Developing a Healthy Sexuality | Interview with Hope Orr - Owner of Elevated Boudoir.

Hope Orr is the owner and photographer of Elevated Boudoir in Sandy, Utah. Through her own journey, Hope has been able to work through shame and insecurities around her body and sexuality in order to step more fully into who she is. 

 

Hope is passionate in helping women of all backgrounds embrace and celebrate their body. Her dream is to invite all women to connect with themselves on a deeper level, and show up more fully and unapologetically. Hope offers Boudoir Photography as a way to allow women to see themselves as they really are; brilliant, empowered, sexy, and strong. 

 

 

You can see more of her work or book a session by visiting

www.elevatedboudoir.com

 

Hope has a private Facebook group for women interested in connecting with others in learning to embrace themselves and their body more fully. You can join by visiting 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/elevatedboudoir/

  Full Transcript: 

 

0:00:00.5 Narrator: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.

[music]

0:00:28.5 Daniel A. Burgess: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today, I'm excited to have Hope Orr here, and to hear her story and what she does, and I think everybody in our audience will be curious to learn. And I think what we're gonna do here is we're gonna have this podcast, we're gonna give it an opportunity for people to hear after we publish. And then I would personally like to invite Hope back and maybe do a live question and answer online with everybody. But let's go ahead and kick this off and... Hope, who are you, and what do you do?

0:01:02.4 Hope Orr: I am a boudoir photographer. I work with women who are wanting to celebrate their body, who want to show up more fully and, I guess, whole in the world, and... Yeah, I don't know.

[laughter]

0:01:22.4 DB: That's exciting. This is great. So I'm bringing you in because one of the biggest things I see within my Improved... In the Improving Intimacy group is how frequently both men and women are curious, interested and wanting to find a good photographer, a boudoir photographer. And so there's a lot of questions around that, so I was excited to see somebody of your background, you did serve a mission, and you're now providing this service to women who desire and want it. What got you here? What made you decide? Were you a photographer before? This natural transition? What was it?

0:02:10.1 HO: Yeah, that's a good question. I have been a photographer for 10 years. I grew up... My dad is a producer, a film producer for the church, and so he actually kind of mentored me as I grew up on how to take good photos. And so I've done a lot of different type of photography throughout my life but boudoir photography is really where I find the most meaning and fulfillment, and I'm most passionate about it. And so it's more of a recent, in the last few years, journey that I've been on, offering this to other people, and then also experiencing it for myself.

0:02:54.5 DB: So tell me a little bit more about that journey, that experience. As you're talking, the audience obviously can't see, but your face lightens up, it glows, as you're talking about, "This is a great opportunity." And we're gonna get into maybe some of the pushback or the controversies around it. You're shaking your head, "Yes, yes." I personally know that as I've entered into this profession and kind of stretched the boundaries around sexual health and insight... So what am I seeing when I hear you say journey and experience and passion? What's making you glow about it?

0:03:29.9 HO: Yeah. So when I returned from my mission a number of years ago, I remember my mission president inviting me to pray every day to get married. And I think that's kind of funny that we tell 20-year-olds to pray for that.

0:03:45.5 DB: Yes. Get married and six months when you return, and... Yes.

0:03:51.4 HO: Yeah. So I was doing that and one day it occurred to me... I realized, "Okay, if this actually happened, let's say God answers my prayer, I'm gonna find someone this year, get married this year, am I ready for that?" And I realized I had a lot of shame around my body, around my sexuality, around my sexual desires, and also a lot of... How do you put it? I did not feel like I was really educated or prepared for that type of stuff in my life.

0:04:31.2 DB: When you say stuff, you're talking about sex? Intimacy?

0:04:36.3 HO: Yes, yeah. Yup, all of the above, about... I guess with the idea of, okay, I'm go