Why "Sexy" Is a Dirty Word for Me

I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, a model as we usually think of models. I’m not eight feet tall. I don’t walk the runway. I will never be in Victoria’s Secret.

But as part of expanding my acting business, I’m looking into commercial modeling. Commercial models are people in print ads. A commercial model can be a beautiful woman, or an average-looking and approachable woman, or a seventy-five-year-old man. You don’t have to conform to the standards of fashion-model beauty. What you do have to do is portray a certain “type”—the stressed-out mom, the successful businessman, the ambitious new intern. It’s an acting exercise that falls between acting and modeling.

So I have an agent for this, and if I really want to do it, I need to invest in “comp cards”—basically a mosaic of professional-looking pictures in various commercial-print situations, showing different things I can be cast for. To get a good comp card done, you need to have some idea of the characters you’ll probably be cast as. For me, because I’m a young female, one of those types is the sexy type--even though I generally don't get cast in "sexy" roles, clients still want to see that as part of your repertoire.

Women are so often asked to play “sexy.” And for me, it's difficult. I can embrace the moods of “happy,” “confident,” “relaxed,” “earnest,” “wholesome”—whatever. But the photographer or director says, “Okay, let’s make this sexy—“ and I fall apart. I get really, really awkward. I start doing weird stuff—pushing my body into awkward shapes, and making that Marilyn-Monroe-eyes-half-closed face that totally worked on her, but makes me look like a lobotomy patient.

Whenever I talk about this issue to other people, they’ll immediately rush to reassure me that I really am a sexy beast. They mean well. But there’s an intrinsic difference between sexy and “sexy.” Sexy is how I feel on a summer night with a warm breeze against my skin. It’s how I feel holding hands with someone I love in Paris in the sunshine. “Sexy” is Victoria’s Secret and Angelina Jolie and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. There are lots of different ways to feel sexy, but there is only one way to be “sexy.” Sexy is individual, but “sexy” has baggage.

I can be—and feel—sexy. But being “sexy” for a wider audience, in a way that audience expects to see it, is daunting. If someone tells me in an acting or modeling situation, "Okay, let's make this one sexy," I just want to curl up like a hedgehog and protect my vulnerable center. I want to put on a flannel nightie and make myself some tea. It’s something I’ll have to overcome, not just for print modeling but for acting in general. But it ain’t easy.