I’m feeling different about my body than I ever have before. Most of the time, I genuinely feel either neutral towards it or good; really really good. I feel like it’s either no big deal what the hell I look like or I look pretty damn good.
But when I imagine what my body looks like to other people, I sometimes feel super shitty still — maybe even shittier than before. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t deserve to live because I’m so ugly and disgusting. I think this feels shittier than before because I used to just readily agree with that. THAT opinion used to be MY opinion. But now my perception of what people see in me is so at odds with how I see myself. So it’s even MORE painful to imagine that outside perception.
Yesterday, when I was feeling particularly hot and sassy, an older guy in a truck rolled his window down to tell me, “hey! You look great!” I smiled and giggled and thanked him then got back in my car and suddenly felt like all the wind had been taken out of my sails. I had felt great. I had felt beautiful and abundant and powerful. THEN his comment reminded me harshly that actually, I am not. I am still JUST a woman who gets to be objectified and consumed by the culture I live in. And worse, because of my perception of how OTHER people see my body, his comment seemed condescending as if “for a fat woman” was the hidden, mutually understood next part of his sentence. He made me feel like shit.
It’s complicated. And I know there are many people who think I am the one making it complicated. But I’m not. It IS complicated. The world wants me to accept this man’s comment as a kindness but as a woman who has grown up inundated by Diet-Rape Culture, the fact is there is just no way to understand this man’s comment as a kindness. This kind of comment is a violation; it is a reminder that I am not safe and my body is not really acceptable.
I sat with this comment and this interaction for a good 36 hours before fully understanding its impact on me. When my husband and I cuddled the following evening and he expressed an interest in being intimate, I had a really hard time; much harder than usual. I felt that I could not inhabit my body. I didn’t want him to see or touch my belly, my hips, my thighs. I wanted us both to imagine that he was with a totally different body altogether — such was the extent to which I could not find my own body worthy of intimacy with my husband whom I absolutely adore and whose body happens to conform to Diet Culture’s ideals far more than my own.
It is unacceptable that a random stranger’s off-handed comment created a schism in the intimacy of my marriage. Unacceptable. It makes me angry. SO angry. But I’m not exactly angry with the man who thought he was just being nice. He was raised in a culture that taught him my body was his to objectify, consume, and judge. He was raised to believe that HIS opinion of my body was FAR more important than my own — or worse yet, that HIS opinion should be my own. It’s not his “fault” exactly. It’s not his fault that I was raised in the same culture with the same assumptions. I was raised to hate my body and to think of my body as a problem and to accept whatever judgements of my body were handed down to me from men. And that’s not MY fault either. This is just the water we swim in. This is just the soup women like me are drowning in. It’s no one person’s “fault” but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable or any less enraging.
As women like me begin to throw off the shackles of Diet-Rape Culture and demand better from the world, many men are inevitably feeling more confused about what’s acceptable and what’s unacceptable with regards to their relationships with women. So, in the interest of helping them navigate these waters let me offer THIS advice: NEVER - EVER EVER EVER EVER — comment on anyone else’s body when your comments have not been solicited. ONLY if someone asks for your opinion of their body, should you give it. And even then, preface your judgement with this simple statement and force yourself to understand the truth in it: “of course, it doesn’t matter what I think of your body— it only matters what YOU think of your body but...” THEN choose to be nice and polite. When would a woman ask a man for his opinion of her body or her appearance? Possibly while being intimate. Possibly before going out on a date. Possibly before going somewhere important — meeting parents; a gala or awards dinner or something of the sort. Possibly before an important business meeting. I suppose there are many possibilities. Women are programmed to NEED validation of their beauty from outside sources (that’s what many of us are working to deprogram ourselves of). So, we’ll probably ask. But I can tell you the situation in which we will almost NEVER ask a dude’s opinion of our bodies— we will probably NEVER walk up to a total stranger in a truck in the same parking lot that our car happens to be in to say, “um... excuse me strange man, what do you think? Do I look okay to you?” [please envision dramatic eye rolling here]
Mind Your Own Body, Teamies, with Love
But when I imagine what my body looks like to other people, I sometimes feel super shitty still — maybe even shittier than before. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t deserve to live because I’m so ugly and disgusting. I think this feels shittier than before because I used to just readily agree with that. THAT opinion used to be MY opinion. But now my perception of what people see in me is so at odds with how I see myself. So it’s even MORE painful to imagine that outside perception.
Yesterday, when I was feeling particularly hot and sassy, an older guy in a truck rolled his window down to tell me, “hey! You look great!” I smiled and giggled and thanked him then got back in my car and suddenly felt like all the wind had been taken out of my sails. I had felt great. I had felt beautiful and abundant and powerful. THEN his comment reminded me harshly that actually, I am not. I am still JUST a woman who gets to be objectified and consumed by the culture I live in. And worse, because of my perception of how OTHER people see my body, his comment seemed condescending as if “for a fat woman” was the hidden, mutually understood next part of his sentence. He made me feel like shit.
It’s complicated. And I know there are many people who think I am the one making it complicated. But I’m not. It IS complicated. The world wants me to accept this man’s comment as a kindness but as a woman who has grown up inundated by Diet-Rape Culture, the fact is there is just no way to understand this man’s comment as a kindness. This kind of comment is a violation; it is a reminder that I am not safe and my body is not really acceptable.
I sat with this comment and this interaction for a good 36 hours before fully understanding its impact on me. When my husband and I cuddled the following evening and he expressed an interest in being intimate, I had a really hard time; much harder than usual. I felt that I could not inhabit my body. I didn’t want him to see or touch my belly, my hips, my thighs. I wanted us both to imagine that he was with a totally different body altogether — such was the extent to which I could not find my own body worthy of intimacy with my husband whom I absolutely adore and whose body happens to conform to Diet Culture’s ideals far more than my own.
It is unacceptable that a random stranger’s off-handed comment created a schism in the intimacy of my marriage. Unacceptable. It makes me angry. SO angry. But I’m not exactly angry with the man who thought he was just being nice. He was raised in a culture that taught him my body was his to objectify, consume, and judge. He was raised to believe that HIS opinion of my body was FAR more important than my own — or worse yet, that HIS opinion should be my own. It’s not his “fault” exactly. It’s not his fault that I was raised in the same culture with the same assumptions. I was raised to hate my body and to think of my body as a problem and to accept whatever judgements of my body were handed down to me from men. And that’s not MY fault either. This is just the water we swim in. This is just the soup women like me are drowning in. It’s no one person’s “fault” but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable or any less enraging.
As women like me begin to throw off the shackles of Diet-Rape Culture and demand better from the world, many men are inevitably feeling more confused about what’s acceptable and what’s unacceptable with regards to their relationships with women. So, in the interest of helping them navigate these waters let me offer THIS advice: NEVER - EVER EVER EVER EVER — comment on anyone else’s body when your comments have not been solicited. ONLY if someone asks for your opinion of their body, should you give it. And even then, preface your judgement with this simple statement and force yourself to understand the truth in it: “of course, it doesn’t matter what I think of your body— it only matters what YOU think of your body but...” THEN choose to be nice and polite. When would a woman ask a man for his opinion of her body or her appearance? Possibly while being intimate. Possibly before going out on a date. Possibly before going somewhere important — meeting parents; a gala or awards dinner or something of the sort. Possibly before an important business meeting. I suppose there are many possibilities. Women are programmed to NEED validation of their beauty from outside sources (that’s what many of us are working to deprogram ourselves of). So, we’ll probably ask. But I can tell you the situation in which we will almost NEVER ask a dude’s opinion of our bodies— we will probably NEVER walk up to a total stranger in a truck in the same parking lot that our car happens to be in to say, “um... excuse me strange man, what do you think? Do I look okay to you?” [please envision dramatic eye rolling here]
Mind Your Own Body, Teamies, with Love
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