it felt like the right time to revisit this project and ask the question, “What is truly erotic now?”.

I’ve got so much to say and write and yell on this topic as a woman and an artist, but to start I’ll say that anything real and valuable should be a two-way experience that is positive for all involved consenting adult parties. Anything less than that is a form of exploitation and isn’t acceptable.

This work and topic drudged a lot of my past up to the surface, with anger being the emotion sitting on top. From this series, expect some angry, confrontational messages. As a (multiple) SA survivor, being able to revisit this period in my life from a safe distance to take ownership of the narrative has been empowering in a way I didn’t know I needed. I thought I’d been over all of this already. But here we are.

I hope it alienates TF out of anyone who has ever committed SA and resonates with anyone who has been on the receiving end. We can tell our stories. We can point fingers. We don’t have to be afraid.

The body is not meant for consumption.

I say that with so much literal and figurative distance from my own attackers. I know not everyone feels safe disclosing their experiences when the perpetrators might still be nearby. But your time will come. And I hope when that time arrives you aren’t afraid to scream it, shed tears openly, and slash tires about it. In the meantime, I share these extremely personal stories for myself and for all of those who cannot speak on their own experiences.

It can’t be a stigma when everyone I know has their own story.