infryq

Dear world, stop praising my body by hating yours. Even setting aside discussion of society's hyperconflation of female form and female value, the logic is all wrong. Just because I am thin does not mean I have an easy time finding clothes that fit, or that I don't have to pay any attention to what I eat, or that I can sit on my ass without exercising all week and still feel good, or that every shape and line I make on the dance floor makes me look glamorous and sexy. Every body has a unique set of requirements. Nobody ignores their body without facing unpleasant consequences. Nobody.

I think it would be awesome if more people learned to sew. It needn't go even to the point of making a single successful garment. I just think the act of taking flat fabric and shaping it to fit a curved body based on checkpoint measurements highlights how impossibly complex and varied 3D shapes are. It's a miracle that RTW clothing fits as many people as well as it does. (if it didn't, more people would make their own stuff, or give up and go without. Not a lot of nudists-in-clothing-protest on the streets these days)

I don't mean suck it up. I mean more personal care and attention and gratefulness. There are all sorts of people in the Pittsburgh dance community who have really amazing, gorgeous movement, but bitch all the time about how much they hate their curves. WOMAN. WAKE UP. I mean, be healthy, I want you to be around and dancing with us for a long, long time, but there ain't no way your hips could move like that if you weren't shaped that way. I can understand that it might be difficult to tell the difference between your body's basic shape and whether or not you're carrying "extra" pounds, but I think a lot of women place their dissatisfaction squarely on the former, and that's just not right.

Love your body. Learn what it likes. Revel in what makes you you. Experiment and find out.