Can we stand another body image post? I check over at the Body Image Project every now and again because it's always illuminating, or possibly comforting, to read evidence about how fucked up other women are about their bodies. And I came across this: http://thebodyimageproject.blogspot.com/2008/08/age-22.html
And I felt so sad for her. When I was 22, I was an inch shorter and a few pounds lighter than that but I'm guessing more or less the same size, and I felt much the same way. Oh, I didn't have a skinnier sister to compare myself to, but I'd been on the receiving end of that kind of comment. (Junior year of high school in the bathroom off the cafeteria at lunch time, senior girl I didn't know: "Do you have a sister? No? OMG, you look just like So-n-So's girlfriend. Except she's taller and thinner." Even at age 16, I was not so full of self-loathing that I didn't burst out laughing at that and say, "Um, gee...thanks?")
Anyway, I had all those same issues. Hated my big "disgusting" thighs, dissatisfied my boobs couldn't pass the pencil test, thought I looked okay in just the right clothing, but naked meant showing those parts I hated. I would love to tell that 22 y.o. woman what I would tell my own 20 year old self if I could go back in time: You're beautiful. You don't need to be taller or thinner. 5'3 and 125 is perfectly proportionate. Your thighs looks exactly the way they're meant to look for someone with your genetics. No one passes the pencil test unless they're smaller than a small B-cup, and there's nothing wrong with being bigger than a small B-cup. You can spend the next 25 years worrying about this and having fits of body loathing, but when you look back, you're gonna realize you were lovely, so appreciate what you have now. And if any man (or woman or goat, whatever you're into) criticizes what you look like naked, kick them to the fucking curb, because they don't deserve to see you naked, yo.
That's the thing with perspective. It's impossible to get it until it's too late.
xoxo
2 comments:
I'm thinking of starting a charity so that myself and all the other selfless, altruistic men of the world can wage a serious nightly crusade to fight female body-image problems and all other forms of feminine self-consciousness, through a rigorous program of unabashed and unabated physical attentions, unflinchingly to include sexual favors of every imaginable kind, as our ultimate, pure and solemn proof of every woman's physical attractiveness. We'll even stay over to repeat the treatment in the morning, as long as we're not expected to call later.
You're a true humanitarian! (Have I already told you that this week?)
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