May 4th, Two Thousand Two: It's been a while, and the massive feedback (cripes, it hit some
news wires, which is pretty bizarre for a journal entry) about
the body image entry has been wide, varied, and really interesting.
It's left me with a few things I think are worth talking about
that I didn't mention in the initial entry. Who knows, I may keep
revisiting this for quite some time.
Some of the commentary on it had to do with curves being womanly,
being sexy, being what "women are supposed to look like." While,
yes, certainly a great many (especially North American, European
and African women) women ARE naturally built on a curvy mold,
to greater or lesser degrees, not all are. I think this issue
is what "women" are "supposed" to look like, but really, how your
own body is built. Some women are built on a more linear mold,
and some women who may not have been take on that form due to
athletic training, or hell, even due to illness they CAN'T help,
not due to dieting or starvation. And if those curves aren't there,
I think saying they aren't womanly, or saying that those women
aren't looking as they should is as disempowering a message as
saying women should NOT look curvy. And we should -- not just
the proverbial you, me too -- be careful in how we talk about
body shape and size in this regard because while physically we
don't really have to worry much about harming someone when we're
talking about very average sizes (most people are not going to
be less healthy by gaining 20 pounds), emotionally we're in a
different arena. I could not, no matter how much healthy weight
loss or gain or physical training NOT be curvy. That is my build.
But in the same respect, a woman who is built like, say Wilma
Rudolph or Michelle Kwan, both clearly physically healthy women,
most likely could not, save plastic surgery, BECOME curvy or change
her actual build, rather than her size. And neither of us should
hear that that impossibility renders us more or less female, more
or less sexual, or more or less attractive.
Bear in mind, the initial piece was a journal entry, not a major
article -- I primarily talked about my size because it is the
perspective I'm really most qualified to speak from and about
which I can speak with the most experience and clarity. In my
mind, ALL women are "real women." All women are "womanly," and
thank goodness, that doesn't mean just one thing. Gender identity
is a very, very big field in which we all get to play. Sexuality
is only a part of it, and our bodies are likewise only a part
of our sexuality.
Which leads me to something else. It's always a bit tough when
you're a writer or an artist to truly express what you're trying
to get out there in a way that guarantees a certain interpretation.
And to some degree, that simply isn't completely possible, in
my mind. But, when some of the letters said things like "well,
men have always found me sexy," or "I may not like my body, but
my husband does, so it must be okay," I'll be honest and say that
I found that really disheartening.
I'm not going to play the village idiot and say that for nearly
all of us, our self-image is not bound up in some respect to how
we are seen by others. I'm also not going to deny that for most
of us, our sexuality, our feelings about our bodies and that sexuality,
often have something to do with our physical appeal to others,
especially if we're interested in partnered sex. I'm also not
going to say that I'm not glad to hear that a lot of men -- regardless
of their orientation -- can view women as sexually or aesthetically
appealing who are healthy, physically and emotionally. But in
my heart of hearts, I'd hope all of that came secondarily to a
woman's own self-image, and my gut and my experience tell me that
to have a really sound base for positive self-image, that has
to come second, not first. We have to love our own bodies first
-- not just for how they look to others, male or female, and not
just for their sexual appeal -- but as extensions of self, as
bodies for ALL the things our bodies make us capable of doing.
And you know, the truth is, there are better people than I to
send that message, because due to my vocation, appearance has
a lot to do with how I present myself, and appearance is one of
the major functions of my body right now. And again, given what
I do, a lot of that is tied into sexuality.
But I know a major pinnacle for me in getting to a more positive
body image is being able to ask myself how I feel about my body
completely divorced from how anyone else in the world feels about
it. In other words, if I turn off ALL of the positive and the
negative feedback about my body from others -- from fans, from
lovers, from friends, from family -- how do I really feel? Can I appreciate all of my body, accept all of my body, and realistically
evaluate my body and how it affects me without that? The answer
I usually come to is: sometimes. Sometimes I can, and sometimes
I can't. But oddly, even the positive input doesn't always do
positive things. It's easy, for instance, to forget that one's
body is far more than a magnet for Eros when a lot of the input
one gets is tied into the erotic. And it's easy to neglect positives
of the body other people don't mention in favor of those who do.
For instance, my fans don't see my yoga or boxing form, nor often
get to watch me go do a day's work of lifting, and things like
that are an integral part of my body image. Or, on the negative,
viewers of my work that involves my physical form who don't find
me sexually appealing, and are approaching my body from that standpoint
only, may not stop to look at me through another lens. In teaching,
I often ran into odd conflicts because I have a very curvy body,
which is seen as sexual, so if my clothes were clingy enough to
show those curves, it was sometimes seen as a problem because
no one "should" be thinking of a Kindergarten teacher as a sexual
being.
A rare few of us will ever be able to really turn off all of the
input we get on our bodies, from friends or from strangers, from
those intimate with us, or from larger collective messages like
the media, but I do think it's important to try and do that, and
to try and be able -- at least sometimes -- to function outside
of that and have a real feeling about our own bodies separate
from that input.
That includes some feedback from women, too, on both sides of
the coin. I know many women who have friends who are less fit
than they are, for instance, or who have very negative body image.
And for a lot of people, starting to do bodywork, or get healthier
is more than the physical. It's a lifestyle change that often
has a lot of positive effects, but when those folks start off
heavier, and lose weight or change shape because of that work,
it often seems to create very real problems with their friends
or lovers who have NOT opted to change their lifestyle in that
way. Again, that mindset of women being in competition with one
another is the killer. And when it gets to the point where we
can't even feel good about our friends doing things to not only
make them feel better about themselves, but to become physically
and emotionally HEALTHIER, it's beyond time to start question
what the hell is going on.
Again, I think what this all boils down to is getting to the individual
and collective point where we can accept an incredibly diverse
range of healthy shapes and sizes as perfectly okay, and aesthetically
beautiful in a broad way, though I don't think any of us can say
someone needs find this type or shape or that one sexually or
aesthetically appealing -- we just can't assign those sorts of
things, neither or them is that simple and are, to some degree,
pretty fixed in a person. But the big difference there is I-statements.
It is a very different thing to say "Martha is too fat," or "Joanne's
breasts are too small," than it is to say, "Martha just isn't
sexually appealing to me," or "Bigger breasts are just what rev
my engine." And people are awfully quick to do the former -- most
likely half out of thoughtlessness or conditioning which tells
them that their tastes ARE everyone's tastes, and half because
their OWN self-image is such that they need to feel the validation
of having tastes which are the tastes to be having. And it isn't
just others who make that error. Most of us do it ourselves all
the time. We look in the mirror and we say things like, "I'm too
fat," or "My legs are too big," or "My butt is too flat." And
rarely do we go just one tiny step further and ask ourselves,
"For what?" Are we too fat to do things we want to do comfortably,
or to fit into a given size? Are our legs too big for this designer's
cut of pants, or are they too big to look like our ideal? Are
our butts too flat to make sitting comfortable, or to be strong
enough for skating all day, or are they too flat for what we think
another person might desire? And just asking those questions offers
a whole lot of perspective, because it helps us figure out if
those feelings are really valid or important. If we are too fat
or thin to be healthy and to do the activities that are involved
in our lives, that is very worth looking at and finding solutions
to, if they exist (and they don't always exist). If we are too
fat or too thin to sexually appeal to someone else, or meet a
beauty standard, or wear this brand of clothing, that is another
matter entirely, and really demands a very different approach:
namely, working to change our mindset rather than our bodies.
Despite disagreeing with a good deal of what is being said in
a radical feminist discussion of the body image piece (though
the entire discussion has really been very enriching for me, agreement
or no), there are a few sentiments I very much agree with, the
big one being that objectification can be a real problem when
it comes not just to body image, but to identity and self-acceptance.
I don't think it's just men that do it; I see women do it all
the time, to themselves and to others. Objectification and lookism
are certainly a very real problem. And I don't, even at my most
optimistic moments, think that we can, in our lifetimes, change
how very much that pervades our culture to the point that it no
longer exists. I think the most pragmatic approach is a combination
of working to change it for the better, getting as many voices
out there as we can, especially those who have had very little
visibility, while vehemently rejecting the negative messages out
there right now. I don't think it's so simple that we can wake
up one day, say "I love myself and my body" and make that all
happen with the wave of a wand. But I do think if we start saying
that every day, combined with saying "...and I accept and love
his body and her body and him and her for what they are," too,
we're going to make a lot of headway and feel a whole lot better
in the day-to-day. And my bet is that a lot of that has to do
with starting with ourselves, not with others, or what we feel
all around us.
I'm in a better position to talk about that approach with things
other than my body or appeal, because to be frank, overall in
my life -- I'm not taking about media, I'm talking about in my
life -- my body HAS been accepted and revered by most people I
come into contact with; not just for how it looks, but for all
that it does. While in a given time period I might be a little
too heavy or muscled for this ideal or that one, or a little too
short or old for this one over here, let's face it: I'm Caucasian.
I have an hourglass figure and what are interpreted as visible
"signals" of fertility. I'm pretty evenly proportioned. I have
thick, fair hair and what has been over time, for the most part,
a generally classically "beautiful" face shape and features (though
my nose may only have been revered in Siciliy). I'm basically
healthy and physically able. In other words, I do not stray all
that far from most physical or sexual ideals over history. There
are people who may find they do not fit into ANY historical ideal
they can find, or who have overwhelmingly met with a lack of acceptance
about their bodies. I am not one of those people. I have my own
challenges with my body (with liking its variances aesthetically,
with dealing with the physical disability of my right hand that
can be limiting, with my health, with varied things), on many
levels, but in the grand scheme of things, I would not classify
them as major life challenges.
On the other hand, I opt, and have, nearly all of my life (excepting
that bizarre period of my childhood when I felt I must beat up
every boy in my path) to practice nonviolence, to not support
war of any kind in a culture which reveres it and has for all
of its history. I have lost friends over that stance, I have been
called more nasty names than I care to mention. I am also queer.
I have also always lived below the poverty level, I am a working
female artist, I refuse to work for anything even remotely corporate,
what have you. I have never found it easy to simply ignore the
pervasive messages out there telling me not only to be otherwise,
but placing values upon me due to my own; questioning my integrity,
questioning in some cases even, my right to be who I am and believe
those things which I do and live as freely as the next person
does. But what I have found is that when I make a point to review
the importance of these things to who I am, to what I do, and
when I commit very fully to them, it makes all the difference
in the world to see those messages, accept that they are there,
but reject them outright. But I earnestly doubt I could do that
without some support from others around me who are like-minded
-- or at least respect my stance, but respectfully disagree --
and so I also have to make an effort to find those people and
that community.
And I -- and you, if all of this is important to you -- need to
make damn sure that I do the same for others, and it's no mean
feat, and I've no doubt that I err at times and even fail miserably
at that now and then. But I think all too often it feels like,
and we're told that, we have to make a choice between working
for ourselves, on ourselves, and helping or supporting others.
And if we see it that way, I think we're making a very crucial
error because doing both all at once, always -- and learning how
very much they compliment each other and contribute to each other
-- seems to me to be what we really need to start doing in the
microcosm to ultimately improve and alter the macrocosm.
I recognize this entry is a bit haphazard -- there are so many
things surrounding this I want to address, but they'd make up
a whole book or dominate my journal completely. But I suppose
the underlying thing I'm trying to say here is that dealing with
anything like this is twofold: it's about what we do for ourselves, AND it is about what we do
-- and how we do it -- for others. Unless we're living a completely solitary life, I think we and
those around us -- most notably those we are close to and are
in our immediate communities, real or virtual -- are inexorably
intertwined. I think while we can look around and blame (and in
some cases it isn't invalid) the media, blame the patriarchy,
blame capitalism, blame consumerism, blame the fashion industry,
blame the diet industry, blame this culture or that one, this
person or that, that at the heart of all of this is interbeing.
Now, given, this is what one would expect to hear from a Buddhist.
But that bias aside, it is what my heart tells me, it is what
my eyes and ears tell me, it is what all those warped messages
out there tell me when I try and figure out why they are there:
we are too disconnected from one another. If we were truly connected,
if we really understood how to inter-be, and we did so, ideally,
in every moment, we wouldn't be able to knock someone else for
their size or shape. We wouldn't be able to see someone else as
a body and nothing else. We wouldn't be able to objectify our
own bodies and divorce ourselves from them to the point that we
felt like aliens living on the foreign planet that is our flesh.
I think compassion and interconnectedness -- or a lack of them
-- lay at the heart of everything, and certainly at this issue.
And that said: whoever you are, whoever... I love your body. And I love my body because I love your body, and love your body
because I love mine. I may not always be able to really feel that
deeply, or able to keep it in the front of my mind as I should,
but that connection is there -- and is all too often there in the inverse, as in "I hate my body
because I hate the body, all bodies," in some respect; our hatred of our own flesh in this culture
is so deep-seeded and ingrained it is completely psychopathic
-- and we get to choose to accept it or deny it. But I don't think
denying it is doing any of us any good. I do think accepting it
not only gets us to a place where we really can be positive, but
where we can love our bodies enough to understand that they are
not all that there is, nor just what they appear, but one integral
part of a whole.
That whole is the REAL work we need to be doing, and we'd all
be kidding ourselves if we didn't confess that a lot of the reason
why we get stuck on one part of it, like body image, is because
it's a lot less smaller, and a LOT less scary.
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