21
Jul

The Body Image Project – “chin up”

July 20.

Not many of you may know this, but I am a semi-professional photographer.

(In other words, “I get paid to take pictures,” but it is not my primary source of income.)

I have always loved taking photos.  Maybe it’s because it was my dad’s favorite hobby (“Dad, stop taking pictures of me eating my lunch.  Ew.”), maybe it’s because I’m Japanese (“Oooh, tay-koo peek-cha?”), but when I finally picked up my first SLR at age 23, I felt a quickening.  Something inside of me MOVED.  In my head, the voice that had screamed into stale, empty silence for years sensed a gasp of fresh air, the dense, black emptiness was sliced open with a fragment of blinding light, and in the startled shock that followed, that voice found freedom.

It escaped.

*I* escaped.

I won’t say that I’m a great photographer.  I have a lot of technical learning to do, and I do not spend as much time behind my camera as I should.

I WILL say that I am proud of the best pictures I take, when I press the button I can make my camera capture the image I picture in my head, and most of the time my work doesn’t suck.

And, if the thing I’m photographing is something I truly love?

Well, then my pictures look like this.

kidsRead More

20
Jul

The Body Image Project – “the eyes have it”

July 19.

It’s tough to tell by looking at me, but I am half Japanese.

Most of the time, people can tell I’m “something else.”  I don’t look Japanese, but I don’t look particularly Caucasian, either.  As a teen and in my early twenties, the go-to-guess of my heritage was Native American.  Women generally didn’t ask me why I looked the way I did (it doesn’t seem we ask each other such questions, out of intelligence, respect, or fear of comparison), but men did.

“Hey, you look like Pocahontas.  Are you Indian or something?”

Classy.

And tactful, right?

**rolling eyes**

My answer to their boorish question:  Yeah.  “Or something.””

Despite the occasional rudeness and clumsy question, I have never been offended when people ask “what are you.”  We were raised with great pride in our culture.  We wore kimonos and danced Obon.  I learned to eat with chopsticks before I learned to use a fork.  I make sushi as easily as I make a sandwich.  I learned to write and speak Japanese (although I’m terribly out of practice).  My lunchbox held strange treats, and I had a great deal of fun sharing them with my classmates.

As Japanese-Americans, we were encouraged to fulfill the best Japanese stereotypes.  Intelligence, high level academic achievement, respect, hospitality, and honor were part of our family culture.  We were encouraged to take the best part of what it meant to be Japanese, and be that.  BE THAT, and be that as hard as you can.  I don’t know that it was ever said out loud, but we were raised to lean into the differences that set us apart from everyone else.  We were taught to stand out, stand up, and do what we were taught was right.

For the most part, an excellent lesson.

Except then I grew up, I attempted to become my own person, and I realized that neat and tidy suitcase of stereotypes, the one I unquestioningly picked up and took pride in because it was part of our culture?

It wasn’t just full of good things, there was some bad stuff in there too.Read More

17
Jul

The Body Image Project – “shoulder the burden”

July 17.

Hi.  My name is Erin, and I am my dad’s first born son.

This isn’t really a joke.  Although I was born female, I have never considered myself as such.

I was not raised as such.

I don’t mean this in a super-famous-right-now, Bruce-is-Caitlin Jenner kind of way.  I am not having a gender identity crisis.  Although I haven’t considered myself female, I haven’t considered myself male, either.

I’m not “girl.”  I’m not “boy.”  I’m just ME.

In the same way a frog doesn’t consider that he’s a frog, clouds don’t know they’re clouds, and in our daily life we don’t usually consider that we’re breathing (because we just DO IT), my gender is a non-issue.  It just IS.  It exists without my consideration, without need of acknowledgment or attention.

Yes, my gender is like that.

For the most part, my nondescript gender has been great.  I have never felt confined to any specific role due to the plumbing between my legs.  I have never felt limited in choice based on my sexual grouping, and I have never butted my head against any genital-induced ceiling.  (Ew.)  I am me ONLY AND JUST, not defined by any category, designation, class, or division.

Except for those times when I’m not.Read More

17
Jul

The Body Image Project – “stay abreast”

(Just a heads up, this post contains some explicit images.)

July 16.

Most parts of the human body remain gender neutral.

Hands, for example.  Both boys and girls have them.  Legs.  Arms.  Wrists, knees, neck, collar bones, stomach, back, buttcheeks.  Almost all parts of the body are common to both male and female of the species.  When I compare myself to my male counterpart, there are a lot of ways we are similar.  Although the length and size and girth and strength of our equivalent parts differ due to my feminine designation, the parts are the same.  Thighs are thighs, mouths are mouths, hair is hair.

All parts are the same, save two – genitalia, and breasts.

And, since genitalia are tucked neatly and privately away inside our clothes, breasts are most obvious distinction between male and female anatomy.

Breasts are, as our culture tends to show us all the time, the part of our body that makes us women.

Yep, breasts = women.

Also, breasts can be round and soft.  Voluptuous.  Attractive.  They are feminine at any size.  In our culture, breasts are considered sexy.  They are stimulating both visually and physically, and regardless of perspective they are considered sexual organs, part of our reproductive process.  On a level of awareness that most people miss, they are loving and nurturing, almost divine in their ability to produce manna-like nourishment from nothing but water and breath.

Growing up, as it is for most girls, the arrival of my breasts was an anxious, exciting, butterfly-metamorphosis experience.  I waited so eagerly.  So impatiently.  Whenever I would walk through the mall or the clothing section at the grocery store, I’d drag my feet through the lingerie department.  “Hey, there’s bras over there, maybe we should look.  You know, just in case.”  I was READY.  I was ready to need a pretty undergarment.  I was ready to do that fancy clip-it-behind-your-back thing, and the strip-it-off-without-taking-off-your-shirt thing from Flashdance.  I wanted boobs, and all the other fancy, womany, grown-up things that went with them.

Finally, after waiting FOREVER, my breasts started to come in.  At the start they were little lumps pushing against the inside of my shirt, not visible from the outside of the fabric, but visible from the inside when I tucked my face inside the neckhole of my t shirt.  (And yes, in the beginning I did that a lot.  I was super excited, duh.)  They grew slowly, they moved from little lumps to modest bumps,

then they stopped growing.

oh. my. goodness.

Hi.  My name is Erin, and I am one of the founding members of The Itty Bitty Tittie Committee.  (call sign: skittles)Read More

16
Jul

The Body Image Project – “give her a hand”

July 15.

HI.  My name is Erin, and I have huge hands.

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HUGE.  And I’m not just saying that.  I’m not being particularly hard on myself, I’m being quite literal.  Most people agree with me.

I call them “man hands.”  My sister-in-law calls them “shman hands.”  In high school, my friends called them clubs.  Or catchers’ mitts.  Bear paws, man mitts, huge grips, lobster claws.  Fists of steel.  I have been called “Mitsy,” “Handsy,” “Shmanny,” “Slappy,” and “Gripsy.”

Almost all of these names are legitimate.Read More

13
Jul

The Body Image Project – “chunky monkey”

July 13.

Even though I haven’t starved myself in a very long time, I am an anorexic at heart.  I loved being thin.  I loved being skinny.  I loved, loved, loved the ridges of my abs, the distinction of my ribs, and the way my hip bones jutted out past my womb.  I loved the way my body felt at the tail end of a five day fast.  I loved the way reality got blurry and fuzzy, the empty, hollow feeling inside my body, the fist of hunger that pushed into my guts all the way through to my lower back, the soporific effect of calorie deficit and the lucid, crazy, more-real-than-real-life dreams it produced.

I know I’m probably not supposed to say any of that here.  I’m POSITIVE there are people that will think less of me, call me a freak, say “you need mental help,” and stop reading my words.

Doesn’t matter.  I have to own my truth, and this is it.

Right or wrong, good or bad, beautiful or horribly ugly, this is it.

This is ME.

Turns out, so this this.

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Hi.  My name is Erin.  I am a recoverING anorexic bulimic body dysmorphic.  I have three kids, stretch marks, a herniated belly button from three, full term pregnancies,

and fat.

My name is Erin, and I have fat.Read More

11
Jul

The Body Image Project – “without even a blemish”

July 11.

This is my mole.

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It is big.  It is flappy and brown and pronounced.

It is so big, the purple strap of my shirt just there gets caught on it.  My necklace gets caught on it.  My hair gets caught on it.

Some people think it’s gross.

Most people who see it (and are ballsy enough to speak up) ask me “have you considered getting that removed?”  The kids I know (and other people who lack the need for tact) tell me “WILL YOU PLEASE GET THAT THING CUT OFF.”  The Mr. asks me, “Has it started talking to you yet?”  My three year old nephew spied it, stopped speaking mid-sentence, paused for a moment, and said “I think I need to get that.”

He spent the next two minutes fingering my mole, our conversation abandoned.

“GET IT OFF.  It won’t come off.”Read More

10
Jul

The Body Image Project – “bees knees”

July 9.

When I was a kid, people called me “Chicken Legs.”

I get it, now, why they did that.  I have grown a child in my own image, and her knees are just as knobby and bumpy and walnutty as mine were at the same age.

This is Norah, age 9.

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Cute roundy little walnuts.  :)

In my head, my knees still look like that.  Or at least, I feel like they’re supposed to.  In my head, no matter how warped and messed up it makes me, my knees are supposed to look the same as my nine year old daughter’s.  They are supposed to look just like they did when I was 21 and 112 pounds.

They are supposed to look pre-pubescent, completely fat free, bony, and thin.

Skinny.

As an anorexic, there are a few places on your body where you can most easily judge your starvation progress.

Collar bones.  Elbows.  Wrists.  Hips, on the side, and pelvis in the front.  Pubic bone.  Ribs.  Cheekbones, jaw, chin.

And knees.Read More

08
Jul

The Body Image Project – “back up”

July 8.

“Boofers.”

My sister and I call them boofers.

Boofers, as defined by my sister and myself, is the wad of fat on both sides of the back, found just above the hip and waistband, along the back rim of the pelvis.  Most women over the age of puberty have them.  I do, for sure.  You probably do, too.

Here, I’ll show you.

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I’m not sure how or when we came up with the name, but I’ve always known what they are.

ALWAYS.Read More

07
Jul

The Body Image Project – “give me any lip”

July 7.

This is my beautiful Norah.  She is my first kid and my only daughter.

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Not to be all “mom” or whatever, but I think she’s gorgeous.

This is my beautiful sister.  I am older by two years.  She is prettier by two million light years.

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Do you see the resemblance between these two lovelies?

I do.  Every day.

Not only are these two ladies alike in temperament (spunky, charismatic, kind, intelligent, creative, funny, people-loving, extrovert socialites), they are alike in appearance as well.

Wide set eyes.  Dark lashes.  Pug noses, long legs, broad shoulders.

AND THE LIPS.Read More

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