She said it so casually, like it was just a fact about herself.
“I have trouble viewing myself in that context.”
She wasn’t embarrassed saying it. She was just… stating it. The way you’d say, “I don’t really cook” or “I’m not a morning person.” Like it was just who she was now. And I’ve heard some version of that sentence more times than I can count.
“I don’t know how to be sexy.”
“I don’t see myself that way.”
“I’ve been someone’s mom for so long, I don’t even know how to find that part of me anymore.”
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering how to feel sexy again, especially after years of being everything for everyone else… you’re not alone.
You are not broken and you didn’t lose her. You just got really, really busy being everything for everyone else, and somewhere in all of that, she got quiet.
But quiet isn’t gone.
Why learning how to feel sexy again feels so hard
Nobody taught us this! We were taught to be good. To be helpful, responsible, to take care of the kids, the household, the career, the aging parents, the group chat, and the work email that came in at 9pm. (Whew!)
Nowhere in that curriculum was a class called “How to take up space in your own body and feel hot doing it.” Then, on top of all that, we live in a world that has very specific, very narrow, very exhausting opinions about who gets to feel sexy and at what age and at what size and in what context. So even when we do carve out a moment to think about ourselves, there’s a whole chorus in our heads singing every reason why we don’t qualify.
I’m too old now.
My body has changed too much.
That’s for other women, not me.
Sound familiar? Yeah. I thought so.
The real reason you don’t feel sexy (it’s not your body)
Nobody in the wellness-girlboss-self-love content space ever says out loud:
Feeling sexy is not about how you look, it’s about how much permission you’ve given yourself to take up space.
I’ve photographed women who look like what the world calls “conventionally beautiful” who couldn’t make eye contact with the camera. And I’ve photographed women who walked in three sizes bigger than a magazine cover and owned every single frame.
The difference wasn’t their body. It was their relationship with themselves.
One woman I worked with had been so laser-focused on making sure everyone around her was taken care of, her kids, her mom, her job, that she told me she’d spent 25 years seeing herself as “Mom” and almost nothing else. She didn’t have a problem with her body. Instead, she had a problem with remembering that she existed outside of what she did for other people.
That’s not a beauty problem, she hasn’t given herself permission to be anything different.
How to Feel Sexy Again (Without Changing Your Body)
I’m not going to give you a ten-step skincare routine or tell you to buy lingerie and stand in the mirror. That advice is fine. It’s also surface-level.
What actually works goes a little deeper.
Stop waiting until you feel ready.
Confidence doesn’t show up before the action, it shows up because of it. Every woman who has ever sat in my studio chair has been at least a little terrified. And almost every single one of them has looked at their images and said, “Is that really me?” Not because I did something magical, but because she finally let herself be seen. You don’t wait to feel ready, you do the thing and let the feeling catch up.
Give yourself one thing that’s just for you.
Not for your kids, your partner, and not for your boss, your Instagram feed, your mom’s opinion. One thing, an hour, an experience, a purchase, a decision, that you make entirely for yourself because you wanted it. The muscle of prioritizing yourself gets stronger the more you use it. Start small. Build up.
Get in an environment that’s designed for you to feel that way.
This is where I’ll be honest with you about what I do, because it’s relevant. A boudoir session works, not because of the camera or the lighting or the lingerie, but because the entire environment is purpose-built for you to access a version of yourself you forgot existed. The guided posing, the music, the energy in the room, someone showing you exactly what to do with your hands and your face and your whole self. You’re not just getting photos. You’re being given the conditions to feel something you’ve been starving for.
Separate “sexy” from “performance.”
A lot of women think feeling sexy means they have to know what they’re doing. That they have to walk in already knowing how to pose, already knowing their angles, already knowing how to do that thing with their face. They don’t. In my studio, I tell every single woman: you don’t need to bring anything except yourself. I’ll show you everything else. We go at your pace and we go as far as you want to take it. Think of it like salsa, mild, medium, or jalapeño hot. You pick the heat level.
What happens when she comes back
I want to tell you what I watch happen over and over in my Baltimore studio.
A woman walks in nervous. She laughs a little too loud at her own jokes to cover the anxiety, wondering if this was a good idea.
Then we start.
But about 20 minutes in, I can see the change. Her shoulders drop and the laugh turns real. Then she stops thinking about what she’s supposed to be doing and starts just… being. By the time she sits down for her reveal that same evening and sees her own face on the screen, she goes quiet.
And then: “Is that me? I cannot believe that’s me.”
That’s her. She was always there. She just needed the right conditions to come back out.
You don’t have to have it figured out to start
If you’ve read this far, something in here landed for you. Maybe it’s the part about giving yourself permission. Perhaps it’s the part about existing outside of what you do for other people. Maybe you just recognized yourself somewhere in these words and you’re sitting with that.
You don’t have to know how to be sexy to book a session. Nor do you have to have the perfect body, perfect lingerie, or the perfect level of confidence. You just have to be willing to show up for yourself for one day.
I’ll handle the rest.
Nicole Griffin Photography is a boudoir studio serving Washington DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia, and surrounding areas. If you’re ready to meet her again, start here.
