Love it or hate it, Elan Morgan ponders self-acceptance, our bodies, and why there isn’t really an answer.
I think about beauty and self-acceptance and love, and I think about how our culture, in an effort to beat back the ocean of self-loathing that women have been drowning in for so long, offers up this idea of loving our bodies, and this idea doesn’t sit well with me. It seems just as dissociative as hating our bodies.
My body is not an object to be appraised by me like I would a beautiful vase or an animal separate from me. It is not here for me to hate or love or have a relationship with as I would something outside myself. It is here to carry me through my days on this earth. It is here as a vehicle that feels separate from my consciousness, but is inseparable from my experience of the world. It is not a costume I have put on in the same way that I put on clothing I like or dislike.
To hate or to love my body seems to put me outside of it. It divorces me from it, in a way. Whether it is love or hate I feel, it puts my body in the position of a thing that I appraise for worth of some kind, good or bad.
I love me. I love what I can do. I love how I am of help to others. I love the amount of love I have. My body, though brilliant vehicle as it is? I refuse to appraise it right now. I refuse to look at it in pieces and tell you why I love one part or don’t love another part or how I have come to love curves or flatness or dimples or difference. It’s all difference, every last part. My butt, my arms, my knees, my belly, my waistline, the texture of my skin: all of these are like fingerprints, grown only here and nowhere else.
My body is not a vase. My body is not livestock. It is a brilliant vehicle that moves me through time and allows me to express and love and initiate and move and relate. I love what it does. I love what it is capable of. I love its abilities, but I will not check it for suppleness or measure it for size or weight, love or hate, at least not right now while I try to figure out how to stop being an object to myself, a thing to be measured against a scale of any kind for worth.
My thoughts about being human and being female and being a second-class citizen whose body is owned by the state and granted limited privileges are always changing and evolving. So maybe I will one day embrace this idea that we can love our bodies without divorcing ourselves from them artificially as objects, but this is where I stand right now, and it seems doubtful.
I worry, though, about where this thinking leaves me. I worry that, by rejecting the idea of having a relationship with my body, I am just landing right back at dissociation. The only model I have for viewing myself is body as object, so I don’t even know if this is a concept that can be undone or if it is an intrinsic part of the human condition. I worry that this idea puts me in a position where I will become the only one exempt as I look at others’ bodies and reflexively assess them for signs of worth.
I think what I really want in all of this philosophical meandering is to be set free the social trappings of femininity, masculinity and beauty. I’ve grown tired of it, and I am looking for a soft place to fall.
Schmutzie (aka Elan Morgan) can most commonly be found at Schmutzie.com, but she’s also the founder of Ninjamatics and the Grace in Small Things social network in her ongoing efforts to make good things happen on the internet. Follow her on .
About Schmutzie
I like this piece. I think the problem with me trying to love my body is it makes me feel complicit in some kind of “you must love your body” imperative thought up by some body-positive PR person to flog the latest skin care. And it makes me feel like I am trying to force myself to have feelings and opinions that I “should” have rather than necessarily do have. It seems to me that there is far more pressure placed on women to have some relationship or other with their body than there is on men. For many men, the message is, it is what it is. It’s a body. I am in the same position as you and prefer to not have a relationship with my body that is separate from who I am just now. Maybe one day I will get to the point where I feel like the decision to engage in feelings towards my body will have been something I came to on my own, without it being a backlash against the body hatred.
What I am learning about my body is to be grateful for all I am able to do and bear. Thank you, Elan, you help me refine my thinking about my experience.
My wife has said the same thing to me in lesser words, and not really all the same thing. I should quit talking.
She loves what her body can do for her, but is crippled by body hatred. It’s slowly getting better, and I’m very happy about that, but \i wonder how many women never get over that?
She posted this about it http://changethetopic.com/life-2/the-naked-truth/
No – don’t worry — this idea that you’ve presented… it’s brilliant. I think it’s an argument for balance. You don’t love the thing, you love what it can do for you. You appreciate its value beyond its appearance. We do this all the time. This is a time honored and tested perspective.
Wow, that is a really interesting perspective. It’s going to leave me mulling it for days.
Thank you , Elan. This piece is beautiful.
Leave it to Elan to turn this subject on its head.
Like Suebob said: “Hmmm.” There are times I love my body and times I’m less enthused and it always, always has to do with how powerful it feels, how strong it is, how far and fast and confidently it can carry me. Not what it looks like.
Hmmmm interesting thoughts, Schmutzie. Thanks for giving me something to ponder as I go through this life journey.
Amen, my Schmutzie, to all of the above. I used to hate my body (with a great deal of dissociation), and I like to think that my recovery was in learning to see myself as part of it, rather than look at it with love.
Well said!