Miah Flowers is a model, rigger, and an artist who is opening the "Diversity in ropes" exhibition today at Karada House in Berlin. With her series Miah hopes people will discover new perspectives, get inspired, and get some courage to overcome their insecurities about their own bodies in ropes. We sat down to talk about the kink community, the stereotypes in ropes, and the importance of diversity and representation.

Tell me more about the art you create?

My art is strongly influenced by the topics that surround and concern me. Especially feminism, sex-positivy, body-posivity and for some time now, kink. A few years back, because I was more concerned with my own body image, art was an outlet for helping me love myself. Since I started with Shibari, this topic has been influencing my art more and more. I mainly do drawings, paintings and illustrations.

I, as a model, who is not the stereotypical skinny petite model, love your images and how I can relate and recognize myself in them. What is your motivation to draw the diversity of body shapes, gender identities, and physical abilities in kink?

I want people to be represented in the details and thus possibly get a new perspective on beauty and aesthetics. In many media we consume and events we participate in, diversity is not realistically shown. And this can be a reason for marginalized people to withdraw. The initial idea was to draw people who look like me as a self-healing strategy. A white bigger bodied female person in ropes. When I started with ropes I realized that my body is capable of doing the same things i saw a flexible woman do. Then, continuing drawing I wanted to include other genders and bodies and to use my art to represent them as well.

What, in your opinion, is the most harmful stereotype the kink community is still feeding?

Well, the kink community is a representation of our society, and even if some people think we are so open because we are kinky, we are actually not. We all live in a society which is highly fatphobic, transphobic, racist etc. So all the stereotypes and -isms- our society has are represented within the community as well. It's hard to say if one stereotype is more harmful than another, it depends on who you ask.

From my own perspective an unhealthy stereotype is that just thin and flexible people can be in the air or sustain difficult ties but bigger or fat bodies cant. On some occasions, people thought I couldn’t manage certain ties because of my big body type. And the reason why they think that is fatphobia. People easily adapt a tie for a thin person, but when it comes to bigger bodies it's acceptable to say something is not possible. It is not even something people are aware of doing. It is something we learn at an early age.

What, in your opinion, is a healthy kink community?

In my dream world it would be a community aware of certain problems of our society and reflecting on them. Tries to change them. This requires listening to a person before judging them and being open to criticism.

It would be much easier to include everyone regardless of body type, gender, sexuality, physical and mental condition. I don't mean just love and go along with every personality just for the sake of no conflicts and everything will be ok. I mean, respect every Person/personality and let everyone be as they are, if their behavior is not harmful to others. In my opinion you don't have to play with everyone, but maybe first reflect honestly why you don't want to do so with a certain person and if its because they are looking a certain way. Maybe then you should have a look where it stems from and be open to overcome your own fears and communicate.

Do you feel there is more pressure on models, who don't fit the “skinny petite” stereotype? Like is there more pressure for us to be tougher, or to compensate in some way?

Yes, I think so. I spoke to people who dont fit the skinny petite stereotype. And a lot of them were saying exactly this. But this idea to be tougher, to show you are capable of sustaining hard ties is very unhealthy and often leads to crossing boundaries. It happened to me and I know it happened to others. Even if you don't cross any physical boundaries, the fact that it takes a lot of strength to go to an event is already putting a lot of pressure on a person. The risk of feeling strange and uncomfortable, because you are the only fat person in the room is very high and the psychological stress to go with it is a lot. It changes when there are more people with diverse bodies present. Right now for example i am very open and aware with my body in certain safer spaces. And a person I haven't really seen before approached me. They said that because they have seen me, they are now braver about going to events. They now know they won't be the only fat person in the room! This reminded me how stressful it could be and how important it is to be represented!

Do you now tie, get tied, do both? I still get tied and do tie. I am not planning on stopping and will be exploring even more. I feel like I have a long way of learning and exploring and I am just at the start. I want to fill more spaces with some fat-positivity and self love.

What are the challenges a sex-positive artist like you face on social media and in general for publishing content?

I am very happy, because so far I haven't had any issues with fatphobic or hatred people on the Internet. However, I know people who are not on social media any longer, because of the hate they got. Also, all the guidelines for sexual content can be annoying and lead to blocking of accounts. Especially as a woman I need to be aware of what content i am posting online. Also in Germany there are rules, stating you need to publish your full name on websites, which is very unsafe and i think twice before posting something. A lot of issues i have and had in the past come from my own self, such as self-doubt and if the pieces i do are fitting my own personal standard.

Miah and Joshu @ EURIX 2018

Tell me more about the book you are working on? The book you are referring to is called "diversity in ropes". I was sketching a lot of different characters and showing them to friends. At some point a dear friend suggested I publish a book with all the sketches and an idea was born. I drew over 100 different characters so far and around 90 of them will be in the book. I want people to explore the book and hopefully enjoy it, discovering new perspectives and maybe getting inspired. And maybe for some of them, it will give them the courage to overcome their fears and insecurities about their own bodies in ropes. Right now I am organizing the last bits and a crowdfunding campaign will hopefully start quite soon.

** Art by Miah Flowers, photo by me