I like my naked body

trigger warning body discussion, weight issues, eating disorders, self mutilation, and brief mentions of sexaul assault

That's a pretty radical statement to say in our society. The truth is that most people do not like the way they look naked. From my perspective it is mostly culture that tells us that there is something inherently dirty about our bodies. That's why when people criticize female celebrities for appearing in their underwear I get extremely pissed. If you want to criticize somebody about posing for the male gaze because they have admitted to doing that fine, but if you are just assuming that because they are a celebrity and they are posing in their lacy bits on a magazine cover only for the male gaze? NOT OKAY ever. It takes a lot of us a long time to be okay and confident in our bodies. The last thing any of us need is to be told that we are catering to the male gaze when we show off our figures.

This kind of attitude along with other issues is what led to my eating disorder. I was a ballerina who grew into my womanly figure much earlier than most girls. This put me under extreme amounts of pressure from my ballet teachers to be thinner, but I was getting different messages at home. My mom would go back and forth between yelling at me that I was getting fat and ugly or that I was becoming a woman and therefore was to pretty for my own good. Both of those comments along with the pressure to stay skinny from my dance teachers and fellow young ballerinas made me hate my body. At one point I hated it so much that I wouldn't even get undressed to take a shower. I would shower with my clothes on and not look when I had to actually soap whatever area I had exposed to wash at the time. When I started getting stretch marks on my legs from muscle growth from dancing and on my breasts from their rapid expansion I would cut the marks open in an attempt to make them disappear. I started purging every meal I ate. This horrible and harmful behavior went on for close to three years before my boyfriend at the time caught me and forced me to get help. By that point I had broken the muscles that controlled the gag reflex in my throat and I had surgery to repair them. It took me three years of constant therapy to be able to stop harming myself with the cutting and the purging. I still struggle with my body, but I've gotten to a place where I can look at it in the mirror and like what I see. I see my curves as a testament to my womanhood and the battles that I have survived because of that. I see my stretch marks as the marks of a dancer who loved her art. I see my porcelain skin so soft and my hair so rich and supple and healthy, and it reminds me that if I want to keep everything looking healthy that I have to eat and not self destruct my own progress.

So when someone states that women who display themselves are only catering to the male gaze I get really frustrated because for some people, that approval is the only thing that keeps their dinner from going into the wastebasket.