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.

Unexpected Side Effects

As a privileged, university-educated, straight-size, fit, able-bodied, middle class, white woman, I would like to whine that my frequent posting about fat acceptance, body positivity, anti-dieting, feminist, activist, and related topics seems to make some men think I'm insecure and soliciting validation when I'm really just spreading information and ideas.

Logic brain understands that these men are tone-deaf and simply don't understand any of the actual issues I write about and probably cannot without endeavoring to do difficult mental gymnastics. Jerkbrain now worries that I come across as insecure and weak and will make me think twice about all the things I post going forward.

Ironically, it's when others declare themselves the expert on my lived experience by telling me I'm insecure that makes me feel unsure of myself. I never knew I had a poor body image or poor self-esteem until men told me I did and patronizingly lectured me about inner beauty and offered their unsolicited opinions to validate my appearance and self-worth. (The fact that their actions were well-meaning does not change or conflict with the previous statement about them.)

A friend once messaged me privately with a page-long lecture about beauty, acceptance, and self-worth, in response to my many fat acceptance posts on Facebook. I explained to him that:

I’m fueled by a lot of anger at having spent most of my life swallowing the message that I'd have to spend the rest of my life battling my weight in order to be happy, healthy, wealthy, or loved, and so much anger that so many others continue to believe this.

Beyond just posting links on my own page and seemingly yelling a lot, I frequently engage in discussion in private groups about weight, health, and beauty with women who haven’t heard it yet and are grateful when they do. (And am also contributing a chapter to an anthology of perspectives on the fat acceptance movement.) 

Personally, I’m bored to death of being told I’m physically attractive, especially by men who are often clearly expecting my gratitude for their thinking so. I know I’m conventionally attractive; it’s boring. I didn’t earn it and don’t feel complimented. I don’t want to settle for reaping the benefits of my privilege without a though and I don’t want a world in which women of different sizes, abilities, colors, etc., have to accept that bigotry either. 

I can silently work to accept that I will never be a "normal" or a "healthy" weight according to the "experts." Or I can teach and remind everyone that BMI is not an indicator of health and should not be used to make policy, and I can influence the attitudes and opinions around me and ultimately convert everyone I know to the "Yay fitness!" party and not have to hear about diets and weight loss and body shame all around. 

I didn’t always know these things or feel this way; I came to them by reading and learning, and others will, too.

Ultimately, we realized he had meant to ASK about my feelings on the subject but in a strange misfire had ended up TELLING instead. Apologies were made and accepted and life went on.

Months later, I posted a selfie with a sign about setting a distance PR in the pool and completing a "Fit Fatty Virtual Event." I received a comment on the photo from another male friend along the lines of "I know you're insecure, but I don't consider you fat, and the people who know you know you're beautiful. Blah blah blah patronizing validation blah blah."

I responded with:

Alternatively, you could ask me what the Fit Fatty thing is about instead of projecting assumptions onto me. It's the name of forums and a Facebook group that are weight-neutral places to discuss fitness from a Health at Every Size perspective and are hosting a virtual decathlon event this year, which is why I'm posting the pictures. 

It's exceptionally rare to find communities where we can discuss fitness free from weight loss and diet talk.

And he deleted his comments before anyone else could see them.

I question whether my response was appropriate, too harsh, or too soft for the comment and the person and whether I should also have added:

1. I'm not fat. I know this and don't need you to tell me so.

2. There's nothing wrong with being fat and I genuinely look forward to the day that I fulfill my dreams of growing up to be a jolly, round Hobbit. (I come from an overwhelmingly obese family [no value judgment, just a fact]; it's really only a matter of time. But by then my body may be able to support competitive amateur weight lifting, and how cool would that be? /tangent)

As often as we think of the perfect comeback far too late, I think I did alright and managed to hide and overcome the shock and hurt feelings that the original comment triggered so suddenly and strongly.

Regarding this, a woman friend pointed out: 

Many women are insecure. Many women fish for compliments; not necessarily consciously. Men develop certain habits and assumptions in response.  

Mentioning weight, shape, diet or exercise is likely to trigger these habits more often than it triggers actual thought about what you posted.

I can't keep myself from judging people who fail to think before speaking.

Things that might have influenced such a bizarre, presumptive, and invasive comment:

I don't feel like I need to explain posts promoting equality, body positivity, size acceptance, healthy behaviors for all people regardless of body size, not judging people based on appearance including clothing size, etc.

When I complain (often at great length) about the obscene prices of gender-specific underwear required for exercise due to my apparently abnormal and grossly misproportioned body, nothing in that complaint is directed at my body. I'm angry at apparel makers for only catering to a paper-thin range of body types and I'm angry at the patriarchy for the fact that good sports bra designs don't even exist and I'm angry at both that I have to spend a minimum of $70 on an essential piece of clothing to support my running and fitness endeavors that only works because I happen to run slowly anyway.

My body is just lovely, but I could write a book about issues of access to safe, enjoyable forms of fitness and even finding exercise clothing in the necessary size, much less being able to afford it. (I wish I had time to write a book. That would be a good book.)

I said this about a photo taken immediately after running a fast mile:

"I fucking hate photos of myself working out and am this close to quitting the challenge because of the photo requirement."

When I complain about photos of my running and post-running because my hair is disheveled, my face flushed, and my body pouring sweat, it's really not a cry for validation and definitely not part of an overall trend of complaining about my appearance. Even as an advocate for body-positivity, surely I am allowed to despise gym and fitness selfies? Or do I have to love and brag about my appearance ceaselessly? I'm certainly capable, but it wouldn't be real and I'd probably lose a lot of friends.

I wish I had some snappy way to wrap this up: Think before you speak, learn to recognize a request for help or reassurance when there is one instead of reading it into random statements and offering help unsolicited, and just fucking Google it.

No-Scale November

I am sad now that I forgot to write about this sooner. I saw someone on Facebook suggest No-Scale November, and I quickly jumped at the opportunity and recruited more friends to join me. The plan is to go 30 days without weighing ourselves (or to look the other way if we must at the doctor's office).

Though I've been practicing intuitive eating under the Health At Every Size (HAES) paradigm for about a year and have no intention of losing weight, even with all my intense exercise, I've still been weighing myself several times a week to prove that I'm doing it "right" and maintaining. There's no reason for it, and though it didn't influence my mood much, it was a waste of time and thought when I could be doing anything else at all.

No-Scale November provided the perfect reason to stop.

I weighed myself on Halloween, saw the number in my usual range, and have since forgotten it. I noticed this month that I've spent less time thinking about my body and more time admiring it in the mirror. I don't believe that it's undergoing any significant changes (I've been eating the same and exercising less), but I do like it more the more that I see it. Rawr.

I didn't know if I would weigh myself again on Dec. 1 to "prove" that I can eat "right," but I had a cool idea of shooting some pictures of my smashing the scale with a hammer for fun and art. Then I had friends who wanted to do it, too, so a few of us are taking No-Scale November a step further and having a scale-smashing party in the first week of December.

But isn't that a huge waste of perfectly good items that could be donated?

Uh, no. Scales don't make people happy and I'd feel sorry for whomever got mine, which was less than $10 from IKEA some years ago and will now serve its higher purpose as capital-A Art. I'll post pictures!

I'm not going to buy a new scale (even though I'm passingly curious about my body fat percentage and whether it's changing the more that I exercise), nor to I regularly check my body measurement or plan to start. The fit of my clothes is all that I need.

Why is it so hard to find body positive runners?

A running group I belong to lists in its description that it will allow posting of personal questions, stories, advice, personal race photos and transformation photos. I’ve really been enjoying this group because it is overwhelmingly focused on running, compared to a running group I rage-quit a few hours after joining because it was all about weight loss.

Today a member posted an image from the internet that has used photoshop to enlarge the thighs and butts of two slim women running together and added a bucket of KFC fried chicken in their hands. I commented that the post deliberately demeans certain body types and food choices and is offensive and inappropriate to the group, and I have reported it.

The original poster is defending it, claiming she has a sense of humor and that I need to lighten up. I have both messaged the admin and tagged the admin in the comment thread of this post and really hope it will be dealt with. I can’t believe all the people supporting this image as a humorous post and attacking me for being a humorless bitch. UGH.

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.

Skin positivity

I gotta share this skin positive blog I just found through Skepchick. With all the body positive messages going around, somehow skin seems to get forgotten.

I’ve had terrible acne all my life until recently getting on some prescription meds, and my body is covered in scars—head to toe—from picking at my skin. I hate it when other people take pictures of me and don’t think to retouch them, because you can believe I spend the time pouring over every one of my shots and skillfully brushing out the red marks.

Some days I’m OK with it because I don’t really see it; others, I worry what people will think, or worse: say. A few weeks ago, I was wearing a bikini top and someone asked if I did suspensions. I asked what she meant: hanging by hooks. Because of the scars on my back. Which don’t even remotely look like that, so wtf?

I put a bandage on my jawline to cover a pimple I'd been picking and was asked if I'd cut myself shaving. I . . . what? My coworkers at least had the decency to respond to the question with looks of horror when it happened.

I had keratosis pilaris flare so badly this winter that I was afraid to take my clothes off. It’s SO much better this summer, but my arms are still bumpy, frequently scabby and bleeding as a result, because I scratch absent-mindedly.

My limbs are constantly covered in bruises—black, blue, purple, green, yellow, and brown—from my weekend activities including trail running, obstacle races, and boffer combat, not to mention my general clumsiness.

My feet are swollen, blistered, and flaky from running, no matter how religiously I apply deep moisturizers. My toe nails are cracked, jagged, and yellow, which ads tell me I should hide but I can only see it as an improvement over black. I love my feet for what they do for me: the miles they put behind me and the abuse they take on the pavement.

And I have stretch marks, but not the kind a woman is permitted to be proud of that appeared with pregnancy and were “earned” through bodily sacrifice. Mine raced across my swelling thighs, hips, and breasts during puberty—universally desirable parts marred by supposedly shame-inducing marks. I missed the memo, though, that I was supposed to hate them and embrace them along with the curves they adorn.

I have a weird red patch, possibly rosacea, on the hollow of my left cheek that's difficult to cover and ruins my blush makeup patterns. I've been asked before why I was only blushing on one side and stared at him like he was an idiot.

Why do people think it's OK to ask about your skin? I'm usually OK in my skin, but other people are the worst.