After publishing this photo on Friday, and writing about the conversation that inspired it, I was both surprised and happy to receive a couple of really interesting, imaginative suggestions for future February Photo Fest posts from other people I know in the community. One came from @harleybangbang, who sent me this message the following day:
“Do the pictures need to be sexy sexy? Because I like the idea of simple, sweet images – even a picture of intertwined hands, or you kissing Livvy’s forehead. I think a stable, loving, healthy relationship is very sexy! And it’d be neat to redefine our notions of what sexy is…”
…and I couldn’t disagree with any of that! There are lots of things I find incredibly sexy about Livvy that aren’t connected in any way to her body, or to sex itself. Her energy. Her temperament. Her focus. Her optimism. Her drive and determination. Her appetite for life. Her love of the ridiculous. I could go on and on. We’re compatible in ways that I’d never been able to articulate or appreciate until I met her; that I hadn’t realised were missing from previous relationships until I found them in this one.