[Image: A close up of a very light skinned person’s torso wearing white panties and bra wiht the word written on the person’s skin: Stop Hating Your Body with a black-outlined heart next to the words.]
which is being written on a person with a perfect body. smh.
There’s no such thing as a “perfect body”. Anyone can have dysphoria regarding their looks, regardless of if those looks match perfectly with society’s ideals or not.
True, anyone, with any type of body can have body issues and dysphoria and other problems related to the way society teaches us to hate ourselves. I totally agree. But this picture isn’t about this individual person’s own struggles with that. If it was, that would be different.
This is a depersonalized symbol of a body, posed and presented to me as a message - and as a message its mixed at best because this type of body is precisely the type of body that has delivered messages of hate to me.
No, the individual who possesses this body has not done that and maybe have been trying for something very positive - but I think people who want to jump on the body positivity bandwagon need to be careful and think about how they say what they say and in what medium.
I’m sorry, but this individual does need to be aware that they are in possession of a PRIVILEGED body, and that what they deal with on a larger-than-personal level is not the same as what people who are very dark skinned, very fat, physically disabled, etc deal with.
There is still a real and very valid critique of the kind of hypocrisy or at least ineffectiveness of such a message being displayed on a thin, very light skinned, not scarred body wearing the type of underwear that fits with what we think a body like this SHOULD be wearing (ie - proper gender presentation, though I know nothing about this person’s own gender identity and history) when this is exactly the type of body that society most encourages us NOT to hate and to strive for.
I really get pissed off when people expect me not to critique the fact that a message that’s meant to empower me is written on the type of body that has been disempowering me and making me feel inferior and subhuman MY ENTIRE LIFE and that this body comes with NO context to counteract that effect.
This individual may be trying to say something positive, but doing it this way? Divorcing it from themselves and making it about presenting a socially acceptable body to me with this message? Is just not cutting it.
Please don’t expect me, who gets told ON THE DAILY, to hate my body, to reduce it, to fix it, repair it, and disdain its very being as a burden on myself and all those around me to view this as though it doesn’t come with some very mixed messages for myself and for so many others.