Lights, Camera, Heal!

A Conversation With Kevin Martin On Using Content Creation To Heal Sexual And Bodily Shame

This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter about the late blooming queer experience and the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.

---

More than a year ago I wrote a three-part series on body image issues. In the first segment, I shared nine tips on practices and mindsets I had adopted that helped me work past my insecurities, my fear of my body being judged as “less than” by others, and so on.

No. 2 on that list? “Avoid dating apps/social media or, at least, minimize use and find body positive/diverse accounts to follow.”

There have been countless studies, articles, editorials, etc., written on the detrimental impacts of social media. Depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts all tend to be higher among those using social media the most as they feed into comparison and competition mindsets. They negatively affect body dysmorphia, too. And queer dating apps, Grindr in particular, are possibly even worse when it comes to mental health impacts.

And that’s why I found recent paper written by

Kevin Martin, MS, CHC, CPT

extolling the healing power of baring ourselves on one of the more notorious social platforms of the current moment so fascinating.

Kevin pursued a career in mental health care after going through counseling in college, which helped him accept his gay identity and begin to process the baggage that came from a conservative upbringing.

“One of the things that I started to find was that I just carried not only that shame of identity, but that shame with sex, you know, where...like shame about performance, about my body, the way that I look, the lack of confidence that I have in pictures, things like that,” he told me.

Kevin began to realize he needed to “reclaim his story,” as he told me. And, for him, taking a step so bold that he couldn’t run and hide from his shame was what led him to become an adult content creator.

“That's when I started to play around with OnlyFans and Just For Fans. And it was definitely an adventure in the beginning, and I struggled with it. I tiptoed in and out, where I started it and then I stopped and I started again and I stopped it. I think I did that maybe like three times before I really felt like, you know, okay, there's something to this.”

Kevin was gracious enough to take time to chat with me recently about how he’s applied his own queer journey to his coaching work, including encouraging some clients to become content creators themselves as a means to become comfortable in their own bodies. I’ve edited our conversation below for clarity.

---

Sitting Queerly: Your work as a personal coach and then your content creation work started to mix. What was that like? How did they start to overlap?

Kevin Martin: I initially started as a counselor and a therapist, more in the traditional medical side. As I was doing that, I was finding there's something missing here where clients would be telling me their stories and what's going on.

And so that's why I started to go down the coaching route…there's a lot of creative opportunities here to really do some cool work. The areas that I got the most excited about that I felt I was most equipped to help clients with was definitely within the sexual empowerment realm.

So that was happening on the business side. But then for me personally, I was starting to do OnlyFans for my own personal healing. But then I started having clients who naturally would be talking about feeling a lot of sexual shame, ‘you know, I'm really struggling with this showing up within my relationships, I'm having these challenges with it.’

It just kind of like, they started to just weave together, like, ‘okay, yeah, you know, this is what I've found to be helpful for me. This is what my experience is like.’

And then I was just looking around to see if there are other people who are doing something similar. And then I was coming across people like Will Tantra, some really great content creators who blend these worlds really beautifully that are very, very empowerment-based, very human-centered, that's still sexual in nature, but it's a different feeling.

Some of the videos that I do are like guided meditation. So I'll, I'll leave like a meditation video, but you know, might be naked, or there might be some like central touch in there, or it might lead to like masturbation at the end, but it's grounded in reconnecting with your body.

SQ: I know a fellow late bloomer who has an OnlyFans with his partner. It’s a way for them, for him, to reclaim himself a little bit as well. Now your OnlyFans, it's primarily solo content, correct? It's not collaborations or anything else like that, correct?

KM: I do have a few collaborations but it has been mainly solo. But I just filmed a video with somebody so I'll putting that together. I think there's a bit of a different layer to that part of it. For me, I just find that I'm very emotional in nature. I need that depth of a connection to be with somebody, so partnered content has just been a bit more challenging just because it's hard for me to step into kind of a...purely performance kind of mindset. I'm still kind of checking in with how I feel about it, but it was cool. It was a cool experience to have like the intention of our time together to be filmed.

SQ: So, how has this worked for yourself? Like you said, it's helping you with your clients and it's kind of meshed, but on a personal level, how has it helped you? What are you experiencing now as a result of that work?

KM: It's definitely helped me to...to respect where I'm at and to really embrace a mindful component of what sexuality looks like. I'm finding what I enjoy, what's not my favorite things to do. And not only like, just within the act of sex itself, but also within the structure around it, if that makes sense, where there are times where I feel, you know, super horny and I might be in that state for a couple of weeks. But then there's months where I'm just like, there's nothing there.

It's also interesting now that I’m building up a bit of a following there. There can be times I feel obligated to keep everybody happy per se. And I can definitely tell if I create content out of that space, I don't feel super great about it. And you can also feel it like you can just feel it in my captions or in the content or in the video or the picture itself, where it's just kind of like, there's a heart missing here.

SQ: That sounds so much like Substack. I mean, for about the first six months when I was (publishing), I felt really good about what I was putting out and everything. And then you just hit a wall but feel obligated to put something out every week.

I know that you talk about in the paper that you wrote, obviously this is not an approach that everybody can do for a variety of reasons. Their personal situation may prohibit them from (creating content) due to their job or their family life or whatever.

But I know that one thing me and other late blooming men contend with isn't just the sexual shame, but also the really negative body image aspect and the unfairly comparing ourselves to how others look. Is that something that has to also be taken into account with this and that you may have other aspects of your trauma or your experience that just make this not a viable thing to do?

KM: That's such a great question. And yeah, I think that's something really important to consider. There are so many factors that could play into why content creation would be or could be really helpful for somebody, but where it could also be really tough and really challenging. And I think the best thing that anybody could do would be to lay all of that out on the table. You know, what am I looking for? What going to be helpful about this for me? Why am I doing this? What's my intention? What's my reason? But also what are those things that I'm, that I'm concerned about?

You have to be very deeply honest with yourself in that conversation. Like anything with sex, we don't know how we'll feel about it until we do it. It could be really helpful because sharing yourself in such a vulnerable and open and honest way is giving yourself permission to be seen and to also be desired. We can end up sending ourselves that message of ‘I'm allowed to take up this space.’

But then there could also be the other side, we might have expectations of how we’ll be received or things like that, and they might not be met. And I think all of that's really important to consider. What will we do with those emotions if and when that were to happen?

SQ: Definitely. Full disclosure, I have two Instagram accounts. I have my public one that I've had for forever. And shortly after I came out, I wanted to have one that is just for being queer. I wasn't out to really anybody but my wife and my therapist. I wasn’t ready for other people to potentially see something I shared by accident that comes from a queer account and they're asking questions.

Obviously I'm sticking within the bounds of the terms of service for Instagram, but I'm posting myself shirtless and things like that or wearing a jock. And I see how that has helped me get more comfortable with who I am. I've never felt as comfortable with my body as I have since I've come out. There are guys who are attracted to how I look, even if I’m not attracted to my own body shape. But at the same time, it's also helped me just be more comfortable in my body and seeing how it looks. It's not exactly the full approach that you're doing, but it's kind of a light version of it. Do you see that as being constructive as well?

KM: Totally. I love what you said. No matter what our community says and a lot of the messages that get dumped onto us about the expectations and how we should look, how we should be, how sexual we should be. One of the main things that I want to be a goal of my work across the board is to shut those shoulds up.

But we feel them. And they’re so hurtful and so painful. And we take those messages in and then we go to bed wondering what's wrong with us. What's broken with us. And nothing is.