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.
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.)
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