I’m Jorge, I’m 32 years old and I live in Madrid. I was raised in a Catholic Christian environment. I remember a teacher at school once saying that if everyone were gay, humanity would disappear because nobody would have children. At that time I didn’t know I was gay, but I defended gay people with all my strength because I thought what he was saying was terrible.
It wasn’t until I moved to England to study that I became aware of my own sexual orientation. I had many sexual experiences, and I suffered a lot because I was desperately searching for love. One day, a doctor at a sexual health clinic told me that I was looking for it in the wrong places, he was referring to Grindr.
I had a few relationships, but it wasn’t until I arrived in Madrid that I found the love of my life. At the beginning things were difficult, but we were in a closed relationship for seven years. Later we confessed to each other that we had both been unfaithful. When we opened the relationship, new opportunities appeared, but so did new challenges. Through therapy and through growing together, we’ve been finding ways to make it work. We can still have our romantic moments, which are important for us to preserve, while also exploring with other people together or separately.
I keep discovering more things about myself, including things I enjoy sexually.
My relationship with my own image has always been a little strange. When I was a teenager I was overweight and felt very insecure. Later, at university, I became too thin, and no matter how much I went to the gym my body never seemed to change. Much later I realised that I simply needed to eat more. Still, I’ve always struggled to fully like my body. Maybe my father’s emphasis on appearance and physical image had some influence on me.
When I was studying at university and drawing live models, I realised it was something I wanted to explore myself. I tried working as a life model and I loved the feeling. I felt free because artists interpreted my body in their own ways, and many of them saw beauty where I couldn’t see it myself. Of course, they also sometimes highlighted imperfections, and I had to learn to accept them and understand which ones were real and which ones were exaggerated.
I’ve also had nude photographs taken of me, and I love the feeling of it. I feel sexy, and I love seeing the results afterwards. I like the idea of capturing my own beauty at a particular moment in my life. I’d love to continue doing it with different photographers because I love the way it makes me feel.
Some things simply cannot be explained with words.
