Some breathtaking analysis here by Antonio A. Casilli.
Don’t make New Years weight loss resolutions, resolve to only fuck people who love and worship your body. That makes the most difference.
Image - a photo of my fat fingers holding a black No Diet Talk brooch.
They’re available for sale in my shop! Go get one.
I don’t often talk publicly about my body politics until I’m sometimes reminded that not dehumanising people for their bodies is a radical act in this beauty industrial complex we all live with. I don’t care what you do with your body, it is your body. If you want to be fat, be fat. If you want to be thin, be thin. If you want to be pierced, tattooed, or get cosmetic surgery, go right ahead. If you want to be hairy, be hairy. If you want to diet, diet. Wear what you want, and that includes tights as pants. I support treatment for body dysmorphia and disordered eating if the person wants it, but it’s none of my business. Neither is a person’s alcoholism or drug addiction or gambling problem my business. I think we can all help each other by loving each other, that should be the first step in addressing societal problems. (I believe the last “acceptable” prejudices we hold as a society are those directed at fat people, junkies, the poor, and trans people).
But diet talk - I don’t want to hear it.
I find diet talk boring, and also EXHAUSTING. It never lets up. Trying to negotiate a world where I’m supposed to believe I’m not good enough, or not the right size, no matter what I do, really hurts. Trying to negotiate other people’s body dysmorphia while trying not to compare my own body to whatever they define as “fat”, really hurts. Trying to eat healthy, nourishing food while women around me assign moral values to food and talk about their cabbage soup crash diet or whatever, actually turns me off eating. It makes eating near those people exhausting. I know it’s radical to many people, but shaming someone for what they eat, no matter what it is, is one of the most uncool things you can do. The same goes for shaming someone for their appearance and body, it is so hateful.
I am sure at some point in the future I will diet again, but if I do, I’m not gonna talk about it. I’m an interesting woman, I don’t need to rely on dieting as bonding and conversation with other women. I want to know their heart and mind and soul, not how many kilos they’ve lost or why they can’t eat a piece of cake because it’s “bad” for them.
What Makes a Body Obscene? » Sociological Images:
The model is a man named Andrej Pejic, with hair and make-up usually seen only on women, sliding his shirt off his back. Some might say that he is gender-ambiguous and the image deliberately blurs gender; are we seeing a chest or small breasts? It is not immediately apparent.
Both Barnes & Noble and Borders “bagged” the magazine, like they do pornographic ones, such that one can see the title of the magazine but the rest of the cover is hidden. Barnes and Noble said that the magazine came that way, representatives for Dossiersay that the bookstore “chains” required them to do it (source). Non-ambiguously-male chests pepper most magazine racks, but this man’s chest hints at boobs. And so he goes under.
What’s going on?
Explaining why it is legal for men to be shirtless in public but illegal for women to do the same, most Americans would probably refer to the fact that women have breasts and men have chests. Breasts, after all, are… these things.They incite us, disgust us, send us into grabby fits. They’re just so there. They force us to contend with them; they’re bouncy or flat or pointy or pendulous and sometimes they’re plain missing! They demand their individuality! Why won’t they obey some sort of law and order!
Much better to contain those babies.
Chests… well they do have those haunting nipples… but they’re just less unruly, right? Not a threat to public order at all.
So, there you have it. Men have chests and women have breasts and that’s why topless women are indecent.
Of course it’s not that straightforward.
It’s not true that women have breasts and men have chests. Many men have chests that look a bit or even a lot like breasts (there is a thriving cosmetic surgery industry around this fact). Meanwhile, many women are essentially “flat chested,” while the bustiness of others is an illusion created by silicone or salt water. Is it really breasts that must be covered? Clearly not. All women’s bodies are targeted by the law, and men’s bodies are given a pass, breasty or chesty as they may be.
Unless.
Unless that man’s gender is ambiguous; unless he does just enough femininity to make his body suspect. Indeed, the treatment of the Dossier cover reveals that the social and legislative ban on public breasts rests on a jiggly foundation. It’s not simply that breasts are considered pornographic. It’s that we’re afraid of women and femininity and female bodies and, if a man looks feminine enough, he becomes, by default, obscene.
David Jay >, The SCAR Project (source)
Shot over the course of three years, The SCAR Project is a series of portraits of 17- to 35-year-old women at various stages of breast cancer treatment. The portraits are shot both in the studio and on location.
From the interview:
POP: You have been a fashion photographer for over a decade. As opposed to creating hyper-idealized portrayals of women, you spent the last few years capturing the physical imperfections of breast cancer survivors for The SCAR Project. Did this prove challenging?
DJ: I struggled shooting The SCAR Project. I was torn. I wanted the pictures to be raw, honest, sincere. Yet I knew why the subjects had come—they wanted something beautiful. They had already suffered greatly and although I desperately wanted to serve them, I knew in my heart that compromising the visual integrity of The SCAR Project for the sake of easily digested beauty would serve no one. Certainly not the people I hoped to be impacted by the images, the public at large who remain blissfully unaware of the risk or reality of this disease… anesthetized by pink ribbons and fluffy, pink teddy bears. • MORE
David Jay >, The SCAR Project (source)
Shot over the course of three years, The SCAR Project is a series of portraits of 17- to 35-year-old women at various stages of breast cancer treatment. The portraits are shot both in the studio and on location.
From the interview:
POP: You have been a fashion photographer for over a decade. As opposed to creating hyper-idealized portrayals of women, you spent the last few years capturing the physical imperfections of breast cancer survivors for The SCAR Project. Did this prove challenging?
DJ: I struggled shooting The SCAR Project. I was torn. I wanted the pictures to be raw, honest, sincere. Yet I knew why the subjects had come—they wanted something beautiful. They had already suffered greatly and although I desperately wanted to serve them, I knew in my heart that compromising the visual integrity of The SCAR Project for the sake of easily digested beauty would serve no one. Certainly not the people I hoped to be impacted by the images, the public at large who remain blissfully unaware of the risk or reality of this disease… anesthetized by pink ribbons and fluffy, pink teddy bears. • MORE
Operators Are Standing By Jean Bevier
(via claytoncubitt)
Control | Marks Left By Body Magic | Ardyss Body Magic Contol Garment (by zerbetron) (via curate jessiedress ilovefat)
Real women are tall. Real women are short. They’re wide. Gaunt. Their bones can stick out of their collarbones, or be disguised by curves or fat. There are real women with breasts and real women with flat chests. There are real women who have had to have their breasts or ovaries removed, and not having those doesn’t make them any less of a real woman. There are even real women who might not be cis-gendered women. Real women are gay or straight or pansexual or femme or butch or any place along the gender identity spectrum, and if they identify as a woman, they’re still a real woman. Real women, beautiful women, come in every variation of skin tone, size, socio-economic background, political persuasion that you could possibly ever think of. You’re taking two (huge) steps backward when you tell a woman to be proud of her curves, and in the same breath, tell a thin woman to eat a sandwich.
Feminism is not about empowering one kind of woman. Body positivity is not about empowering one kind of woman. Self-love is not about empowering one kind of woman.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, I hate the use of “real women”.
I’m going to take it one step further and say “real women” includes women who have had plastic surgery for augmentation reasons too. I have no interest in debating the psychology or politics of plastic surgery, but women who have silicone breasts or undergone nose jobs (or any other procedure) are real. I might not personally like some plastic surgery but I’ve tried to stop pointing out the “fake”. I don’t think it helps me as a woman to disparage another woman for making that choice.
I have never been pretty,
never skinny, obedient or pleasing.
I fail each time I plant an idea —
to be lovely, to be sweet — but this year,
on a south-facing patio, I have managed
to grow a crop of healthy apologies,
full and robust, strong and believable.
Out of each clay pot springs a perfect
green woman with straight gold hair.
These are the “say-it-like-you-mean-it”
variety, the six-foot relentless beauties,
the mammoth self-reproaching blossoms.
I water them faithfully,
guard against birds and beetles.
I give the first mature flower to my mother,
who says she likes daisies better, the next one
to my lover, who says he prefers violets
that know how to curtsy.
By August, I have too many metaphors
for remorse. I make breads, sauces, jellies.
I leave humble bouquets on neighbors’ porches.
No one comes to the door. No one likes to see
a woman with arms full of burdens.
No one wants to watch me
pick seeds out of my sorry teeth.
(via poetrynews)
