What women look like...

[butterfly_warrior]

Bec, can I think you from the bottom of my heart for posting those links?

I'm sure DH thinks I'm weird for sitting here essentially looking at boobs... but I'd always struggled to gain acceptance of my body, and pre-pregnancy was pretty happy. However, the changes with pregnancy have really thrown me, especially after my disastrous bra shopping expedition!

Now... I back once more to feeling so much better about myself. I know I'm lop-sided, but I can see now that it's PERFECTLY NORMAL!!! And my breasts are actually quite attractive in their own unique way.

I don't think recovering my body image is going to be a one night process, but it is so nice to know that these images are there... and motherhood isn't doing anything different to me than it has to every other mother on the planet - blotchy skin, stretch marks, saggy bits... I am at least well back on the path to loving my body once more.

Thank you, Bec.

BW

[visitor1]

Wow i am normal....but i am me...and no one but me can judge the way my boobs sag or my tummy has rolls.

I used to say im fat and feral....but looking at those pics..im still normal

Thank you so much Bec for showing others that everyone is NORMAL regardless if their shape or size

[Nadine216]

Yeah BW ... that is what I meant!!! I'm feeling sooooooo much better about myself!!

[thepixie]

I'm assuming the google links are there because google pay for the privilege and the actual searches are automatically generated by the terms in the blog titles.

Yeah I have noticed that Google ads are often directly opposed to the topic of the webpage and pretty inappropriate at times! LOL
thanks again for the links, it's good to see the diversity of women's bodies for a change instead of the usual body types portrayed by the media - ultra skinny with boobs, or ultra skinny without boobs!

[paradise lost]

You're welcome lovely! I think sometimes we need to have a visual reminder of the parameters of normal - i counted the assymetric boobs on one page and came up with a figure of about 30% - that's A LOT! Being naturally blonde or red-haired is SOOOOO much rarer! I also smiled to read so many women say "my one boob is bigger" because unless you LOOKED for it, you totally didn't notice it! It was obviously something the women in question looked FOR (one of mine is slightly bigger, not a whole cup size though, yet it seems a HUGE differnce to me, DP despite extensive "investigations" just can't see it. lol) and thus notice all the time.

Nadine i don't think you're mean at all, one of the things i loved about the sites was seeing women with such different bodies and asking myself how *I* would feel if i were them. It made me really question WHY i believe a certain look is beautiful...and it's because of the media!!! Every single one of those women's bodies does what it says on the tin, and yet i would have thought some unbeautiful because of some twisted perception of "normal" i have had fed to my eyeballs all these years.

If anyone else is as obsessive as me, i recommend having a good couple of hours looking, after a while you stop feeling attachment to the shapes you first liked, and begin to see the real beauty in swirling stretchmarks and the comforting pendulousnous of large saggy mothers breasts...

Bx

[visitor1]

I have more issues with my breasts then anything else...but some of those pics are a mirror image of mine.

1 bigger then the other, one higher then the other etc...the stretchies just add character :P

Im amused by the pics now!

[Butterfly_Princess]

WOW, i feel so much better now, i now know i had NOTHING to worry about. I am lucky, the weight from PG just dropped off me...and i dont have any stretch marks either...
I really had nothing to worry about.

[Karina]

Wow, so many diferent shapes and sizes..
Even though I know I'm totally normal, I seem a little abnormal now compared to most of those photos. ah well, i dont care!

[paradise lost]

I've edited. Maybe it'll help.

Loves

Bx

[Diamond75]

Omg just let me shout it out... I am beautiful.. I have a great face, infact I often get told I look like Taylor from Bold and the Beautiful, but I have stretch marks you could play snakes and ladders on, I have DD cup breasts that could feature on National Geographic, thighs that resemble playdough and I am sure if I was to flap them around I would have the beginning of tuck shop arms, but I don't care as all I have to do is look at my 3 beautiful children and it is so worth it. Even after losing my pregnancy weight I am still left with pregnancy baggage but heck I am happy.

[Hoody]

Omg just let me shout it out... I am beautiful.. I have a great face, infact I often get told I look like Taylor from Bold and the Beautiful, but I have stretch marks you could play snakes and ladders on, I have DD cup breasts that could feature on National Geographic, thighs that resemble playdough and I am sure if I was to flap them around I would have the beginning of tuck shop arms, but I don't care as all I have to do is look at my 3 beautiful children and it is so worth it. Even after losing my pregnancy weight I am still left with pregnancy baggage but heck I am happy.

Great attitude
Thank your for sharing the sites. I am not over weight etc but since having my 2 dd's i am no way the same as i was before and i have lots of body issues, saggy tummy and boobs etc. I am left feeling alot better about myself after seeing that i am "normal" iykwim.

[Nelle]

Lol at your National Geographic boobs Diamond. :P

Ryn, how about 'acceptabable' women? Because I think many people don't accept that the aftermath of pregnancy is an acceptable way to look. I'm sure the saggy baggy 'just gave birth' look wouldn't be acceptable to many advertising companies as a beautiful thing. But it's a realistic and acceptable way to look after having a child, just as looking like a model after birth can be a realistic and acceptable way to look.

I think it's wonderful that woman feel they can post their bodies, either in celebration of their 'battle scars', or as a step towards acceptance and peace about the changes in their bodies.

[paradise lost]

I think even our own language on this thread is very telling. How many of us confess to saggy boobs? Well check out the site, saggy compared to what? My boobs are saggier than they once were, but i could have said that when i was 12, because HAVING boobs meant my chest was saggier than it had been when i was 9 (when it was completely flat). I don't actually have saggy boobs, i have mothers boobs, they look like pretty much all the other mothers boobs on the site. Critical descriptive terminology colours our views of our bodies even when we're being quite positive.

"i love my saggy boobs" or "big bum" or "bony spine" all somehow imply that we are loving IN SPITE of our body's appearance, when in fact all of those things can be totally normal and not something to criticise in the first place. Does that make sense?

I have 2 stretchmarks i particularly love, underneath my pubic hair. I love them because i didn't have them the day before DD was born and part of me believes they were made as DD passed through my pelvis and i just LOVE that idea! LOL. Mad i know.

I just think our whole society and so much cosmetics and so on are all aimed at convincing us that our bodies aren't normal. Cellulite treatments, looking to make the 99% of women who have cellulite look like the 1% who don't? Stretch-mark creams (both prevention and appearance-improving) looking to help the 85% of women who have stretchmarks look like the 15% who don't because of GENETICS? Washes and soaps and deodorants for the genital area lest your vagina should start to smell like....a vagina. There are implications in all of these products. I have never bought any of them, but i still see them in the supermarket, i am still faced with that implication.

Bx

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Well said Bec, and thanks for changing for me. I do feel a bit like I'm being daft about this but it's just something that really resonates with me.

I am normal FOR ME, which isn't normal for anyone else! I have huge bones, a boney spine, small breasts, gigantic feet, a hairy body, brown eyes and long toes and fingers. That's not a judgement statement, that's just me. I wouldn't go as far as saying I love my body, but it is mine, it is real, it's not changing for anyone! Well, maybe future babies. But that's different to wanting to change to fit in and be "normal" because we're each our own normal. Society norms... *blows raspberry*. For my age that apparently would involve getting very drunk every night. I'm not society normal. I'm me normal. And I like that. (This is the ONLY time anyone will hear me describe myself as normal, you may want to flag this post to read in years to come when I'm being my normal super-weird self LOL.)

[Smoke Jaguar]

Fantastic, Bec! My DP is also thinking I'm weird for looking at boobs that he considers ugly on the internet. What he doesn't know is the years of looking at trashy magazines and fixating on the boobs in them, keenly aware that my boobs would never 'cut it' and they looked 'funny'.
When I had the 'model' figure and was quite an attractive younger person, I always thought my one 'failing' was my boobs. Geez, I wish I'd seen this back then so I could enjoy them, instead!
I"m at peace with my boobies now, because they are still being supremely useful, two years after having my boy

[jojo80]

I'm struggling with my flappy tummy. I've been much heavier than i am now but never had a big tummy. Now post baby there is a flap of skin i hate it. but it's good to see i'm not alone.

[Neenee Jellybeanie]

I think the point is that 6" tall size 8 women are OVERrepresented in the media and shorter/fatter women aren't really represented at all . . .