A Nude Perspective | Guest Post by Eileen Tull

Artfully Engaging Guest Post
A Nude Perspective
by: Eileen Tull

Learn more about Eileen, a performer, writer, and theater creator living in Chicago, at ElileenTull.com.
Tweet with her at @Tullie23 and follow her on Facebook.

See also: Eileen was interviewed by Kendra on the Artfully Engaging blog about her show in the 2015 Minnesota Fringe Festival.

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Eileen Tull, Photo Credit: MB Stanton Photograpy

I spent the other night screaming with glee at my friends while they took their clothes off onstage. At some points my whoops and woohoos were intentional, and at other times the sounds I made were involuntary, impulsively responding to the surprising delight the performers presented. I was watching a burlesque show, or a nerdlesque show to be more precise. My friends at Plan 9 Burlesque here in Chicago were running their semi-monthly show, kicking ass and showing a little bit while they're at it.

For most of my life, I've never been comfortable with nudity. I blame it on growing up Catholic in Ohio, a deadly combination. Modesty and propriety were respected accomplishments, particularly for young women. This led me to develop a high level of shame when it came to my own body and my lifelong struggles with weight, while also placing judgment on women who dressed to show their bodies. In a nutshell, I carry a lot of extra weight on my body, made up of years of collecting this emotional baggage.

I attended my first burlesque show in Chicago at the end of 2014. I'd been hired on to manage the production schedule for Original Tease, a monthly show with classic and neo-burlesque stylings. I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into as she who still changed in the bathroom stalls at the gym. I was led into the makeshift dressing room where a gaggle of naked bodies greeted me. The ladies were getting ready for the next act, but they each shook my hand or jovially waved to me while in various states of toplessness, bottomlessness, or both. My eyes traced the ceiling pipes for a minute, but then it dawned on me: I was in a room of women who did not actively hate their bodies. To me, my flesh and fat was the enemy. Something to be defeated and beaten down until it surrendered and conformed into the molded ideal. And because perfection is never attainable when you pit your body against yourself, and nothing will ever be enough, for years I shoved body away. I was unable to remember a time before I had eaten fruit from the tree; a time I was unashamed of my nakedness.

Eileen Tull, Photo Credit: Peggy Tull

But here these women were, celebrating their bodies in raw and sexual and original form. As they took the stage, I released years of self-loathing tension by yelling out, "YES, GET IT!" as one of the performers threw her bra in the crowd and twirled her nipple tassels around and around.

"It's healing," one of the performers said to me after the recent Plan 9 show. I had never been able to succinctly describe what was so wonderful about burlesque. It is healing and reaffirming. It's also sexy and voyeuristic and many other things that may or may not get you off. Since stepping into the world of burlesque, I myself have been experimenting with showing my body onstage.

Most of my performance work has been text-based storytelling. I would call these new pieces performance art as opposed to burlesque. In my work the removal of clothing is perfunctory; it is not an art in itself. But these various pieces have explored the beauty industry, self-love, and what happens when a fat-bodied woman displays her body onstage. And I'm happy to report that the results have been wonderful. I've created stories that are sometimes meaningful, sometimes fun, and sometimes both onstage. Crowds have laughed, cried, and cheered my nearly naked body. It has made me braver and allowed me to feel less alone. I am not keeping my fat body in the closet with my other skeletons. Shame is the most destructive force. My solution in the battle with shame is to actively rebel against it onstage, for all to see.

Eileen Tull, Photo Credit: Peggy Tull

These artistic acts of joyful defiance are slowly helping to chip away at the insane standards the female body is held to in society. But we still live in a world where Amy Schumer is plus size and the powerful Wonder Woman is girlishly petite. Of course, even Dawn of Justice actress Gal Gadot can't win: she's thin and beautiful enough to star in an action movie, yet fanboy commenters still had bones to pick about her breast size. The beautiful thing about burlesque is that, here in Chicago anyway, all body types are on display. Things jiggle, they wiggle, these are covered in skin that has lived years. These are not cookie cutter, one-size-fits-small bodies. And these are dynamic and fearless performers and artists.

Plan 9 Burlesque, Photo credit: Cred Pez Photography

Stella Cheeks of Plan 9 Burlesque, Photo credit: Cred Pez Photography

Like all humans, burlesque performers are complex human beings with layered motivations. Some performers may be choosing to cater to the male gaze, meaning they are playing into traditional sexual coyness that heterosexual men have responded to, banging on tables like the Looney Toons wolf. Other performers, especially in the Plan 9 nerdlesque gang, embrace a silly-is-sexy freedom. They use their characters (Tina Belcher from Bob's Burgers, Disco Stu from the Simpsons, or Batman vs Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy/Catwoman) to move through a narrative while shedding clothing and reminding us that underneath, we've all got a naked body, so you might as well celebrate it.

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Eileen Tull is a performer and writer based in Chicago. She has performed all over the country, from San Francisco to New York City and in the 2015 Minnesota Fringe Festival. Eileen is currently playing a nudist in a short play festival in Chicago.