That’s my experience also. I was a life model while I was a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). It paid well and was easy to schedule between classes, so I did it for about two years.

The best gig was working for a professor named Apgar. He taught an intro class. He would just have the students warm up with gesture drawings. I would do fifteen minutes of one or two minute poses, and then he would cut me loose. I would get paid for the two hours.

I made the mistake of modeling for an oil painting class where I had to sit in the same pose for two weeks. Once they set it up, after much consideration and discussion, I had to assume the pose for each class. At the start of successive classes the students would say “your chin was higher” and “your left leg needs to come in.” I knew that I had hit the mark when I felt soreness. Holding one pose for a long time got brutal.

Sometimes I would meet people who had seen me in class. There is nothing special about my body. The fact that they had seen me naked didn’t amount to much more than a couple of jokes.

I’ve taken a lot of drawing classes. I have a special fondness for life models and am really thankful that people are willing to pose for others.