When They Come for Women's Bodies, We Answer With More Bodies

How Perceive Me Becomes Political Infrastructure in a Fall of Freedom

So this happened.

There's a nationwide creative resistance movement launching November 21-22 called Fall of Freedom. Artists, writers, musicians, theaters, galleries across the country organizing against rising authoritarianism. And right there in their list of what's at stake: "Women's rights rescinded."

When I saw that, something clicked into place about why Perceive Me feels so urgent right now.

For ten years I've been asking artists to look at my fat body and make something from what they see. Started as personal healing work - trying to understand why I spent decades shrinking myself, literally and metaphorically. Why I felt like I had to apologize for existing in this body. Why the mirror felt like an enemy.

But somewhere along the way it stopped being just about me.

Because here's what we're seeing: Every time someone poses nude for the portrait sessions, every time another person experiences what we're calling "radical seeing" - being looked at without judgment, without the beauty industrial complex telling them what their body should mean - something shifts. Not just for them. For everyone in the room.

And that's political.

The Beauty Industrial Complex IS Authoritarian

Let's be direct about this: The systems that tell women (and especially fat women, disabled women, trans women, women of color, aging women) that our bodies are wrong? That we need to fix ourselves, buy products, shrink down, shut up, take up less space? Those systems are connected to the same authoritarian forces that want to control what we do with our bodies, who we love, how we identify, whether we can access healthcare.

The beauty industrial complex is part of how fascism works. It keeps us focused on hating ourselves instead of dismantling oppression.

When you're busy trying to be smaller, you're not taking up space. When you're convinced your body is the problem, you're not questioning whose interests are served by keeping you compliant.

Perceive Me as Resistance Infrastructure

So what does it mean that Perceive Me exists in this moment?

It means every nude portrait session becomes an act of defiance. Every time someone steps in front of artists and says "see me as I am, not as the culture demands I should be," we're refusing the premise that our bodies need correction.

It means the archive of 800+ collaborative works we're building - all these different interpretations of the same body, all these ways of seeing that aren't filtered through capitalist beauty standards - becomes evidence that other ways of looking are possible.

It means when we scale this practice, when we train other facilitators to run portrait sessions, when we create replicable infrastructure for radical seeing, we're building alternatives to systems designed to keep us small.

Women's Rights ARE Body Rights

"Women's rights rescinded" - that phrase in the Fall of Freedom call includes abortion access, healthcare, bodily autonomy. All the ways our bodies are sites of political control.

And body image work? That's not separate from this. That's preparatory. Because you can't fight for bodily autonomy if you've internalized the belief that your body is inherently wrong, needs fixing, should be controlled.

Perceive Me is training ground for the radical idea that our bodies are ours. That we get to define what they mean. That being seen without shame is not just personal healing but political practice.

For or Against?

The Fall of Freedom organizers ask: where does your work fall within this movement? For or against us?

Perceive Me is FOR:

• Women claiming space with our actual bodies, not airbrushed versions

• Collective liberation over individual perfection

• Art as organizing infrastructure

• Bodies that refuse to apologize

• Community healing as resistance practice

• Multiple truths existing simultaneously (800 ways to see one body)

• Economic models that redistribute rather than extract

• Vulnerability as political strategy

Perceive Me is AGAINST:

• The beauty industrial complex that profits from our self-hatred

• Systems that tell us smaller is better, quieter is safer

• The lie that there's one right way to have a body

• Capitalism that requires us to hate ourselves to keep buying products

• Authoritarian control over women's bodies

• The erasure of fat bodies, disabled bodies, aging bodies, trans bodies from cultural visibility

This Is Precisely the Time

Picasso said painting is an instrument of war. Toni Morrison said this is how civilizations heal - artists doing the work when there's no time for despair.

So here we are. November 21-22, a nationwide wave of creative resistance. And Perceive Me is already doing the work: creating spaces where people can be seen without the filters authoritarianism requires, building infrastructure for collective liberation, proving that our bodies - exactly as they are - are not just acceptable but essential.

Every portrait session is a small revolution. Every time someone looks at their nude image and doesn't immediately start listing what's wrong with it, we're breaking the programming. Every time we choose to see each other with curiosity instead of judgment, we're refusing the systems that depend on our compliance.

The wall is transparent and penetrable. It always was.

And this fall? We're proving it together.

Want to be part of this? The Perceive Me nude portrait sessions are open to all bodies. Look for our next event February 27-March 1st during the Startup Art Fair at the Kinney Hotel in Venice Beach, CA. No permission needed, only the conviction to stand against oppression - starting with the oppression we've internalized about our own skin.