Feel your lips aren’t full enough?
I don’t care.
Feel your legs are too short?
I don’t care.
Worried about the width of your thighs, the fullness of your hips, the wrinkles that appear when you laugh, the wrinkles that are present when you don’t, the volume of your hair, the softness of your stomach or the cellulite at the top of your thighs?
I don’t care…
And I never have, not because I’m “stone cold” like Steve Austin but simply because I have always been in love with the female form and all variations of shape, size, colour and dimension I have had the pleasure of being exposed to. Just in case you think me to be a Don Juan knock off, I’m also referencing the range of nude bodies I was lucky enough to study during my life drawing classes as an art student.
I am fortunate that my real world experience hasn’t been hijacked by pornography, celebrity, Hollywood nor Instagram. So when I found myself in intimately vulnerable situations, I was so in awe of anyone who would allow me into such a personable space all (so called) physical imperfections became perfection and I genuinely believe that most men feel the way I do….
Although it is difficult to generalise without taking into account the full body and flavour of every unique experience, but for anyone who has faced any kind subtle or blatant criticism over their physical appearance my theory is that it is the easiest card to play for the insecure. To criticise a persons physical body has a devastatingly immediate impact on an individual; much like bringing the power of a Mike Tyson punch to fight a kid in kindergarten.
It was from my own awkward experiences I began to realise that significant others never saw my body in the same way I perceived it in my head. I slowly began to recognise that no one cared that my stomach muscles were not divided into six tightly defined sections and absolutely no one cared about the relative size of my body proportions. My physical insecurities were exclusive to me and try as I might to project my personal anxieties, it was the foundation of an emotional connection that defined an intimate experience over the physical.
But this is the world of blogging right? You can find a multitude of posts dedicated to the insecurities we all feel and the mass media’s insane desire to promote the perfect body and while I do feel this is devastating to all, it is undeniable that women are subject to unrealistic expectations from a poor servicing mainstream media that just won’t quit.
It took me a while to think of a metaphor that doesn’t sound too overly romanticised, but the best example I could think of will require that we move into the realm of the hypothetical and momentarily cast aside the gravity of media pressure. So if you can, imagine I take you out for a late evening walk under the deep vastness of a night sky and I asked you to look up at…
The moon.
What would be your first instinctive response? Would you care about the surface area of the moon? How old it is? How fast it rotates? Its mass or how many craters it has?
I doubt it…
I’m willing to bet when you look up at the moon you are instantly impacted by the visual brilliance of its light and the atmosphere it creates in the moment. My life experience dictates that is how most people really feel when they consensually witness the nude form of a human being they are attracted to.
Until….
No wait!
This post is not charged with enough power to challenge the dominance of mass media but I would like to bring your attention to Lena Dunham’s recent interview on The Breakfast Club and if you have no interest in watching the whole interview, please skip to 21:09 because she shares a realisation that I wish more people would grasp.
Until next time.
Ahhhh, epiphany. That really is a good point at 21:09, and so very true. And the other points you make are also true… I have never cared what any other person’s body looked like as that’s not what makes them attractive. IMO anyway. Great post and great food for thought.
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So true! Enough emphasis isn’t given to personality or the ability to be nice to another person and just how attractive that is. It does take time, but I hope people don’t take mainstream media pressure too seriously.
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Listening to the interview now and loving the vibe of The Breakfast Club! As I read your post, I was like, YES!, and fist pumping! I am all about breaking societies standards of “beauty” because it is all insanity and fake. Plus, we know that the real beauty is in the person’s character and it shines through in the physical.
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Perfectly said Nena! 😊 Beauty really is an internal thing that has a far broader appeal than the media would have us believe.
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I think it’s how you grow up .. I was always ashamed of my body for along time.. but I’m better now sometimes.. I really like what you wrote..
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I think most people have body issues but this isn’t helped by the media pressure. But all bodies are a things of beauty, thank you for your kind words
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Thank you 😊..
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You’re right, the media is at fault for much of this and when you’re in a relationship (even a brief one) in which emotions have a chance to surface, appearance doesn’t matter. It’s why when people have been happily together for a long time, the first type of love gives way to the second type which is more lasting and is more to do with acceptance and appreciation than first attraction.
That said, the need to look a particular way to attract the opposite sex has its basis in nature – though unlike humans much of the ‘beauty’ element of it comes from males. Think peacocks.
And – was it deliberate? – part of your post reminded me of one of my most favourite poet’ poems, ‘Woman’.
(If it won’t go to it, scroll through to 27.06)
🙂
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Thanks Val, as always I appreciate your comments because you are right, true “acceptance” of another is what love really is all about.
I’m very critical of the media and the way it makes people feel, particularly women. I think there is nothing wrong with having a preference for certain physical attributes either…but that is usually far broader than the media want us to believe.
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