Manchester’s Pillow Princess. Modelling, Face-riding and empowerment vs exploitation.

Anon.

(TW: Mild reference to SA)

My coworker approaches me, beaming. I fold the same pile of polyester crap I had been folding for the past 5 hours, bemused by her excitement. She tells me she saw photos of me in a magazine being sold in town. Pulling them up on her phone, my stomach turns. I recognised them straight away.

With the internet overrun with AI slop and Metaglasses content, I was not expecting my exploitation to be at the hands of another artist, albeit another queer woman.

I really wanted to be a part of something beautiful, surrounded by lesbians and fellow queer people, to find a proper community amongst the horrors of an exceedingly right-wing Britain. To be celebrated and considered, not just photographed and dropped. I was torn between speaking my truth and suffering the consequences, or humbly giving in. They have more social monopoly than me, I’d think; even if I did say something, would people even care? I would never want to come across as if I am tearing another woman down, so I licked my wounds and went offline, submitting like a true pillow princess. But it seems I am already suffering the consequences despite keeping my concerns to my inner circle, so this is my last resort. People talk; everyone knows everyone in Manchester. If nothing is private and if people can tell whatever story they want, then I might as well put my own two pence in. Especially when it is my experience, and my story to tell.

I met the alleged photographer through my partner, and I was flattered that she wanted me out of everyone she knew to model for her.

I had had some unsavoury experiences in the past: male designers musing over how ‘childlike’ my features are and photographing me getting changed, others refusing to share intimate images with my agency, and doing god knows what with them instead. This feeling of being surveyed and exploited is unfortunately all I have come to associate with being in front of the camera. Each photo I look back at, I hear my ex’s voice in my ear, slutshaming me, telling me it was these posts that gave that man the impression he could rape me. Time after time, shot after shot, I would watch myself being watched. Like John Berger warned me I would.

When sexuality is thrust upon you at such a young age, it is almost impossible not to embrace it. It feels liberating at first. In front of the lens, I would transform, becoming a caricature of what people assume I am. It felt like a privilege to model. I must be beautiful, I thought. I never felt that way growing up. But as I got older, I realised how everything sticks. Female sexuality became a trap that I naively stumbled right into. These photos, these feelings… they were always going to be there for the world to see. The constant dispute I had in my mind was craving to express myself, but simultaneously terrified of being perceived the wrong way. A model has no control over the narrative, and that haunted me.

I spilled my heart out to this photographer, sending a rambling voice note ahead of the shoot expressing my concerns regarding the sexual nature of the reference imagery, and she told me that everything would be approached sensitively. I was excited to finally work with a queer woman, to feel seen and to finally do a shoot where I felt respected and empowered.

Only now do I realise that it fell on deaf ears.

I opened Instagram a couple of weeks later to photographs of me in sheer lace lingerie, posted online without my knowledge. When I say sheer, I mean the underwear hardly covered my nipples and my bush. You could see almost everything, and I am surprised Meta didn’t flag it straight away. It was a two-piece that we ended up layering underneath another garment for the final images; it was not intended to be worn alone.

The reminder of seeing those photos online leaves my stomach in a knot to this day. Friends and followers alike repost, comment, and like these photographs of me before I could get a word in edgeways. I am showered with praise for being so brave and confident. My phone was blowing up, and I felt sick.

I didn’t feel brave or confident. I didn’t feel liberated. I felt exposed.

It is funny how photos can do that: tell a completely different story from the truth.

They were film photographs we took between looks. I assumed they would be reserved for her university sketchbook to document the styling, so I was happy to pose for them at the time. I never would have consented to the whole world seeing them. There was no release form, not even a message from this girl asking if I was cool with her followers seeing my tits. I asked her to take them down, and she did, but it was too late. Everyone had already seen them.

After that, she made t-shirts with my face and bikini-clad body on them. She sent me a photo of her at an event, a pile of t-shirts already printed and folded on her stall table, ready to sell.

They read: Face Rider. I was gobsmacked.

What do you think? She had asked, retrospectively.

She was charging twenty pounds a pop for shirts with ironed-on exploitation.

It was hastily changed to Pillow Princess for the second round of shirts, which was less vulgar but overall still creepy. I just don’t find anything revolutionary about calling a feminine lesbian the exact stereotype of her sexuality. It didn’t feel like she thought about it at all, to be honest, but perhaps I’m missing some genius idea behind it all.

I later saw her sitting at the same stall table at another event. It was my birthday, and I was not letting anyone ruin my day. When I asked for one, she generously only charged me fifteen. For a T-shirt of my own face and body, made without my consent. My girlfriend paid for it begrudgingly, and we tried to enjoy our night despite it. I had no choice, really; the damage was done. I just had to be cool with it.

Because that’s what models are, right? So cool!

The imagery was clearly created for queer consumption, but what people don’t realise, as they exist in their echo chambers, is that if it’s online, anyone can see it. I could not stomach what would happen if these photos ended up in the wrong hands, or were put through AI. If my family or future employers saw me posing as a ‘self-proclaimed facerider.’ If boys from school or random creeps online saw those photos and saved them for when they were lying in bed at night. I thought another woman would understand this. You would think a publication allegedly founded on empowering and celebrating queer people would at least get people’s consent before making wild statements with their face on it.

But if that makes me a prude, then I guess I am. If I had made those shirts myself or posted those photos myself, then I would have stood by it. I have definitely done some risqué stuff in the past. But I had nothing to do with the public announcement that I liked to sit on my girlfriend’s face; it just was not something I felt I needed to share with the world. Or something I even said in the first place. I cannot resist this all-consuming feeling that she is profiting off of my discomfort.

I was gaslit by old mates, fooling me into the belief that it ‘wasn’t that deep’ and ‘she is such a nice girl I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it.’ People I know still say the same thing to me today, which hurts. In the hustle-culture of the Manchester art scene, there doesn’t seem to be much critical thinking going on, or empathy. Most, it seems, would sacrifice that for a way in. But I question whether any of these people would have been so nonchalant with it if it was their body online and their face on a T-shirt? Would they be happy if I reduced their discomfort to a petty disagreement that they should suck up and deal with? I wonder if this would have been taken so lightly if it was a straight male photographer who did this to me? I have my doubts. If she was a guy, the whole of Instagram would have started a witch hunt to ensure she never worked again. Instead, my own community snidely remarks that ‘she knew what she was getting herself into,’branding me as some kind of drama queen who is difficult to work with. I would expect more from self-proclaimed ‘feminists’ than to abuse the age-old rhetoric that women who advocate for themselves are ‘difficult.’

I don’t think it was a malicious act. It was, however, a lack of foresight and appreciation that I am a real human being with feelings, and not just a two-dimensional figure in a photograph. And it happens all the time to young women like me, trying to make a name for ourselves. The cruel part is the lack of accountability, the instant attempt to diminish my feelings for the advancement of a career or a couple of T-shirt sales.

I would be lying if I said this hadn’t happened before. I guess I blamed myself for doing the shoots in the first place, even though I have never consented to anything being published in print. You could throw a stone in Manchester and find an uncompromising photograph of me. As a disillusioned nineteen-year-old with the expectations of ‘making it,’ I mimicked every Kate Moss editorial I could find on Pinterest. Editorial photographers love a waifish figure and peculiar features. I wasn’t conventionally attractive or sexy enough to sell any clothes, so I just took mine off for the camera. I think I got some weird kind of ego from the fact that I would take my top off whilst other models refused. Like I thought it made me better, more serious. I spent my early 20s banking on the miracle that my skinny body on Instagram would elicit inspiration in a famous photographer and the rest would be history. But that never happened; I got older, and after several mental breakdowns and more traumatic experiences, I threw in the towel completely. Now I try to find any job where that phase of my life won’t come back to bite me. My mother pitches a career in teaching to me almost weekly, but how do I tell her that I wouldn’t even pass 

the online screening part of the hiring process? That pupils could easily swan into Unitom to see a photo of their teacher undressing. I wouldn’t risk it.

I must clarify that I am not writing this for vengeance, nor do I want to boycott or cancel a fellow artist; hence why I am not naming and blaming. My story serves as a warning to all artists and an open message to the creative scene.

Photographers: get written consent from your models.

When we remove the petty social politics out of the matter, the fact is that these people have repeatedly published explicit images of me without my consent.

It is that simple.

It fatigues me that many of these photographers did a degree and already have published work, yet have never seen, touched, or printed an image release form. Even if you have no respect for your subjects, you would assume one would at least cover their back whilst attempting to establish a business. But ideally, as artists, we should be more inclined to see our models as people, especially when making work that is meant to represent them. Otherwise, is it not just superficial? Those Nan Goldin-inspired, ‘documentary’ style photos that half the industry churns out right now feel highly choreographed and borderline exploitative when you are the one in front of the lens. There is only so much ‘Yass Queen’-ing and ‘Period’-ing that can veil what is seemingly an empty interpretation of queer culture. These people in the photos have feelings, lives and jobs outside of their creative endeavours, and this should be recognised. I have seen it countless times: how the insatiable appetite of the voyeur destroys its subject. Every muse is eventually worn out.

I don’t want to stand on my soapbox and lecture a group of grown adults, but I worry that people have become so rotted by social media that they have lost all human touch. Hustlers who promote community like it is a sales buzzword but, behind the scenes, struggle to show an ounce of consideration for other people if it isn’t going to benefit them. We use and abuse these phrases so much that they have been drained of meaning. It does not create good art. It does not facilitate community nor a respectable working environment, no matter how much virtue signalling you do online. We must all do better.