Body Love and Inspirations

Some of us write and post and pray that the Viral Internet Fairy will visit our words as we sleep, sprinkle them with magical Social Media Sharing Dust and we will wake up famous. All of those hours spent working for free, building our platforms, sharing the message that matters most with our tiny little audiences will finally be worth it.

We will be featured on the . Huffington Post will write about us. Mamamia will, too. Our words will be tweeted and shared and posted on Pinterest and Facebook pages worldwide. Maybe an agent or two will come knocking. Maybe a book deal and television appearances will follow. Maybe it’s the beginning of our dreams coming true. Maybe it’s just a blip on the radar until the next celebrity mom makes the cover of People for losing the baby weight in record time, reinforcing this whole obsession with perfection.

But what happens when you just don’t care? What if your message is meant for your tiny little audience because that is what you are comfortable with? And what if, because being body positive seems to be the new thing, you just happen to post a photo of your curvy self in a bikini on tmblr, write a witty little bit to go with it, and suddenly you wake up to international media coverage?

That’s what happened to New York University student Stella Boonshoft on . Here is the photo that got the world talking.

Some say she’s an inspiration and others say that she’s promoting obesity.

Here’s what Stella had to say:

 

WARNING: Picture might be considered obscene because subject is not thin. And we all know that only skinny people can show their stomachs and celebrate themselves. Well I’m not going to stand for that. This is my body. Not yours. MINE. Meaning the choices I make about it, are none of your fucking business. Meaning my size, IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.

If my big belly and fat arms and stretch marks and thick thighs offend you, then that’s okay. I’m not going to hide my body and my being to benefit your delicate sensitivities.

This picture is for the strange man at my nanny’s church who told me my belly was too big when I was five.

This picture is for my horseback riding trainer telling me I was too fat when I was nine.

This picture is for the girl from summer camp who told me I’d be really pretty if I just lost a few pounds

This picture is for all the fucking stupid advertising agents who are selling us cream to get rid of our stretch marks, a perfectly normal thing most people have (I got mine during puberty)

This picture is for the boy at the party who told me I looked like a beached whale.

This picture is for Emily from middle school, who bullied me incessantly, made mocking videos about me, sent me nasty emails, and called me “lard”. She made me feel like I didn’t deserve to exist. Just because I happened to be bigger than her. I was 12. And she continued to bully me via social media into high school.

MOST OF ALL, this picture is for me. For the girl who hated her body so much she took extreme measures to try to change it. Who cried for hours over the fact she would never be thin. Who was teased and tormented and hurt just for being who she was.

I’m so over that.

THIS IS MY BODY, DEAL WITH IT.”

 

And here is Stella’s response to the unexpected attention on her blog. It’s called

Ya know what? I hope it is. Not just for Stella. I hope it’s a new beginning for the entire fucking planet. Those of you calling her an inspiration are right because she is. Those of you saying that she is promoting obesity, I’m sorry to say, are not. What Stella is promoting, and what so many of us like her are trying to explain to the world is this:

* for society to stop judging others solely based on the size of our asses ( There’s a book by a wonderful and inspirational woman named Linda Bacon that started the Healthy at Every Size movement. You should read it. )

* that no matter our size, small or large, we will not think ourselves worthy of taking care of ourselves and loving ourselves unless we feel worthy of that self care and love

* that we know what we look like and you don’t know our health history or back story or what DNA our gene pool is made up from

* that continuing to criticize and judge others for the way they look makes us no more mature as a society as the bully on the playground who picks on the new kid who’s mom and dad can’t afford to buy the name brand clothes and frankly, that little bastard needs his ass kicked and a lesson in accepting others as they are

* and mainly, that the size of my ass should put just about as much a wrinkle in your day as the gay couple that got married at city hall last week or the woman breastfeeding her baby at Target because the baby was hungry or the number on the someone else’s scale because really, it is none of your fucking business that Stella is happy with herself and confident enough to wear a bikini.

I wish I was as brave. Forget the Viral Internet Fairy. I’ve got a message to share with my tiny little audience, and the rest of you no longer have a say about how I view the woman smiling back at me in the mirror.

 

 

Pauline Campos contributes to Funny Not Slutty, Owning Pink, and 30 Second Mom. She blogs three times a week at Aspiring Mama (or when she remember to take her Adderall) and is the founder of Girl Body Pride.