This post is awesome.

[feuervogel]

Via rydra_wong

Stop telling people to love their bodies.

Every time I go to the supermarket or the drugstore, I get treated to an endless barrage of magazines helpfully pointing out what is currently too monstrous about my body for anyone to see. I thus can really get behind the idea of body positivity. I think it's a great stance to have, and would like to see it more widespread.

But here's the thing: It's not something that can be forced on people. You can't shame someone into thinking they're a stone-cold fox. Snarking on someone for being self-conscious for whatever reason (hey, it's not like there might be any cultural conditioning behind it, amirite?), isn't really going to help.

Comments

[intravenusann.livejournal.com]

OH THANK CHRIST. I want to hug this person. FULL ON HUG.

Making someone feel like a bad person for not liking themselves is not actually going to make them like themselves.

[feuervogel]

YES. I mean, holy shit, that's NEWS to people?

Yeah, I have some giant fucking body image issues (let me show you them), and seeing how the beauty-industrial complex propagates these standards that are impossible for the vast majority of people (male or female, really) to meet and *knowing* that they even photoshop the fucking beautiful people on the covers of magazines ... you know, I can be completely aware of all that shit, and know just how fucking toxic it is, and STILL hate my belly and thighs. (I like my calves and tits, though.)

And yes, I'm fortunate that I have an issue I can work at to change (by doing cardio and strength training exercises), and that my ideal body would resemble Brandi Chastain or Mia Hamm rather than Kate Moss, and that I'm not chronically ill and all these other things... but that doesn't mean I should feel guilty about saying "damn, I want to lose some weight." Or feel like I have to pretend that I don't *actually* want to lose weight, because that's fat-hating, but say "I want to improve my cardiovascular fitness and become stronger, and if I lose weight in the process that's OK."

er, /rant.

[ladydreamer.livejournal.com]

Lacking context, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Who are we telling to stop saying to love your body? And what definition of love? (Nurture, cherish, accept, masturbate?) How are people being forced to love their bodies? By gunpoint? If the first answer is the media, we know that it is bullshit anyway. Love your body; buy our cellulite creme.

As someone who has had to deal with chronic pain over the last several years that has only gotten worse as of late and has been fighting even at the basic level of weight not to hate my body to the point of hurting it, I think I'm not really pleased with an outright damnation of the concept.

[feuervogel]

The issue is taken with "love your body the way it is, or you're a bad feminist who's bought into the patriarchy." Which, sorry, no.

This thread focuses on how "love your body the way it is OR ELSE" affected one trans man, and this one is a shining example of what Happiest Sadist is railing against. Jane Doe says "I'm not attractive, and I'm OK with that." (ie, acceptance) Eatenbykraken comes along and says, "No, everyone's attractive, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

And The idea that every woman is beautiful still posits the idea that they're around to be attractive.