Forbidden Love
(click here for source of photo)
Iris left this comment on my post the other day: “I’ve always wanted a tiny waist the way women are supposed to want…that barbie ideal. But I love having strong, muscular thighs. They’re so much sexier to me!”
I love this comment. And it made me think a lot. It made me think about how strange it is to realize that you love something about yourself that you’re not supposed to love. I’ve written about this before, and I’ll probably write about it again. But I won’t apologize for that, because it needs to be written about until something changes.
I went to a movie last night. The bathroom at the theater had those too-bright, hard lights that big, impersonal indoor spaces have. You know how when you’re washing your hands you can’t avoid your own image in the mirror? It’s like someone gets up in your face and just stands there. Except it’s you. I looked up cautiously. I’m never sure how I’ll feel about the woman looking back.
I looked dramatic. Like someone who might be unique and beautiful or hopelessly unsalvageable. It really could’ve gone either way.
We all know how to identify what we’re supposed to dislike about our bodies. We can get really creative about coming up with minute, intensely detailed things to criticize about our appearances. Once when I was fourteen, a friend and I sat in our cabin at camp and reeled off everything we considered ugly about our bodies. We traded.
Her: My legs are fat
Me: My neck is short
Her: My skin is bad
Me: My nose is big
But soon all of that was too obvious. We were saying things like, “There are tiny hairs on my knees.” And, “My pinkies are crooked,” “I look a little like John Lennon from the side,” “I look like Beethoven from the side!” “My boobs look like tiny rats.”
Perhaps naked mole rats would have been more accurate, but I’ll let it go.
We went without pause for some ridiculous amount of time. I wonder how long we could’ve gone on for if we’d been listing things we liked. But we didn’t even think to. That was not the point. The point was how familiar we were with various composers in profile. In piano music alone, there are some striking ones to choose from: Liszt, Debussy, and Schubert come to mind. Ok, so I don’t know what the point was. We weren’t feeling particularly bad about ourselves. We were kind of showing off, really. We were good at identifying our physical flaws.
I don’t know when or where or how I learned to recognize so many aspects of my body as negative ones. But I do know that it came easily, and that when people, namely my mom (I wasn’t going around critiquing my looks in front of just anyone!), told me I was being absurd and I should just appreciate my appearance, that seemed like a lot more work. I mean, I’ve been there. You try really hard to argue against the negative conclusion.
“My neck isn’t that long, but it’s not the shortest neck I’ve seen. And no one will really notice it because I wear my hair down, and everyone’s looking at my face anyway, especially since my breasts are so small…”
Then this cool voice responds with frightening speed from a perfectly logical part of your mind: “You may believe that the stuntedness of your neck does not impact the way others perceive your complete appearance, but….” And proceeds to deliver the hundred-thousandth lecture in a series titled, “The Exquisite Subtlety of Beauty.”
But what about when you look down at your thighs and just like them? Without having to think. Without having to convince yourself that they’re actually OK. That maybe they’re not quite as hopeless as they’ve always seemed. What about when you look at them and think they’re a pleasing shape? What if you like the way they squish out when you sit down? Maybe that feels womanly or voluptuous or sexy or just indescribably cool.
Sometimes this happens. And the voice jumps up, crying, “No, no! Your thighs are obviously too chubby! How could you have forgotten that?! How many times have I told you!”
We’re unprepared for these moments. Sure, we have some features that we like. Hopefully some we think are consistently lovely. But when we catch ourselves loving the ones we’re supposed to despise— well— who knows? Anything could happen!
I’m always caught off guard when it happens. Half asleep. In the middle of something else. Not thinking about my appearance at all. And I’d like to think that this is my true perception of my body. The one I might still have if I hadn’t undergone that practically inescapable transformation into a woman who fluently ascribes unattractiveness to the details of her body. Not that truth is such an easy concept. Not that truth should be based on the idea of purity. But, in this case, perhaps truth should be based on kindness. Because I will live in and with and as this body for my entire life. And I’d like to know that I like it. I’d like to know that somewhere inside me, deeper than the logical voice, I respond with appreciation toward myself. Those thighs, after all, are mine. And I’m pretty cool.
The truth is, when I looked in the mirror in the bathroom at the movie theater, I looked beautiful. Just for a second, when I looked up and saw myself, I identified myself automatically as beautiful. Striking, unique, dramatic, beautiful. In the next second, I decided that I looked weird and awkward and that various proportions didn’t work, and that if I turned my head a little, I ruined everything promising about my face. But my first thought was, “Nice!” And I’m going to fight to defend my right to believe that one instead.
* * * * *
Un-roast: Today I love my thighs. Again. In honor of this post.
Everyone: Does this happen to you? What about yourself are you surprised to like?
Kate on June 1st 2010 in beauty, being different, body
Cindy responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 12:25 pm #
where DID we learn that negative chatter anyways?
it’s so true!
in truth I think it’s a self protection mechanism. We’ve been hurt (and the more sensitive we are the better we are at self hatred) so we put up these walls to hurt ourselves before we feel good about ourselves and be vulnerable to someone else’s cobra strike!
that’s what I think. at least at the moment!
we want to like our legs…and maybe secretly we do, but we tell ourselves we hate them so we are prepared for the sting of what could come…only you can’t hurt me if I am already laying on the ground bleeding.
yeah, I think that’s it. at least at the moment!
I’ll let you know tomorrow if I change my mind!
I am not going to tell you what I might secretly like about myself because you might decided to laugh at me and put me down.
now THAT WOULD HURT.
xoxoxoxox
great post! you hit it on the head.
Liss responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 1:41 pm #
Cindy, I love your comments!
Kate, this is so well said. I love the image of you looking in the mirror at the movies and realizing you like what you see. When that happens to me I’m caught off guard too. And happy.
I love this topic!
Julia responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 3:27 pm #
Your posts always remind me of a photo that was taken when I was younger=–maybe 10 yrs old. I have exactly the same physique as I do today, complete with chubby thighs. But I’m looking at the camera with total confidence, and I can tell from my expression and what I remember of the photo being taken, that I’m in love with the moment: with me being on the beach in the beautiful sunset, with my legs cradled in the sand, but mostly, with me being me. At that point, (going along with comments you’d made about being homschooled, and how at least for me, being in that cocooned environment makes it easy not to doubt yourself or think that anyone could not accept you the way you are), I know that it had never occured to me not to love my body because it was mine, and I was so comfortable in my own skin, running, jumping, laughing, but never stuck as I am now with that cool voice that won’t stop fighting my attempts to recover the feeling that has been trapped in a photo since that time.
Dolly responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 3:38 pm #
Great post!
Have you read The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf?
Gaby responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 3:53 pm #
I loved this! Well, truthfully I love all your posts but never have time to comment. They always make me laugh but at the same time it’s always that “OMG so true!” feeling too.
It’s so much easier to name off all the minuscule things I hate about myself or that could be improved . If only [fill in the blank] my life would be so much better. And my mom is also always the one who jumps in and tells me I belong in an insane asylum if I’m not capable of appreciating my looks. Gotta love moms!
So going along with your mirror experience, and because we probably have some of the same distinct Eastern European looks, I have to say I’ve grown to appreciate how striking some of my facial features are. Even in the cheapest, foggiest mirrors in run down bathrooms, at a glance, you can still see defined and dark lines. It’s striking. Especially my eyes, which are the opposite of Barbie, ideal American eyes. They’re deep set, dark, and slightly turned down.
Ps. I ate the damn cookies last night. About half the batch. And they were good
Emily responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 8:19 pm #
I love this post. I feel like I am constantly trying to hide the fact that I like my body. I think this comes out most when I think about my stomach. It is not flat, it is quite round and most of my excess fat is stored there. Despite the fact that I often feel frustrated at the way it breaks up my silhouette, or makes it even more challenging to find well fitted clothing, when i look at my stomach I think it is totally sexy. Still, I don’t usually tell anyone this. I complain about it. When boys compliment my figure I say “yeah.. but my stomach is too fat.” I think we just want to be seen as modest but it feeds into the whole idea that we aren’t supposed to like our bodies. Saying good things about your body seems conceited. We really need to change that. It feels so much better to just feel good about yourself.
Beth responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 8:32 pm #
^^ Emily, I believe you have really hit on something there. I’d also like to add that by externalising our criticisms of our bodies out loud – to others – it’s like we’re getting there first. I don’t know when it began, but for me I’ve long held a belief that people are judging me. By saying out loud the things I see as imperfections, it’s as if I am admitting the faults before they can be brought up. Does that make sense at all?
B responded on 01 Jun 2010 at 11:09 pm #
amazing post. i love your stuff. this is no different. this post was so inspiring and so true. time to admit to myself that i love some things i’m not supposed to about my body. like my frizzy hair. and my thick legs.
Wei-Wei responded on 02 Jun 2010 at 2:03 am #
I remember a moment when I was deep in my ED, so clearly. I was practicing dance moves in front of a camera, recording for a joint dance project in PE, and my face was out of the picture. I saw a flash of the video sometime later on someone else’s computer, and thought, “Wow, skinny girl.” Then I realised it was me, then thought, “Nah, it was just the angle.”
I think it’s the first, immediate reaction that we have to remember. Why are we brainwashing ourselves? I think there’s a side of ourselves that we show to the public, a side that we show to the public within ourselves (does that make sense?) and the side that rarely comes out, the side that we show just to ourselves. Stop the brainwashing! We’re all beautiful, and deep down… I think we do know it.
Wei-Wei
Calley responded on 03 Jun 2010 at 5:56 pm #
haha! great photo. you’re hilarious and this is one of my favorite posts ever. as in, ever, anywhere. it’s so true!!
i’ve actually done that with friends before. like sat there and gone back and forth with what we hate about ourselves. i don’t think we ever did it with things we like. maybe we should try!
Link Love | The Demoiselles responded on 07 Jun 2010 at 2:44 pm #
[...] at Eat The Damn Cake, Kate points out how we’ve all learned (thoroughly) how to recognize the things we hate about our body… But what about the positive? But what about when you look down at your thighs and just like [...]