I Was Also Felt

..reclaiming my moans, my mess, and the moments that were always mine..

I’ve decided to romanticize my past.

Not because it was always beautiful but because I was.

Even when the moans felt rehearsed and the lights buzzed against the cold studio walls. I was still a real person showing up. Still human.

There’s this idea that women like me, women with a past in sex work don’t get to be delicate. We don’t get to reflect. We don’t get to rewrite the script. But I’ve learned to lean into my compassion. To give myself grace.. and give myself permission to look back and find the magic in my mess. Sometimes that mess was soaked sheets and smeared makeup. And it still made me feel alive.

I’ve had cameras on me while I made sounds that weren’t always for the audience.
Sometimes, they were for me.
Sometimes, they were all I had.

I don’t regret my past. But I do get to reframe it.

Yes, I was filmed… But I was also felt.
Touched. Desired. Worshipped.

I’ve had lovers who made me cum so hard I forgot what city I was in. I’ve had nights where I cried during sex. Not from pain or sadness, but because I felt my emotions leaving my body. It was the intensity of being fully seen.. fully met.. and fully matched.

So when I say I’m a sucker for romance, I don’t just mean candlelit dinners and roses.
I mean the way he whispered “You’re so beautiful” while sliding into me, even if we’d just met.
I mean, the sweat on his chest, the grip on my thighs, the eye contact that didn’t feel fake.
That was real.
And I’m allowed to keep that. To honor it.

These moanologues?
They’re part love letter, part archive.
A soft retelling of the wildness. A voiceover for the visuals. A reclamation of the body I let the world borrow.

I don’t need to be saved. I don’t need to be judged.
I just want to speak what’s real, even if it’s messy, even if it’s soaked in heat, even if I’m the only one who understands it.

When I moan now, it isn’t for show.
It’s for me. It’s so I can finally feel all of it.

with love,

Chanell

This Friday the archive opens. Moanologue No. 1: Held, Not Kept

Held, Not Kept
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