I was always the skinny one. Not just slim, but too skinny. The kind of skinny people feel comfortable commenting on all the time. Jokes, little remarks, “you should eat more”, “do you ever go to the gym?”, “where are your muscles?”, “skinny like a girl”, people grabbing your arms as if you’re not even really there. It sounds small, but when you hear it enough, it sticks with you, and you start seeing yourself through those comments.

So when I first started bating online, exposing myself on camera felt almost absurd, like I was risking confirming every fear I’d held about myself. Like I was setting myself up to confirm everything I already believed about myself.

I remember the first time on cam so clearly. I was sitting there adjusting the angle over and over, checking how I looked and hating it every single time. I must have turned the camera on and off at least five times. My heart was racing, not in a sexy way, but in that “what the hell am I doing” kind of way. I was ready to close everything before anyone could even notice me.

But I didn’t.

And what shocked me the most is that nothing happened the way I expected. No one laughed, no one made a face, no one left because I showed up on screen. Actually, the opposite. A couple of guys looked at me, one held eye contact a bit longer, another slightly smiled, and they just kept going. Like I belonged there.

I remember thinking, wait… that’s it?

Then I started noticing something even stranger. Some guys would slow down when I was on screen. Some would look at me directly. There were moments where I could feel that I wasn’t invisible, that I was actually part of what was happening. Not in a big dramatic way, but enough to make me pause and question everything I thought I knew about how I was perceived.

So I came back.

And the more I did, the more something started to break, in a good way. I began noticing other bodies, really noticing them. Not comparing, just observing. And there was no single type that everyone responded to. There were all kinds of bodies, all kinds of energy, all kinds of presence. Guys I would have dismissed before, guys who didn’t fit any standard I had in my head, and they were being watched, desired, engaged with.

That didn’t make sense to me at first, because it completely contradicted the story I had been telling myself for years. And slowly, that story started losing its grip.

What surprised me the most is how my behaviour changed without me even deciding it consciously. At the beginning, I was stiff, controlled, trying to hide more than I was showing. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. But little by little, I relaxed. I started making eye contact, I let myself react more naturally. I remember the first time I leaned into the camera instead of pulling away. It felt like crossing a line I had set for myself.

Same with being more expressive: for the first time ever I started being verbal, complimenting others, pushing them to show their bate spread and their penis proudly. I started using my face more, showing attitude, flexing along with the others, I even started sticking my tongue out to goon. Things I would have found extremely embarrassing before, but I did it anyway. And the reactions I got were not negative at all, they were actually the opposite, extremely positive, encouraging! Those reactions, and the way other guys were getting horny looking at me, the way I had become living porn for them, made me feel wanted in a way I hadn’t experienced before.

That’s when something really shifted for me. Because finally, I wasn’t trying to fix my body before letting myself be seen. I was just there, and that didn’t stay on the screen.

Outside of it, I started noticing small changes. I wasn’t avoiding mirrors the same way, I wasn’t automatically comparing myself every single time I saw someone else. The voice in my head that used to constantly point out what was wrong with me got quieter. Not gone, but quieter.

Even today, whenever I host or join rooms on Batemates, especially if it’s crowded, I still have moments where I feel those old insecurities creeping in, that feeling of being too skinny, of not being enough, but it doesn’t define me or hit me in the same way anymore. Because now I’ve seen something else: I’ve seen that I can be looked at, I can be wanted and enjoyed, I can turn my bator bros on, exactly as I am.

And once you’ve experienced that, even just a few times, it becomes really hard to go back to believing you’re not enough.

@NeptuneSimon on Batemates