August 19.
When you look at your body, what do you see?
I have hated my body almost all of my life.
Today, looking back, I see that I was (more than a little bit) nuts for feeling that way.
Seriously. Just look.
This was my 16 year old self, and in this picture I was one hundred fifty bajillion percent convinced that I was disgustingly fat.Read More
August 5.
So, I’ve got long legs.
I’ve got REALLY long legs. For my height, 29.7″ is the average inseam length.
Mine is 34″.
[And because I know you’ll ask, average inseam for a female is about 45% of her total height. I am 66″ tall, .45 x 66 = 29.7″. I geek out now. Math is good.]
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last month thinking about my body. I’ve dissected it apart, taken photographs, talked about all the things I’ve found. I’ve done some great introspection as to the parts of me I don’t like, and I’ve learned more about why I don’t like those parts.
For the most part, the only parts of me that are left to talk about are the ones I actually like.
As it turns out, writing and examining the parts of me I like is almost harder than dealing with the parts I don’t.
I would guess that for most of us habitual body-haters, talking about our good parts is hard. I spent a lot of years hating myself, and during the darkest parts of self-disgust I did not one time praise myself for my …well, for anything.
Why is that, do you think? Why do we do that?
I’m sure I could have found SOMETHING nice to say about myself. I’m sure, if I’d looked, I would have found one physical attribute to praise.
I didn’t even look.
I didn’t even TRY.Read More
July 29.
Girly bits.
You know… girly bits.
Labia. Vagina. Clitoris.
Privates.
Meat curtains. Ham sandwich. The Beaver. The Wet Cave. Poontang. Hair Pie. Box. Bunny. Cootch. Cooter. Lower Lips. Muff. Patch. Jelly Roll. Juice Box. Treasure Chest. Pink Taco. Trench. Split Tail. Bird’s nest, homemade slit pie, pelt, Happy Valley, poke hole, love tunnel, Lady Jane.
(I could keep going, there are, like, a billion of them.)
(“NO, I’m not that well versed in girl part euphemisms.” I had to look them up.)
(On a loosely related note, be careful when you search “female genitalia” online, the results are …violating. I feel like I need to wash my eyes out with soap.)
(And before you freak out, “No.” I’m not going to put a picture of my bits in this blog post.)
Of all the parts of the female anatomy, genitalia are the most female. Duh, right? It’s THE THING that makes us “girl.” It’s the part that defines our womanhood, it’s the area of our body used to grow and deliver more people into the world.
Ironically enough, it is also the part we speak the least about, and the part that is hardest to look at and get to.
I bet I offended people just with that list of words up there, and I haven’t even really SAID anything yet.
Sad, right?
I could write volumes about the female genitalia and the impact it has on our lives. VOLUMES. We could talk about gender identity. Or sexual empowerment. We could talk about masturbation. We could discuss the beauty of birth, the biological function and purpose of our labia (major and minor), how to get the most out of your vagina, or why you should be thankful for your clitoris in all its glory. We could explore the ideas of sexuality, culture, marriage, shame, intimacy, hormones, menstruation, sexual development, rape, suffrage, discrimination, feminism, or female sexual response.
See, volumes.
We could write volumes and volumes on female genitalia, because each of the issues above is linked to and triggered by the presence of girly bits. When I say “let’s talk about girl parts,” we really could go anywhere with the conversation and still be within the confines of the topic at hand.
Amazing.Read More
July 26.
If you had to pick five words that best describe you, what would they be?
Most of us would be tempted to answer that question with the five things we WISH we were. “I’ll say the five things I want to be true the most. Then they can just BE true. Everyone else will buy it, they’ll see me like that. I just know it. SEE, I’M CHANGED, all I had to do was change what everyone else saw. They’re buying it, I’m sure of it.”
Maybe, but usually not. When we lie about who we are the only person we truly deceive is ourselves.
Not too long ago, the five words to describe the person I wish I was, and the five words to describe the person I actually am would have been different. Depending on how honest I was being with myself, the answers would be VERY different. I wanted to be strong and capable, powerful and intelligent. I wanted to be confident.
I don’t know that I told anyone I WAS those things, so you might think I wasn’t a liar, but I was.
I was a liar, and I was a liar of the worst kind.
I lied to myself.
Every day, all the time, I lied to myself about who and what I was. I told myself I was strong, but I wasn’t. I told myself I was brave, but I wasn’t.
What I REALLY was, was afraid. Insecure. Doubtful. Self-destructive. Angry. Self-hating.
Sad.
I was really, really sad.Read More
July 23.
Yesterday I noticed a small, red, itchy bump on my inner, left thigh.
“I think I got bit by something. STUPID BUGS.” Also “This had better not be a flea, or I’m going to burn the house down with the cat inside.”
(We fought fleas for three months in the house “because cat.” All better now, it’s not a flea bite. House and cat are safe.)
(I still hate fleas.)
The bump was almost insignificant for most of the day yesterday. I noticed it when I sat down to eat dinner, because when I cross my legs it puts pressure on the bump and it starts to itch, but otherwise “no bigs.”
This morning, it was bigger.
This afternoon, it was MORE bigger.Read More
July 22.
Of all the parts of my body, my legs take the cake for confidence.
I have always liked my legs.
Also, saying that out loud feels weird.
Culturally speaking, we women have been taught (we have taught us, sadface) that talking about ourselves in a positive way is a no no.
…well, wait. FIRST we’re not supposed to talk about ourselves at all. Not directly, anyways. We can talk about how we react to those around us, but not JUST us. SECOND, we’re supposed to talk about everyone else. And what they’re doing and who they’re with and how they parent their kids and how fat they got after the baby, and who their husband is sleeping with and how unhappy the marriage is and how bad their cooking is and every other negative we can think about someone else so we feel better.
THEN, finally, if we run out of things to talk about, before our conversation with whoever-it-is-whatever-person slips into scary silence, we talk about ourselves.
When we do, we’re supposed to pull ourselves apart.
SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE: LAUNCH.Read More
July 21.
I love kids.
LOVE LOVE LOVE.
Someone once asked me “What’s your impossible dream?” In other words, outside of reality and the confines of human existence, what would you want to do? What would you BE?
Before I had kids, I answered this question only one way.
“SUPERPOWERS.” (Duh.)
Batman’s bravery plus Superman’s …everything, plus Wonder Woman’s combat and weapon training (and amazing boobs and tin foil bracelets, super duh), plus Optimus Prime bad-assery, plus Nightcrawler’s ability to teleport, plus Jean Grey’s telekinesis, Flash’s speed, Aquaman’s under-water-ness (because I’m a mermaid in my dreams) and the ability to turn will into reality like Green Lantern.
omg that would be so amazing.
(I am totally geeking out right now. WHY DO I NOT HAVE ALL THOSE THINGS.)
Except then I had kids, and my answer changed. Read More
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.
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
July 18.
This will be the first Body Image Project post that does not include a picture, but of all the parts of me that make me who I am, this one does the most.
My brain.
I’m not kidding when I say this – I believe one hundred million percent that my brain is my best feature.
I suppose that could be kind of a sad thing. In the same way people say “she’s got a great personality” to cover a perceived physical deficit, saying “my brain is my best feature” could appear to be an aesthetic cop-out.
It is, kind of, but I don’t think that’s sad.
For the majority of my life, I did not feel attractive. On bad days I STILL feel unattractive. Even now, even after all the therapy and growth, there are still days when the PMS freight train rolls into the station, unloads baggage and bloaty self-hate, throws tampons at my head, sprinkles body odor on everything, then leaves me to clean up the mess. I do not feel pretty on those days.
On those days, and on all the days I felt the same sense of disgusting worthlessness before, I chose to define my worth through the one thing I could control, and the one thing that made me unique:
my brain.Read More
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