Photo Appreciation, Movement, Realism

This post comes from a two-year-old unfinished draft I dug up.

How interesting/twisted is it that I'm happier with grungy, awkward race photos of me than professional photos of me during a dance performance, because my body looks so very different to me through binding athletic wear versus revealing belly dance costumes?

My race photos show me posing awkwardly, grimacing more than smiling, covered head to toe in mud, wearing an ugly bandanna, and looking like something the cat dragged in under terrible lighting conditions and I'm thrilled to post them publicly and tag myself. My performance photos show me beaming and in motion, with gorgeous stage makeup and hair, brilliantly colored costumes and floating silks glowing under spotlights in a dark theater. But because my belly hangs roundly, I recoil in dismay that I don't have the same perfect lines of professional dancers.

Top: Zoe PhotoShopped. Bottom: Zoe in motion

Warming up to my performance photos always takes work. I remind myself that still pictures can never do justice to the full breadth of movement in a performance and that people who know me, who saw me, don't see my body as rotund as I think it looks.

"Isn’t it amazing we can see the beauty in our best friends, sisters, mothers, and aunts without the slightest thought to their flaws . . . but can obsess for hours on our own imperfections? We fixate on our flaws to the point we shirk at any documentation that our round faces and curvy bodies ever walked the earth. No pictures to show how we LOVE, how we laugh, how we are treasured by our families." Click here to read more.

It does say a lot about the messaging I've internalized and still need to deprogram concerning constructed beauty standards.

Learning to love comfort

I've never been very good at fashion, but I definitely got the memo about the importance of wearing flattering clothes and felt "appropriate" shame in looking back at photos of me that weren't flattering.

But seriously, fuck flattering:

Look, you get to dress how you want for whatever reason you choose. You can pick clothes because you like them, because you think they will gain you social approval, because they highlight your shape, because they disguise your shape, because your significant other likes them, because your mom hates them, because you think they are flattering, because you think they are unflattering, or for any other reason. It’s your body and they are your clothes and you are the boss of your underpants and also the boss of your regular pants.

I cannot count how many times I've sighed sadly and put something back on the rack in a store because it wasn't flattering on me, no matter how I loved the color, the fabric, or the comfort of it. But the fact is, you don't have to be pretty:

You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked "female."

Body and clothes shaming is shitty. You don't know anything about a person and why they dress a certain way. They're allowed to have different taste in clothing than you do. They're allowed to wear things that are comfortable and that they like, regardless of whether you like it. And people can't always afford new clothing, especially if they've perhaps undergone a recent weight change. Don't be so judgmental.

Several years ago I bought a beautiful flowing skirt for belly dance but had trouble finding a top to match. I happened upon some gauzy fabric in the same colors, and my best friend whip-stitched it onto a nude bra for me. I adored the colors and the flow and was so eager to perform in it with my dance class. But I felt so bummed out when I saw how unflattering the pictures were.

Today is the first time I've been able to go back and smile at how much I enjoyed that costume and performance and prepping my hair that day. So I'm done feeling any kind of unpleasantness about those photos or any others. I may not be slender, but I really like the visible definition of my stomach in the green costume below.

I've also gotten a lot better at choosing and altering costumes, as you can see here:

Most recently, I picked out a cute peasant dress from the thrift store to wear to a Holi festival, which is a Hindu celebration where everyone wears white and throws colored powder at each other that may or may not ever wash out.

I was SO comfortable and colorful and had fun dancing for hours. A friend saw my pictures and asked incredulously if I was wearing a muumuu. No, I told him, it's a peasant dress and was really comfortable and I had a BLAST.

I actually do own a muumuu. I was so taken by the color, the fabric, and the price that I just HAD to have it. It's enormous and billowing and beautiful. (Maybe I'll remember to return and add a picture.) It makes a great cover-up for dance costumes, and I also like to wear it around the house and outdoors with nothing underneath because it's the next best thing to being naked. Definitely not flattering, but it's SO comfortable.

Most days, dressing however I want to is really easy because I have conventionally attractive curves. There are a lot of days, though, that I worry about how I'll be perceived when I choose clothing based solely on comfort. I'm trying to worry less.

A few random thoughts . . .

that came up in discussions today.

On aesthetic preferences in sexual attraction:

While it's understandable that a person wants to be left alone in their preferences, I think they should be encouraged to challenge and question those preferences which are so heavily influence by cultural conditioning. It ought to make them feel uncomfortable because that means they're examining the issues they need to, whether they decide to change or not. One CAN, through conscious effort, expand one's opinion of beauty. And even if it's uncomfortable, it's a positive progression.

On “word policing”:

Language shapes our thinking, and if people are allowed to use it unconsciously in harmful ways, they perpetuate harmful thinking. Nothing is lost when we put our foot down and say that using "gay," "lame," or "retarded" as pejoratives is not OK and that we expect others to make the effort to utilize any one of thousands of other adjectives to describe negative situations. Word policing is a necessary component of idea policing and forcing progress.

In the context of body positivity, it means pointing out the problematic nature of using the phrase "tramp stamp" and of using euphemisms for body types such as "fit" or "takes care of oneself" and of conflating weight with health.