“How You Stay Faithful in a Room Full of Hoes” Or “What I Learned About Image-Obsession in LA”
So, if you’re my facebook friend, perhaps you’ve noticed: I quote Kanye West like a delusional Westboro Churchgoer quotes Leviticus.
And, before I dig myself into a pit from the depths of which I will never be able to escape, let me just say this: This is not about actual sluts and/or hoes. Just the concept of aforementioned sluts and/or hoes. So fear not, chaste reader, this will not be a post that offends your tender sensibilities (for a change).
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a month. To get to the point, everything people say about LA is true. But here is the corollary: It’s only true if you want it to be.
So back to the analogical hoes in question. What I’ve gathered this to mean is that sometimes you will be faced with a choice. This applies particularly well for anyone who’s taken a significant amount of time to think about what’s important to them before they attempt to apply their values to the broader societal context, but I think that everyone will feel it a little bit when they find themselves in a place that is extreme in ways so much that it becomes a parody of itself in the way that LA does.
Your choice will be simple: You can conform to the conditions of what surrounds you or you can stay faithful to what you feel is right for you.
What does this mean in the OGND-sphere of things? Well, LA is an image-obsessed place. Everyone seems to have a “slash” in their title. Everyone’s works in the business of how they seem and appear. But when I say “everyone” I mean that it’s easy to see only a given city’s initial offering. It’s easy to say that everyone in New York is a douchebag I-banker or a gritty local. It’s easy to say Parisians exist in a cloud of smoke and that butter flows through their vessels. Yeah. Yeah. We all know the stereotypes. And stereotypes are how you end up in a beret and striped shirt on the Chans de Lise getting laughed at by Parisians and giving Americans a bad name.
Stop it. There are better, more sublte things about Los Angeles (and, really, every place) beyond the preliminary stereotype. The hard part is doing the work to get beyond the initial layer of bullshit and superficiality.
So, basically, you’ll occasionally find yourself in dangerous territory, such as LA. This territory may be indicated to you by a bunch of sluts standing around trying to get into your pants even though you have a girlfriend/boyfriend that you actually love or it may be marked by every third billboard being dedicated to some diet/medical procedure/silver bullet to make you beautiful.
The idea that you really have to understand yourself and what matters to you to be able to withstand external pressure becomes even more apparent when you’re in an extreme setting. It could be easy to proclaim that it’s out of your hands…it’s just the way the world works. But it’s way more bad ass to stick to your guns.
I’m not suggesting that you pretend that these proverbial hoes are something they’re not. They’re hoes. And there’s actually a phone number 1-800-GET-THIN. What I am suggesting is that you make your way to the sanest section of the room and keep your zipper up.
Twisted: Jess Weiner, Jezebel and Glamour
A striking example of women’s magazines tweaking the meaning of messages. To summarize, Size-18 body acceptance figure, Jess Weiner, sets out to lose weight after a trip to the doctor after several years revealed she had pre-pre-diabetes.
Glamour titled the original article “Loving my Body Almost Killed Me.” The problem with it is that the automatic (and unnecessary) jump is made from “loving” and accepting your body automatically leads to one being overweight.
Doesn’t that, transitively, imply that not being overweight requires you to hate your body? To be waging a constant war on it? Pssht.
The Jezebel interview linked here has some further explanation by Jess Weiner on how she felt about the article. The Glamour article claims that Jess Weiner, who has lost 25 lbs and is back into the healthy range in her labs, is set to lose another 30 pounds. At 225, she is still overweight, but as Jezebel points out, there is no evidence to say that, compared to a thin person with the same labs, she’s at any higher of a risk for diseases simply because of her weight: The idea of healthy at any size. And, it’s not that Weiner would be at an unhealthy weight if she lost 30 lbs, it’s just that the magazine’s fixation on the idea that she SHOULD be even though Weiner herself said that number was a moving target.
Mostly, it’s frustrating to see the idea of “body acceptance” being automatically linked to unhealthiness. It shouldn’t be code for fat.
When do we get to the part where focusing on the actions that maintain health (generally balanced diet and exercise) and accept what bodies result (psst. they’re nice)?!
Body acceptance for me is rejecting the whole concept. You don’t become healthy by dieting. Healthy is as healthy does. Eat a lot of veggies. Move around. Stop reading Glamour.
Source: jezebel.com
My Body Gallery: Good Idea/Bad Idea?
The lovely Miss Amy Sly (@amyslysly) brought this one to my attention and I’m not sure so I thought I’d throw it out to you guys:
Is a site where you can submit your photos and statistics (as a “real” woman) a good thing?
The expressed purpose of the website, My Body Gallery, is to “build a collection of photos that will help more women see themselves clearly.”
But I’m curious about the effect that photos + statistics will have on the minds of viewers. While I generally love the idea of a certain amount of vanity having a wider selection of women represented in photos, I’m not sure this is the right vehicle.
The collection is searchable by stats which just seems to scream “COMPARE!” to me, and comparing is generally a losing game because even two people with the exact same numerical stats can look drastically different….or is that the point?
The phrase “real women” bugs me, too, since all women are “real.” Having one type be more real than another is bad no matter which one you deem as real.
I also think that having no narrative attached to the image is less than ideal: The focus being put solely on the physical, even if it’s a broadened appreciation for different physicalities, seems empty without stories.
What do you think?
Women who are too…ANYTHING should tone it down.
Extremism is the bad part, not the type of extremism. Nobody should be too [anything]!
Plus, when dudes are too muscular, they don’t get told to turn it down by ABC, they get to be on The Jersey Shore. Wait a minute…
- If you’re too fat, you get a reality show (too many to name),
- If you’re too thin, you get a reality show (intervention),
- If you’re too muscular, you get a reality show (Shore…)
…hmm.. - if you’re too fertile you get a reality show, (John and Kate Plus Eight)
- If you’re not fertile you get a reality show (some TLC bullshit)
- If you’re addicted to drugs, you get a reality show (intervention, celebrity rehab, etc)
…hmm… - If you’re not fertile, too thin and possibly addicted to drugs you get your own reality show (Giuliana and Bill. sorry. had to)
Ah, ok! I see. I’ll just shut up and allow you, dear media, to carry on catering to extremes.
Q:How do you feel about foods that are low fat or non-fat? I'm kind of torn because there's low fat milk and low fat yogurt, which seem acceptable, but then there's low fat peanut butter, which makes no sense at all. (This semi-irrational worrying was sparked by my regret over buying cream top yogurt, which I've always wanted to try but didn't because it's full fat. When I bought it, I had convinced myself that I had to try it once in my life, and now was the time!) I mean, I used to drink a cup of whole milk in the morning and night (but that was between the ages of 5 and 9, when my body needed it to grow, or something). I don't know what my question is anymore, but I guess I just need a second opinion on low fat and non-fat foods, and whether or not eating whole foods regardless of whether their fat content is better. Thank you so much! You inspire me a lot.
I’m not a fan of non-fat products because most of the time they replace the fat content with gluten/sugar/something-else-unnecessary. And the calorie count isn’t even greatly reduced so now you’re eating the caloric equivalent of an unnatural food. Reduced-fat is (usually) just made by using a lower fat dairy product or by skimming fat out during processing. They are less offensive to me, generally.
Always a good idea to check the label on these foods and see what has been added to reduce the fat content. For example, do you really think that frozen “yogurt” is good for you? It might be fat free, but it’s full-sugar and full of chemical fillers.
But, remember, fat doesn’t make you fat, eating more calories than you need and not exercising do. Many reduced- and non-fat foods don’t actually contain much fewer calories than the regular versions and are less nutritionally balanced which makes them less likely to trigger a satiety response. Translation: your brain doesn’t even register what you’ve eaten as food. Better to go with the more natural product.
Just make sure your overall diet is balanced and healthy. Eating whole foods that taste good will ultimately be more satisfying. It won’t feel like you’re eating “fake” food and you’ll be less likely to eat too much.
Real food is worth it.
#healthismywealth
Female Athletes Part 3: The Dancers Speak Up
Last week, I posted on ballerinas, body image and the issues facing female athletes.
I had a wonderful response from many of you who wanted to share a bit about your experience.
While it was no surprise to hear that people have been affected by pressure what was surprising (to me, at least) was the severity of some of these experience at all levels of sport and dance (i.e. even as younger, non professionals seems to be affected equally).
Here are a few of the stories:
Summer K:.
Hi Jessica,
I wanted to respond to your blog post. My name is Summer. I grew up taking ballet and earned a BFA in Ballet Performance from Texas Christian University. Like many women, I grew up battling body image issues. I took from a private dance studio that was pretty traditional in nature, from Russian-trained teachers. So talent was important - extension, turns, jumps, endurance. But at the end of the day, the smallest ballerina got the lead role, even if she was less talented than her “competition.” To be blunt, smaller ballerinas are easier for men to lift than bigger ballerinas. Therefore, playing the leading lady requires a certain amount of weight-awareness about you. But I think this gets out of control. Naturally, every ballerina strives to play the lead, so they start comparing themselves to the women who are currently getting lead roles, and work to make their bodies look like her’s. But we are all built differently and for many of us, the expectations are NOT POSSIBLE. (Or rather, they’re not possible without an eating disorder.)
I am NOT prima ballerina material. I have the legs, but not the feet. I have the flexible back, but I wear a D-cup bra size, which is NOT desirable for lead ballerinas. And while I don’t think body size is my only issue, I think it is a large factor in my not getting hired by a ballet company post-college.
When I went to TCU, the body image thing got a little bit better. The professors and choreographers there were much more interested in talent and potential (for the most part) than if you could wear a size 00 dress. And I think there are more and more contemporary ballet/modern dance companies out there that are truly interested in what you can do rather than what size clothes you’re wearing. Example: My best friend dances for a ballet company, and while she is definitely thin, she doesn’t look like a 14-year-old girl like some of the other professional ballerinas I’ve seen. Progress!
I still think we’re going to have body issues in ballet (and dance in general), no matter what. There is a certain aesthetic that is expected of ballet dancers, and when the money comes from the wealthy patrons who expect 75-pound dancers, ballet companies (especially the more prominent ones) must cater to their desires. And dancers of every type feel the pressure to be thin, even when nobody directly tells you, “You’d look amazing if you were 15 pounds skinnier!” They don’t have to - we do it to ourselves!
As for me: I no longer do ballet nearly as intensively as I did growing up or in college. Instead, I dance professionally in musicals where body type is less inhibiting. I try and eat well (some times more successfully than others) with the intention of respecting my body inside and out: giving myself the nutrition I need to get through the day, but not starving myself, and accepting my body for what it is rather than cursing myself for not being a size 0. This was the hardest lesson to learn, and one I am still working on every single day.
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Ella (RunlikeElla):
I was a ballet dancer from the time I was three until I turned 12, and the director called me into her office about my hips. All of the other girls were these spry little blonde waifs, I was already a curvy little Latina bomb, and my body’s fuse was a lot shorter than those of the girls around me. I remember thinking she was absolutely out of her mind when she sat me down to talk about food and my body and my future ballet classes, and quit that day. Nothing was worth letting my mean director win.
I developed an eating disorder two years later, and have been struggling with it ever since. Sometimes I wonder if I had never done ballet, maybe I wouldn’t have put my body though such torture. Maybe I would have. But now as I come out of the other side of it, I realize the power to my hips and the strength in my legs.
Personally, I love that some ballerinas are now just displaying their glory….Why must we sacrifice ourselves, our bodies, our desires (food and slash or sex a la Black Swan) for a sport we love? Yes, sometimes discipline makes us perform better, but why must that thin line between what others expect from a sport and what we expect of ourselves be thrust upon us? It needs to be our choice to decide where it lies.
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As a former dancer and someone who still dabbles in adult ballet, I LOVED that you posted about ballet!!!!! And also, your post on curves. As I work in the sports medicine department of a training facility that caters to elite athletes, I can’t tell you how frustrating it is when we have women in our groups that are designed more for the active general public complain about being afraid to up their weight as they don’t want to get “big and bulky.” Even more sad that I heard this comment from one of our strength coach’s wife! Amen sister. To everything you’ve posted.
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Sarah:
Hey!
I saw your blog post… I was a ballerina for years.
It meant getting weighed every friday, starting at age 14. we were weighed to make sure we were small enough to be lifted over someone’s head. It was purely based on number - losses were applauded, gains were frowned upon. i remember one girl wasn’t allowed to take class that night because she weighed-in too heavy. I’d love to say that it didn’t affect me in the long run, but let’s be honest - its engrained now. I’ve been trained to constantly look in a mirror, and constantly assume that I should be smaller, with less muscle-y legs, a longer neck, smaller frame… in an art that is based almost exclusively on having an the perfect ballerina body type, it leaves any young girl who wasn’t so genetically blessed, to constantly wish she could change herself. For some girls it stays at a slightly unhealthy wish to lose weight or change a few things on her body, but for some it goes much, much further… to the point of eating disorders & drug addiction.
I’ve since found yoga - a discipline that embraces different body types and different abilities. I still love ballet - I love to watch it, and I love to take class when I can, but a large part of why I [gave up ballet] was because of the exorbitant pressure put on body image… I couldn’t handle it.
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Hey girl hey -
So, you knew I was going to have something to say - many somethings - about your ballet/the body/beauty post.
#1 - I’ll say again that I loved it.
#2 - I danced for 15 years. On fairly big stages for the last 6 or 7 — we’re talking class 5 days a week during the “slow” times, multiple rehearsals and performances during a run, etc. In that time, I met a LOT of girls who were thinner than me, but were obsessed with their weight. I’ve had the good luck/good genes to have grown up both “curvy” and “willowy”. I have the long thin limbs that you need to fit into the traditional idea of what a ballerina should look like — and 9 years ago when I quit, that was still the accepted wisdom. A lot of times, especially as I got older and my body started to mature, I had to work harder than everybody else, to make sure that I could prove I was the best. Most of my favorite roles as I got older seemed to be the ones I busted my ass the most for — not because the parts were challenging, but because being taller than my partner when en pointe, having a more “womanly” figure than most of the other girls, having “sturdier” legs because I also played sports…. all of these things lead to the need to prove I was willing to take extra classes, get to rehearsal earlier, leave later, than everybody else. THAT was how I “earned” my leads — a combination of natural talent and work ethic and (luckily) I used the trunk of my car as a pantry, which meant I always, always had food, and energy, to do the work.
Looking back, I think that’s probably the healthiest way I could have gone about it. Obviously my developing, still-under-20-years-old body wasn’t going anywhere, so instead of trying to work harder to drop weight, starve myself or some other ridiculous and foolish thing (for me), I just proved that the body I had could do great things, AND accept more punishment, because it was well muscled and well fed. But more than once, I felt the sting of other ballerinas wondering why “the fat girl” got the role, or wonder whether my pas de deux partner could manage to lift me. It never motivated me to try and conform to their point of view, although it did on more than one occasion prompt me to remark that being a bitch can be directly impacted by not having enough to eat.
(Full disclosure - one time, around 17, I didwish that I had the dedicationnecessary to have an eating disorder, because I didn’t like the womanly bits that were appearing all over my body, and how they affected my dancing. But then I decided to skip my 10am snack, and almost fainted by lunch, and decided that fuck dedication, I needed food. I’ve never gone back)
One element of ballet that I think can cover up for a lot of other “not-ideal” elements of a dancer’s body is the “X-factor”. Some people are able to dance, and make it so the entire time they are on the stage, you cannot pull your eyes away. THEY are the center of your attention, and you lose everything else because of them. That can’t be taught. Having never seen myself perform, I have no idea if I had it or not, but guessing by the number of parts I got despite my “not-ideal” body type, I might have. But if you have it, especially in ballet, you can break barriers. You can change minds. You can be too tall, too muscular, too whatever, and if you are the most amazing thing out there, no one will ever notice. Not even that jackhole Times critic. It’s just a shame when there are people turned away or broken from the dance before they get to show it, because of too many closed minds. I hope that there’s a shift coming. I see it, and it’s amazing the girls who 10 years ago would not have had leads, but now are changing minds and being amazing.
I think a lot of the perception from when I was a dancer was still focused on pixielike girls, usually very young (under 25) and big strong (still graceful, still beautiful) men who were older (definitely in the 20+ range). People like to watch a pas-de-deux where the man hardly seems to be working at all to lift the woman, where her body flows and her partner can spin, swoop, and toss her. Part of the magic of the dance is lost when you actually see the work that goes into every single thing, for the average audience. And for that reason, I think it’s going to take a major shift for more muscular, athletic-looking women to be accepted as the norm in the greater world of ballet. Audeinces want the men to look like athletes, for sure. And the women…. they want the women to look like it doesn’t hurt, like all the work doesn’t show.
Through all the ridiculous things I have done with my body, including but not limited to 15 years of ballet, 10 years of competitive softball, 8 years of soccer, track and field, a year of rowing crew, 3 years of playing rugby, and running a damn marathon, I am lucky, so very lucky to have, for whatever reason, always viewed it as an object of power and strength, rather than as something to be fought against. I have always understood that it is amazing. But at many points along the way, I’ve also been told that it’s wrong, or not ideal.
Thanks, for bringing the conversation around, and for getting people talking about this.
take care!
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It does seem like there are tiny ripples of change but that there is an extremely long way to go in terms of allowing an environment where there is balance between performance and health.
An interesting point about about ballet (in particular) that occurred to me as I was compiling this: When the Balanchine type body was imagined in the early 1900s, the average body size (height AND weight) of people was much smaller than it is today, but those standards are still applied (with disastrous results, it seems) to dancers today.
Sporty girls, you’re up tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
What do you think of these stories?
Female Athletes Part 2.1: Speak up!
Hey,
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on body image and weight pressure in ballet and sports. If you were affected by these issues, drop me a line! Thank you to everyone who has already! You can comment here or send me an email (jessica brookman @ gmail).
xoxo
Jess
Female Ahtletes Part 2: The Curious Case of Ballet
Ballerinas are athletes. There really is no debating that: Anyone who trains hours a day to get their bodies to conform to the highest level of standards of their sport or craft is an athlete.
And, as with many athletes, the bodies of dancers is under high scrutiny as it is part of their functionality within ballet. As I write this, my body is largely irrelevant. I could have no legs and still type these words, athletes’ bodies become an object of scrutiny as it is their instrument. It’s well documented that ballerinas are subject to one of the severest forms of this phenomenon.
[^ This is Jenifer Ringer in the Nutcracker last winter. Miss Ringer was criticized by the New York Times’ Alastair Macauley for having “one too many sugarplums.” Really?!]
Volumes of books and movies have been created which highlight the psychotic nature with which dancers are forced to pursue these ideas. Miss Portman, I’m looking at you.
And yet, it doesn’t have to be like this: There are instances of more muscular ballerinas becoming successful. They are heralded as exceptions to the body-type rule, but if you look at their bodies and the way they dance, they are proof that it’s a combination of traits outside of sheer weight plus some X-factor that makes a dancer great.
Each company has their own standards and those standards vary, but I’ve been noticing a trend towards healthy muscle development (outside of the Bolshoi, which remains fiercely committed to xylophone rib cages).
The question is, if it is possible—as these following dancers demonstrate—to maintain the desired lines and technique without being extremely thin, why the tacit commitment to something so unhealthy?
Without taking the onus off barring dancers on simply weight, the wold may be missing out on ballerinas like Misty Copeland (legs below), Lynn Seymour and Sophiane Sylve (for starters), all of whom are nontraditional yet brilliant.
Please follow the discussion on twitter.
25 Diet Tips from Skinny Chicks or How to Mis-Headline a Surprisingly Good Article
In the June issue of Allure (sorry male readership), this was a headline tucked in next to January Jones, seated with a bunch of other predictable women’s magazine headlines. Obviously women’s health and beauty mags have the insipid habit of recycling the same bullshit with a new annoyingly sensationalist title slapped on it. I almost skipped it entirely, expecting annoying tips like, “Take a bit of cake and then pretend to sneeze and spit it in a napkin. Then do 5 jumping jacks just to be sure you don’t gain weight from any of the crumbs!”
Joking aside, and being at a loss for content ideas (which is NEVER funny to a blogger), I read the article.
It didn’t totally suck….or it didn’t suck totally. While it still maintained some of the hyper obsession with being a bony sack of a human, it discussed how thin women are the ones who make healthy eating a routine, something that belongs to them, instead of being on a diet. ”The word diet connotes a limited-time affair, but thin women have made eating well a routine: It’s simply something they do day in and day out.”
Of course, I would have probably used different verbage (e.g. “healthy” instead of “skinny chicks), the number of annoying and/or borderline disordered-eating tips were minimal.
“The word diet connotes a limited-time affair, but thin women have made eating well a routine: It’s simply something they do day in and day out.” Well duh. The idea that there isn’t some “loss” period and then “maintenance” period is solid: it has to be the eating/exercising changes you make and live with that cause the weight loss and land you at the right weight for you that make having a “maintenance” mode irrelevant. You’re already there. Tracey Jackson (who wrote Confessions of a Shopaholic) was quoted on this: “Once I stopped going on diets, I not only lost 20 lbs, but I kept it off.”
OK, so what are some of the tips?
- Thin women cook (yep. easier to control ingredients and working for your meal mans you appreciate it more, honestly.)
- Portioning some of whatever you cook for lunch the next day in tupperware right away (keeps you from eating seconds but also makes sure you have a healthy lunch the next day).
- Indulge within reason: You’re never going to have a period in your life when you’re not going to want the occasional cookie or bowl of pasta…you better build that in as part of your routine or you’re destined to fail or yo-yo.
- Be prepared: this is more or less challenging depending on where and in what environment you work. When I was working in a midtown manhattan high rise, it would have been possible for me to get basically any type of food in 10 minutes or less. But I tried to keep better snacks around for when I got hungry to keep from deciding a 2:30pm cupcakes was a good idea. Turns out, carrots or almonds work just fine…
Probably the most important piece of advice, though, is that you should avoid eating processed foods and sugar substitutes as much as possible.
Diet soda is not a good look and, while I totally NEED to have peanut m&ms in my life once in a while, i feel best when I avoid processed food and sugar. So Beware of the 100-calorie pack. In a study cited in the article they noted that subjects who had raw fruit instead ate 20% fewer calories in their snacks—see, my kiwi and pineapple obsession isn’t a bad thing…even if I’m starting to turn green.
So while I wish the focus would be on how you can heave a balanced and healthy approach to food instead of “what skinny chicks are eating,” these are pretty valid points.
What do you guys think? How effective are these ideas in helping you maintain a healthy look and outlook/image?
PS. You can follow me on twitter here.
Monday Anti-Rant: Degrees of Freedom
As a post-script to the quote below this post and as a preface for the week: Try something new.
Or at least don’t be so stubborn on some arbitrary determination of factors to allow yourself to consider the merits of other variables.
Why am I saying this? Because I’m a big girl.
Hold up. Let me re-frame that:
Hinging on the multi-faceted meaning of this phrase, let me explain. I am currently something that, in the past, I had never allowed myself to be:
- 100% CEO of my life.
- Therefore, 100% responsible for my life.
- And, finally, 7-10 lbs heavier than what I previously considered my set point.
The picture that spurred this bout of introspection:
There I was, chilling on my best friend’s roof in Brooklyn eating an ice pop. Filling out a bikini. Thinking life has not been better than this.
I think this all calls for an LOL. I mean, I can’t help but think that all these things are related. Over the last year, I’ve undergone several changes in my lifestyle. I’ve never had an incredibly settled or stable existence—I’ve moved more times than I care to count but somewhere on the order of 12 times in the last 5 years—but I’ve always suffered the changes as something that was happening *to* me and not something I am directing (or at least capable of directing).
Purview goes from “Some people have all the luck” (or “Fuck that lucky bitch”) to “Go get some or shut up.”
The 2.0 version of this is wanting to get the right things for you. If you spend time, no matter how passable you are, becoming something that isn’t a natural fit, you’ll be miserable.
Don’t be a crappy imitation of someone else, basically. There are a lot of prototypes you can mimic and labels you can slap on…and if they fit? Go for it. But if they don’t, you’re not defective. You just need to find or create a space for yourself.
What egged all this on? I have been freelancing web-projects and writing on my own for about 2 solid months now. I haven’t stumbled on the exact right formula yet but Im giving myself permission to fuck up multiple times until I do. Some projects have fallen through, some have been awesome. I’m behind on some. I’m kicking ass on some. I’m figuring out how to be my own personal assistant. I’m sitting outside in the sun writing this on a monday morning. Things could be worse.
At my last travel intensive job, my mental and physical health suffered a bit. I gained … not exactly sure…but a good amount of weight. It was winter, clothes were tight and life was hard. Making the decision that it was a bad fit for me, personally, I figured I’d eventually get back down to the weight I was meant to be. I was mostly right. It’s been about 2 months and I’ve lost about half the weight, leaving me 7-10 lbs, depending on the day, over where I have been most of my adult life.
First I was a little outraged objectively. I mean, I am all about staying in a narrow range by finding a rhythm and balance for myself. This seemed like a problem maybe.
But fuck me, I don’t even want to lose it. This is a weight I never would have *let* myself hit had I not overshot it and come back down to it. I’m not really sure what will happen by the end of summer since I am way more active anyway. But I look less and less like I’m expected to by various societal pressures and more and more like I’m supposed to naturally.
But the point is:
Sometimes you don’t know what the fuck is best for you until you’ve done some experimentation.
I think even beyond the idea of “love yourself *even though* you’re not perfect/skinny/curvy/clear-skinned/tall/petite/whatever” is the idea of “love yourself *because* you’re any of those other things. The world needs a few more people to stand up and be like “fuck this. I have curly, coarse hair. sometimes bad skin. My teeth aren’t perfect. I have a big ass. But I look way better being that naturally than I do struggling to be anything else you assign to women as ‘the way to look’. Fuck off.”
You look better as you anyway. Give yourself a few extra degrees of freedom to figure it out. Take responsibility for your life’s course. Surprise yourself.
And catch yourself smiling, too, dammit.
Real Beauties? A Take on Italian Vogue via NYT Fashion & Style
Italian Vogue Adds to Its Curvy Message
By CATHY HORYN
Italian Vogue’s June cover.
“Real Beauties” is the title of the June issue of Italian Vogue, which highlights women with more shape than the typical model. Steven Meisel shot the feature in a private home in Los Angeles.
Italian Vogue is hardly the first magazine to show curvaceous women — American Vogue has long had a shape issue — but last year its editor, Franca Sozzani, started an online column called Curvy that has become popular. And she has been critical of Web sites that promote excessive thinness among young women. I haven’t seen the June issue yet, but the cover evokes a nostalgic lushness. Or, thinking about the new television series “The Playboy Club” or those Berlusconi women, maybe it’s not nostalgic at all. What should happen is that magazines routinely include a range of body types.
Pet peeve: calling one thing “real” over another. Cathy Horyn sums it up in one sentence, her final. Objectifying any one body type as a “real” beauty just makes it easier to pit one side against others, create schisms in perception and perpetuate the idea that there is an ideal. Clearly, if there is interest in curvy women, there is interest in skinnier women and even fuller women. Women with dark hair or dark skin, women with light skin, eyes hair. Women with full lips, women with tiny lips…it’s just physical variance and there are so many combinations of features that it’s ridiculous to focus on just body shape…that’s not the thing (or the only thing) that makes the women on the cover of this magazine attractive, anyway. Though, on a sidenote, I do wish Meisel had taken care not to have a model sitting awkwardly open-legged in panties but I digress…
To put it another way, if the magazine said “Real Beauties” and featured an all-asian (for example) set of models, there’d certainly be more outrage triggered. But, essentially, it’s the same idea: taking one set of features or characteristics and declaring it the “real” thing.
Models should be beautiful. And, models should represent all types of beauty. Why keep categorizing and segregating people like livestock? You also gotta love Franca Sozzani’s ability to blindly ignore fashion’s role in creating unrealistic images of thinness while lashing out against websites that do the same thing.
Source: The New York Times
