puddingcat | Looking good naked is easy if you already do.

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Looking good naked is easy if you already do.

Hmm.

How To Look Good Naked is a lovely idea, and I really like Gok Wan. The thing is (which I can't write / read without thinking of Aziraphale...), all the people so far look good anyway. Sure, they need a haircut and professional makeup, and the clothes make a difference, but they're all attractive at the start.

What about people with scars? With eczema? Who aren't in proportion? Who are more than a stone overweight?

Bah.

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all the people so far look good anyway. Sure, they need a haircut and professional makeup, and the clothes make a difference, but they're all attractive at the start.

They may be gorgeous to begin with, but the point is that they don't see it, and need to go through Gok's however-many-step program to be convinced. People who feel that their reasons for not looking fantastic naked are more physical and much harder to scrub, squeeze, blend, or whatever away, are going to take far longer to see their own beauty, and if they're that much entrenched in their belief of ugliness, then they probably need hefty mental makeovers more urgently than image ones, and that's not quite within the reach of the show.

The people with scars and eczema, who are disproportionate and over a stone in weight are just as damn gorgeous as the ones you think are "all attractive at the start". But let's face it, almost every woman I know is going to think that all the girls on the show are beautiful pre-makeover, "not like me, no, my bum/boobs/hip/great slabs of lard are way bigger than hers, my skin's in worse condition, I've had more kids and it shows, blah, blah, blah..."

When the fuck did it become normal for women to detest themselves for these wretched, bullshit reasons? Who told us that an extra stone or five was so ugly, and why did we believe them? Who said that blemishes and scars and stretch marks and the remnants of inescapable, biological processes that are etched in our skin make us so undesirable, and why did we put so much stock into their opinions? Are we so gullible that we'll tick off a list of physical flaws and accept that these defects make us unwanted as lovers, define us as substandard women? Most importantly, how did we allow women to become each other's biggest enemies regarding body image, perpetuating these negative obsessions?

Of course, saying this sort of thing is going to make me sound like some holier-than-thou bitch who's perfect, physically and mentally, and I'm really not. But I don't hate myself for it.

When I was a kid, and up to my early teens when I was becoming more conscious of my body image, I thought I was fat. Huge. Enormous, monstrous, blubber-toting, pie-munching, lard-bucket. The truth is, I was an early developer and slightly overweight. Boobs at age seven, mortification during swimming lessons, that sort of thing. The fact that I was very unfit fed that view of being fatfatfat, though it never occurred to me that people of all sizes can be unfit. The one girl who'd do worse than I did in PE was rather slender, but I was a blinkered fat schoolkid who was obviously going to ignore anything rational.

And so I gradually formed eating patterns that a fat person would have because - hey! I'm already fat, right, this is just how I eat! I gained and gained and gained without quite realising it, because to me I had always been fat and therefore wretched and hideous.

It was only in perhaps the past four years I've come to recognise what I did to myself. I convinced myself I was fat, so I did become fat. From within my perfectly normal and healthy BMI range at age 13 to medically obese as I hit my twenties. I have continued to put on weight because those eating patterns have proved incredibly hard to change. So much harder than quitting smoking cold turkey, this is deeply ingrained stuff. That I taught myself.

[...cont]

Strangely, it's been during the worst periods of my depression (which has been present since roughly age 14), from 20 to now, 24½, that I've become more positive about my body, even though I'm very overweight. (Medically! I am a biologist and I can say that this clinical obesity is seriously endangering my long-term health; when I say I'm overweight I'm not being all whiny does-this-fat-make-my-fat-look-fat?) I can see what I did to myself, I can see how to change this, and I know I'm capable of changing it. Uh, gradually. And not while I'm big-lump-of-coal!depressed, because all that can be done then is staring.

I forget what the fuck the point of this comment rant thing was. Fuck. It's past 3am. So I need to shed one-third of my current body weight to be satisfied that my adipose desposits aren't going to contribute to my premature death and the general discomforts that come with being fat. And yes, that does include room for some good muscle tone that I hope to build. Mmmmmm, actin and myosin! But despite looking "like the side of a bus" as my gran used to say to me in reference to my bulk, I can look at myself naked in the mirror (with difficulty, because it's a small mirror rather than a full-length one, and it's up high so I need to stand on a chair) and think - saggy bits, flab, gut, stray hairs that escaped the razor, stretch marks and self-inflicted scars included - that there should be a godsdamned queue for that shit.

And I really, really wish that more women could do that.

Whoah, I really need some sleep now.

You are fantastic! Your comments made me cheer. Particularly this: When the fuck did it become normal for women to detest themselves for these wretched, bullshit reasons? Who told us that an extra stone or five was so ugly, and why did we believe them? Who said that blemishes and scars and stretch marks and the remnants of inescapable, biological processes that are etched in our skin make us so undesirable, and why did we put so much stock into their opinions? Are we so gullible that we'll tick off a list of physical flaws and accept that these defects make us unwanted as lovers, define us as substandard women? Most importantly, how did we allow women to become each other's biggest enemies regarding body image, perpetuating these negative obsessions?

Jen, I have seen you turkish bathing, and I always think that you are more attractive than me. I quite like my body, but am uncomfortable about the size of certain things, and the marks on my arms, and the hideous reactive fat bumps on my thighs and belly from injecting, but I do know that most people don't see those things, and that the people who do just see them as part of me. Not as something which detracts from me, but just part of this person.

Your scars, and your skin are part of you, and you are the person that we love, and who, very shallowly, we think of as beautiful.
N.

When we went to the baths, I had such amazingly huge bite marks in various places that I'm not surprised nobody noticed anything else!

I also kept my bikini bottoms on.

(You knew I was going to do this, right? :p)

yes, yes, I knew you were going to do this... It's like you're using each comment to convince yourself more of badness. Pah, silly branemeats. Loffs to you

But hey, great excuse for going & getting more fun bruises!

You're amazing :)

The photo I keep threatening to post (me with ginger hair, a tan & not wearing black) made me cry when I dug it out a year ago. I was wearing SIZE 10 shorts, ferchrissakes, and I *still* hated my body & thought I was obese. Now I *know* I'm fatter (I can't get my old riding boots on) and would kill to be that size again.

*My* (badly-expressed) point is that I, personally, am not going to believe I can look good naked until Auntie Gok works his magic on someone who *I* think has the same problems as me, to the same extent as me. Self-centred, yes, but I can't believe I'm the only one.

So let's apply. You and me both. See if they really are looking for a stereotype with something they can already work with.

*lets the icon make the comment*

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