Tag: femalebody

Hot (and slightly insecure) girl summer

Hot (and slightly insecure) girl summer

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 3 Comments

I do my best to love my body for what it is – ‘flaws’ and all – as everyone should. But unfortunately, in my humanity, I have plenty of times when I’d prefer certain parts of myself to look a little different. For example, ever since my videos have taken to gaining thousands of views in a matter of hours, I’ve all of a sudden become slightly self-conscious of my teeth. Which is new.

If I’ve mentioned this and my newfound decision to get them straightened as soon as I can to my friends, then everyone immediately says there’s nothing wrong with my teeth – some even panic a little at the idea that I might lose my fangs through any sort of correction. Clearly, to others, what I’m judging as imperfect, is a part of myself that they see as showing who I am and it irks them that I might want to get rid of it. (Although, realistically there’s no need to panic because nobody is ripping out the fangs: long live.)

Last week I came back from spending some time with my parents, who now live in Rio de Janeiro – I’m aware that that’s a bit of a silly sentence but allow it – and whilst they were both at work, I went to sit on the beach every day. Sitting on a public beach is a genuinely fascinating experience. It’s truly one of the only places and situations where everyone puts themselves in a vulnerable position by wearing so little clothing that if they’ve got any insecurities about their bodies, then there are very few ways to hide them from view. For a few hours a day, everybody just gives in; they might be stressing about how they look in their heads, but nobody else can hear that internal monologue of insecurity. It’s lovely.

To keep things frank – as I try to do – I love wearing a bikini. Generally, I love the way I look even though there are many aspects of me that don’t match that ideal body type for a woman – given that that’s a totally fictional concept anyway. This being said however, I do try to hide taking my callipers on or off. And some days I had to psyche myself up to walk down to the sea, because I knew some people might spot my feet curve as I walked without the support of my shoes on uneven ground. Plus, I was on my own so didn’t have that comfort blanket of being next to someone who you know loves and accepts you. As a result, there was one day I actually sat for 30 minutes motivating myself to just stand up and walk 10 feet toward the sea.

What’s funny, is when I was encouraging myself to do this, I just kept thinking the words ‘nobody cares Betty, nobody is watching. But if they are, they’re as likely to be looking at your arse as they are your feet.’. I might not love what the lump just above my bum looks like, but I’m not ashamed or shy to say that the bum itself is great. So as I felt the insecurity start to flood into me, I (in a way) bullied confidence back into myself. It might not be the ‘healthy’ way to do it, but I made it into the sea.

I’m in a weird moment with my body right now. Some days I love her, other days I’m not so sure because I’m getting older and she’s changing, so there are new curves and lines to get used to. She gets her foot randomly infected at times, her legs don’t walk so straight, and she seems to have a tendency towards developing bruises or strains in areas that make very little sense, but to give her credit, she heals. And I’ve not fully worked out how to look after her properly yet. I like her though – I do mean that.

This metaphorical road to unconditional self-acceptance we’re all told we should tread, from what I’ve seen, is a pretty lifelong and tumultuous endeavour. No matter your confidence levels on one day or as shown on your social media, every single person on this planet will have minutes, hours, days, or weeks where they struggle to love what’s looking back at them in the mirror. Especially in clothing shop changing rooms because good god the lighting in there does NOTHING for anyone. Still, if I’ve learned anything from the motivational speeches given to me by the drunken middle-aged Yorkshire women in the smoking area of pubs and bars, criticizing every aspect of your physical image is a waste of time, and when you get older you’ll be wishing that the kids don’t do as much of it as you did at their age.

Patriarchal pressures and judgments of female (and male) bodies are very real and very piercing, but we can make the decision to shut ourselves up every now and then to ease the headache. And do NOT, EVER, comment on someone’s body whilst they’re on the beach because that should be a safe space where everyone’s physical, and therefore emotional, vulnerability is respected.

You’ve gotta stick to your lane

You’ve gotta stick to your lane

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’m the type of person who, in the appropriate situation, would like to look, be, or say something sexy. I’ll go on a night out, spot a wall which looks kind of cool and ask a friend to take a photograph of me in front of it, thinking ‘omg yes this’ll be a good shot’. But then the second the camera starts flashing, I can hold my face for a few seconds before I’ve got absolutely no idea what to do with myself and I end up pulling a stupid face. Orrrrrr, I’ll think I’ve nailed it until my friend hands me back the phone and my figure just hasn’t given what I’d envisioned…so all of the shots head straight to the recycling bin. But it’s not that I’m being consciously self-critical in these moments, it’s just that I don’t think that I give off ‘sexy’ vibes…

By this, I think what I mean is that I don’t see myself as demonstrating a very specific version of femininity associated with models and actresses. I’m visualising the lasses who can take the fire pictures, with the perfect bodies, in the expensive underwear, with the sultry eye contact from across the bar, and the bad bitch vibe where the men come running the second they walk into the room. And even though this expression of femininity is gorgeous, often it’s been constructed in order to make women sexually desirable to men. However, connotations of patriarchy and misogyny aside (very difficult to sweep them aside, but stick with me here), I do still want to be sexy and desirable every now and then – probably even if it comes with a hint of objectification – because in that context it’s on my own terms, but no matter my intentions I just don’t think that I give off that sultry kind of energy.

Hence I wonder, is my slight discomfort with the word a disability thing? Possibly. I mean, for centuries the (physically) disabled body has never been portrayed as sexually desirable, in fact, people have often been encouraged to think of the idea of disabled people having sex as repulsive (if it’s ever thought to happen at all). So yes, that’s probably playing a part in my inner monologue. But I don’t think that that’s the main thing going on here; I think what’s happening is that part of me is assuming that you can only really be ‘sexy’ if others describe you in that way.

We (particularly women) seem to like to categorise ourselves and our friends: at some point, we’ve all decided – actively or passively – who is the ‘cute’ one, the ‘pretty’ one, the ‘funny’ one, the ‘clever’ one, the ‘sexy’ one, and so on and so forth, as if there’s a correct way to be each one of those characteristics. These categories then cement to each of us what we are (and what we’re not), so when we’re described as a word that’s outside of our lane, we assume that a mistake’s been made i.e., I’ve never been the ‘sexy’ one in any friendship group, so that’s probably why I don’t see myself in that light.

So even though I’ve never ended a blog with a homework task, get ready! Because this week I’d like to ask that you consider whether there’s a word (or words) you’ve told yourself you could never be. Then, if you’ve thought of one, the next time you go to the place or do the thing that allows you the time to be with yourself and have a good old think, I’d like you to consider why you can’t be that thing. Finally, once you’ve (hopefully) come to the conclusion that you’re being silly and should stop putting yourself in a box, stop thinking and go do something fun; that’s enough of the internal monologue for one day. Wouldn’t want to overthink it, now would we? Or did I do that already?…

Sex education

Sex education

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This week I’m on my period. So for the past few days, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing painful cramps, mood sWINgs, and a whole lot of bleeding. Too much information? Well tough.

Even though I have my period once a month, and it’s an entirely healthy part of my life, society encourages me to never talk about it. Then a direct consequence of this, is that women generally know very little about how their bodies work, and how to take care of them. And the men around them know even less. So no one knows anything, and half of the population’s physical and mental health is put at risk.

Not ideal.

But I’m not talking about everyone being able to regurgitate the facts they learnt in science – although you should be able to do that. This is about acknowledging the hormones and the pain women feel whilst on their periods as legitimate. We’re not overreacting: it f**king hurts. And as funny as it might be to see a girl cry over her bobble snapping, those hormones do genuinely mESS you up for a couple of days. I mean, sometimes we literally wake up in a pool of our own blood.

So, periods are intense and tedious enough: I don’t need society telling me that I should be embarrassed by them too. Nor do I need people to tell me how/what I should feel/wear/say/think when no one is taking an interest in my body or me anyway.

At the same time, I don’t know much about what male bodies go through. I know they don’t have such a dramatic time of it every month, but that doesn’t mean it’s always smooth-sailing. Like puberty, that doesn’t sound like a walk in the park for a boy – physically, or psychologically.

The point is that we never ask detailed, comprehensive questions about our bodies. But we go further than not asking: we stigmatise the topics so much so that it becomes ‘gross’ or ‘uncomfortable’ to even think about going there at all.

For women especially, getting to know yourself intimately isn’t normalised, so a lot of us just don’t do it – by ‘intimately’, I mean both sexually and biologically. A lot of my female friends have never even taken a mirror to have a look at themselves, let alone experiment with masturbation. Whereas a huge proportion of my male friends know their genitals as well as any other part of their body – maybe even better.

So if we’re saying that women barely know anything about their own bodies, and we then take that to talk about health and safety, how could we ever know that something is wrong, if we don’t know what we look like when we’re healthy? Then on a psychological level, how is it right that we’re so disgusted by our own bodies? We won’t touch or get to know ourselves but we’ll let some random lad who might ditch us next week do whatever he wants? I dOn’T tHiNk sO.

Conversations about our bodies shouldn’t be separated according to whatever genitals you were born with, because we don’t exclusively socialise with people of the same sex. We need to ditch the euphemisms and the pressure, so we can learn to look after each other and ourselves more effectively. After all, knowing this information will definitely save someone’s life one day – maybe even your own.