by Elizabeth Hall
"Perfectly beautiful bodies are not composed of angular parts."
--Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
It all started around puberty. Until then, I viewed my body strictly in terms of what it could do. It could do backbends on gymnastics mats, flips on trampolines, and cannonballs off diving boards. It ran tan-lined and naked through backyard sprinklers with my younger sister and cousins. Then I turned eleven and started thinking that running through the sprinkler naked might not be such a good idea....
This was also the time that I began accumulating more fat around my hips and waist. My mother had said this was normal when we had "The Talk." But Teen and Seventeen and YM and every other girl in the sixth grade didn't think it was normal. Fat was an excess and a nuisance, boys didn't like it, and we had to do everything in our power to get rid of it. So we did. Some of us were more successful than others, but, by golly, we tried. And so began fifteen years of tortuous yo-yo dieting....
Finally, about a year ago, I was in the dressing room at a department store and discovered that I had gone up a size. My first impulse was to crumple up into a ball and sob. Here we go again, I thought. Here comes another diet. So long, chocolate! So long, cheese! But, suddenly, a little voice popped into my head. I would like to think it was the voice of the true goddess that dwells within every woman. She said, "This is crazy! Stop seeing what they want you to see. See yourself as I see you: a Wonder of Creation."
Reluctantly, I took another look. Much to my surprise I saw, not the superimposed "flaws" of a fucked-up society, but a radiant, opulent, curvaceous body that was healthy and fit and oozing with sensuality. I saw my body. And I fell in love with it.
Fast-forward to the present. I am fresh on the heels of quite possibly the most intensely pleasurable sexual encounter of my life. Incredible sex, incredible because I can barely believe I could let myself go that fully....
First published in Western North Carolina Woman
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
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1 comment:
loved the sense of appreciation for the wonder of your body, instead of cutting it down to size and hating it for not doing it RIGHT. I once cut up a t shirt that made me look bad on a photo instead of trying to change my body I changed the t-shirt, much easier on the system. and yes, my love life has improved!
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