As part of Body Image theme week, brought to you by the wonderful Speedreader of My Favorite Author, I'll be guest blogging at Presenting Lenore about my battle with low self-esteem.
And today I am hosting Liviania of In Bed with Books and her personal stuggle with self image.
When I was invited to guest blog about body image on MFA I was excited, but then I realized how complicated it is to talk about my body with people who I am not friends with and have never actually seen my body. In the end, I tried to figure out what I hate most about my body, and here it is: other people's eyes on it.
I'm a pretty girl. I know I'm pretty. I sit a little below the ideal weight for someone my age and height. I've got good skin. I know how to dress to compliment my body shape. I can look in the mirror and know this. Of course, even as I think I look pretty I think I look a little stubby – what happened to those long legs I had as a kid? Maybe it's an optical illusion caused by my wide hips and meaty thighs. (Not that you can pinch fat on them. But when I'm looking at them they sure seem *meaty*.)
That of course means other people must look at them and think they look a little fleshy, round, pick a synonym of your choice. Therefore, I don't like wearing shorts. Or anything that shows much of my legs. I tried on a miniskirt once, in a dressing room with the friends who conned me into it, and instantly took it off because of the way I thought my legs looked, exposed. Neither of my friends said anything bad about them.
Later that year I went to the pool with one of those friends, who loaned me a suit since mine was at home. She only owns string bikinis, which was somewhat awkward. At first I was just happy the chest fit since she had bigger boobs and serious back muscles from tennis. But when we got to the pool I started wondering what people I didn't know saw. It was a nice summer day, so tons of girls and guys were sunning themselves. And it made me a little crazy wondering what they were thinking, if I was in the story their thoughts developed about their surroundings.
We're taught to look at people and make judgments. To decide whether people are skinny, average, curvy, fat, obese, pretty, ugly, beautiful, bland, toned, soft, whatever. Sometimes we decide what people are like based on their appearance. That's the entire joke of the manga I'm reading now, Angel Densetsu. The main character has a heart of gold, but everyone assumes he's a delinquent because of his face. A one-note joke like that shouldn't work so well.
It bothers me that this bothers me, because normally I don't care how people think. I like to say what I mean and wear the styles I like and such without censoring myself for other people's sensibilities. (It may help that I'm not all that offensive.) But the less clothes I wear the more I wonder what people see when they look at me. I hate that wonder – I don't care whether they're thinking positively or negatively about me. So I cover up a body I know objectively is just fine, even if I do think it looks a little bad in the mirror.