The morning of the photo shoot, I laid out piles of brand new lingerie on my bed, assembling my looks. I put on some makeup and blew out my hair for the first time in months. When I'd told Harry I was finally up for taking these pictures (with another monologue outlining the good reasons I was doing this and the reasons I was not) he'd likely imagined something a little less formal: the two of us cozy and casual, lying around in bed on a Sunday morning. But if I was going to do this, I needed full control over all variables. I couldn't just be in my underwear. It had to be my underwear looks. If all this production made it any less sexy, oh well. Maybe that was the point.

After hours of preparation, I placed myself on the couch at last and looked into Harry's lens. We took the first few shots in relative silence, he adjusting lights and me yanking at my ensemble: a lacy bra, a crop top, and my favorite fuchsia undies. I adjusted my position constantly, trying to find a pose that said: Look how confident I am both in my body and my sexuality, and yet I am clearly defined by neither. Turns out, it's kind of a hard look to pull off, whether or not you're fully clothed. Still, I persevered, moving the arm that instinctively crept across my tummy to hide it. I flopped around trying to find the balance between looking comfortable and being comfortable. After maybe ten minutes of snap-adjustment-snap, I was already tired and feeling incurably awkward.

Then Harry peaked out from behind the camera, and his face was lit up with an open-mouthed smile. It was the kind of unbridled delight you see only on the face of someone who just cannot contain their love for you and their excitement to have you in their life. It wasn't lust, admiration, or pride, but a giddy mix of all of the above.

"You're a natural!" he cried, and in that moment I knew I was. The hair and makeup, all the frantic posing — I didn't need them to look good in these photos. I looked good in spite of all those things. These photos looked "good" because the person taking them was looking for me — not my best angle.

From that moment on, our little shoot became more fun. No, I wasn't cured of all self-consciousness; I still cringed or shied away at times. I still heard the voice in my head pipe up at times, calling me a big, fat show-off. But once again I learned the lesson that has changed my life: When you open your arms wide to shame, every single thing gets better. You move through the world with a little less fear. You don't become a brand new person, but rather, a little more yourself. You loosen your grip on control knowing that it doesn't really matter. You are who you are, and that is more than good enough.