Jezebel Express Instagram – You already know the answer.
Before anyone writes me an essay on why YOU, personally, need to change your body, let me just say: desiring change is normal. Humans are restless— it’s the curse of self-awareness. We want new jobs, different bodies, to swap out the chairs in our living rooms. We are eager to imagine what’s possible in the future and resistant to tolerating what is right now.
I’ve said here that you owe no one the body you had in the past, and that extends to changes you want to make now. If you decide you want to have big muscles, I will cheer you on. If you decide you are done with restricting your food intake, I have my pompons ready!
But if you are a person who primarily feels pressure to modify your body from outside sources, this is important information. Do you want muscles because your partner thinks superfit bodies are hot? Do you wear shorts at the beach because of how people look at your body?
Are you in conversation with your body about what it needs and wants, or are you changing your body to answer other people?
It isn’t wrong to make decisions that include insights from others, or to make decisions that keep you safe and comfy. But it’s helpful to think about how many of our decisions are influenced by the cultural consensus that there is a “right” way to look.
Our responses to this pressure vary. Some prioritize looking whatever way will benefit them socially, while others simply try to fit in and avoid social penalty. Others resist the pressure or flout convention.
Because power dynamics amongst humans are incredibly fraught, I don’t think any of these strategies are wrong— but I do think it’s important to understand that all of us choose strategies to avoid conflict or oppression in a culture that prizes certain bodies, objectifies or desexualizes others, and ranks all bodies according to an entirely arbitrary hierarchy.
To that end, it’s worth asking what our fantasies about changing our bodies mean. Do you actually want to modify your physical form… or do you just wish you could exist peacefully in the body you already have? ❤️
✨I want to affirm that you are worthy of love and respect, as you exist in this moment.✨ | Posted on 10/Aug/2023 01:33:07
