YMCA ∩ Louvre
What could the YMCA and the Louvre have in common, you may ask? Nekkid ladeez. Lots of them.
It’s funny; I’ve always had a good body image and self-confidence (which I’ve gone on and on and on about *snore*), but it’s really reached a new level of self-comfort after having seen so many nude depictions of the human form at the Louvre and equally many naked women of all ages/colors/sizes/shapes in the Y locker rooms. There is such a variety of shapes that the more and more I was exposed (no pun intended) to them (the art and the old women at the Y), the more and more I internalized that it was ridiculous to point to one and say, “Ah, there, that’s the ideal that we should all strive for.”
All the differences and variety just seem so natural, not something that should be the source of shame for anyone. All the nudes in the paintings and statues, all the depictions of Venus or Aphrodite, all of them have what by L.A. standards would be big arms and big bellies. But after gazing upon them for so long, I can see the beauty and naturalness of those parts. The bodies were in fact idealized for their times, but in a different way than today. When I see magazine covers, the most famous women seem so unnatural: pulled and stretched and tightened and fake-tanned to an alarming degree. Where is the softness, the pleasing round curves?
This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe the stats for the U.S. being one of the most unhealthiest and overweight countries of the world; I do believe it. This is just… an increased sense of acceptance of what is actually within the normal range.
What gets me about the mass-media ideal of beauty is the uniformity and sameness of it all. Super skinny, huge glossy lips, strappy shoes… for everyone! Instead of people embracing their own unique body structure and features and strengths and weaknessess, many people strive to just look just like the woman on the magazine.
Locker rooms, and gyms in general, are great for getting an appreciation for the variety of human forms out there. I prefer to gain that appreciation by dating as many people as possible, but to each their own.
You found me out! *rips up membership to the Y*
😀
No, no, that’s not really what I’m saying. I’m not satisfied with what I’ve said because I feel like I put it really poorly.
It’s more like… I see a 4 foot tall woman who looks to be in her 60s at the Y. She looks pretty sturdy, doesn’t look fat at all, and she’s always there no matter what day I go in. Looks like she’s taking care of herself. Her legs are pretty skinny but her torso is a bit bigger, but not really with fat or anything. It just looks like her frame is shaped that way. She has no reason to kick herself for not looking like Angelina Jolie, or to hate how she looks because she’s 60-something (unless she’s actually 30-something!), or to feel like she needs to get her legs broken to straighten her slight bowedness, or to get a nose job.
You know? Like that.
The bellies and arms I mention because they are so obvious, but I’m talking more along the lines of convincing uber-skinny friends that a little pooch in the belly is not a problem when their fat percentage is very low, not about people who are having trouble getting in and out of movie seats while in the prime of their lives.
It’s more stuff like… there is nothing wrong with a slight hook in the nose, nothing wrong with boobs that eventually sag with age — they don’t have to be hiked up to the chins to be attractive.
It’s stuff like that, that I’ve obviously known for a long time, and have internalized over the years, but it’s a reaffirmation to see so many people of different shapes (like, fundamental frame differences) and ages seem so comfortable in their own skins.
Many people fear old age and what comes with it. I fear disease and the general decline of mental and physical health, but I don’t fear the changes in physical appearances: graying hair, wrinkles, saggier skin, etc.
I came to shout a big old “Hurray!” in regards to your comments and to follow it up with something witty and comical about my own Rubenesque figure when I read a_b’s post and realized, “oh wait, I’m actually an obese pig” and decided to slink back to what should be my shame-filled corner of the universe.
Just when you start to get comfortable with who you are and what you look like, there’s always going to be some self-righteous person who steps up to the plate and tells you that actually, you suck and that your particular brand of beauty is problematic. Good times.
I honestly feel like somehow, I’ve given everyone the wrong idea.
1. Of course *everyone* should be concerned for their own health for their own benefit. But this post wasn’t about health.
2. There is still a difference between “looking good” in a societally accepted way and “being healthy” — not that there isn’t a correlation but it’s definitely not a 1 to 1 comparison. Skinnier doesn’t necessarily mean healthier though (a 6 foot tall woman shouldn’t try to weight the same as a 5 foot tall girl)
3. Everyone looks different. There is a HUGE variety to what people are supposed to look like. Love what you look like. Really. Genuinely.
4. NO ONE should shame someone else for being different, whether it is looks or accent or background or whatever.
5. Again, this entry was not about health. It’s about a sense of beauty and self-esteem. This entry was about seeing a variety of bodies at the Y and at the Louvre and my eyes adjusting to different sets of norms for beauty. I see a larger range of beauty than magazines will have you believe, and I embrace it.
I feel like I sound like I was wavering back and forth in this post. I think it was largely because this *wasn’t* about health, but confronted with questions about health-related body image, I answered them the best I could. But the underlying question, the thing that was more important to me, is that people understand there is so much to being beautiful than being 5’9″ and 105 pounds.
I still contend that there is nothing wrong with women having boobs and bellies and a roundness to the arms. People have only been obsessing about concave bellies for the last few decades, and NONE of that obsession seems to have anything to do with health but vanity. I’m not talking about carrying 300 pounds on a 5’2″ frame, just having some softer parts on top.
I *STILL* feel unhappy with the way I’ve expressed myself. Dammit!
Bleh.
There are a LOT of pressures on us as women in the U.S. especially pertaining to issues to beauty and esteem. In short, we are told there is exactly ONE way we ALL must look, regardless of genetics.
This entry doesn’t have to do with, “Yay! Let’s have Krispy Kremes everyday! Let’s eat McDonald’s for every meal! Super-size that!”
It has to do with a large genetic pool. We all look different. Our genetics dictate a large part of that. There is nothing wrong with learning to accept that wide range of differences and seeing it all as beautiful, as a natural part of the human race.
Our society has created extremes of two-axes and compared them as though the extremes of the two axes are the same: uber-skinniness and uber-healthiness. Again, there are correlations, but they are not identical.
I am dealing with the beauty-related desire for “skinniness” and beauty-related stigma of “fatness”. Health is definitely an issue that we need to get better with as a society on how we eat, work, play, but on an individual level, I leave that up to the person’s doctor to determine.
When it comes to discussing beauty where it doesn’t overlap with health, I say love it all. *I* certainly find a larger variety of looks beautiful, acceptable, and loveable.
I brought up Venus de Milo as an extreme example that *seems* indisputable as a figure of grace & beauty that current standards of beauty would nonetheless dismiss as being fat, not because I thought that *this* is what we should all look like. We aren’t all clones.
I just deleted my comment about “not like the Rubenesque paintings” because while there is, again, an undeniable correlation between health & weight, I am SURE I have been in much worse shape (things like resting heartrate, ability to lift things & climb hills, etc.) at times of my life than some people who look like that. That speaks to how bad of a “shape” I was in despite my actual shape. So while I may have appeared to people that I was “healthy”, in reality, I was pretty unhealthy.
So going back to standards of *beauty* as divorced from *health* (per individual), I DO think that’s beautiful too.
“The bellies and arms I mention because they are so obvious, but I’m talking more along the lines of convincing uber-skinny friends that a little pooch in the belly is not a problem when their fat percentage is very low, not about people who are having trouble getting in and out of movie seats while in the prime of their lives.”
I used this example to point out that EVEN uber-skinny AND uber-healthy friends will kick themselves for not looking like a model, not that they are the only ones suffering from unnecessary pressures of beauty.
And also, I used to have trouble getting in and out of Seppo’s old car. Boo.
It was because I was out of shape and my legs were weaker and his car was extremely low. But it wasn’t because somehow, I was uglier.
If someone is GENUINELY unhealthy (I don’t really know genuinely unhealthy people out here except some people at work in passing, and at best, it’s an uneducated guess) then they and people who love them should be concerned and try to help get them healthier. Making someone feel ugly never really motivated anyone in a way that was also emotionally healthy. I’m not willing to trade emotional health 1-to-1 for physical health.
Becky in Oakland,
It’s ironic that you would interpret my comments in such a way (incorrect, for the record) and condemn me for them, when the lead post on your own blog mentions how “terrific” the web site “Go Fug Yourself” is, considering it’s a site that has no reluctance to decimate people purely on their appearance. It’s a site that engages in behaviors that you project on my comment and yet you think it’s “terrific.”
If you believe people should “get comfortable with who you are and what you look likeâ€, one of the last places you should be sending them to is “Go Fug Yourself.â€
In any case, I have no idea who you are, so my comments aren’t directed at you or what you look like, but if a person is clinically obese, they are not the types of people society should be idolizing and holding up as role models.
That’s how I interpreted eingy’s original post (and with her rewrites, I honestly don’t know what she’s trying to say). And as I specifically noted, “This is not to say that people should condemn overweight people, but, rather, from a health point of view, the size should be idealized.†A point you overlooked in your rush to condemn me as “self-righteous†and put words in my mouth.
The truth is that the obesity levels we see in contemporary society is not “natural”. It’s not the way our bodies are intended to be “and is a major contributor to the global burden of chronic disease and disability.”
When the World Health Organization stops issuing alerts about obesity worldwide (http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/facts/obesity/en/)
and when doctors start recommending their patients raise their BMI over 30 kg/m2, then you can condemn me.
I invite you to tell me why a healthy body shouldn’t be the ideal. I further invite you to explain why this particular ideal makes you want to “slink back to what should be [your] shame-filled corner of the universe.†Finally, I invite you to explain how your condemnation of me squares with your endorsement of a website that derives its name from calling people “fugly†or “fucking ugly” or you making comments like, “Chestica Simpson. Can she get any more ridiculous looking? I wonder if she wakes up each morning and thinks, “when did Ashlee become the pretty one?””
Simply put: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Unfortunately, mainstream media has been successfully influencing what the beholder should be looking for. No longer can one appreciate art on their own level, now they are given a ruler with which to measure.
As for sexy vs. healthy —
Does a person smoke because said person is cool; or is a person cool because said person smokes? In this context: is a person sexy because said person is healthy; or is a person healthy because said person is sexy? I think that there is no causation for either, and that it is merely a correlation that people came up with.
To me, Ei-Nyung’s original post merely says: if everyone looked the same, we’d get tired of looking at each other. And maybe she’s getting tired of looking at magazine covers.
I tried to be more clear on my newest blog entry, but I’m not sure it’ll be more clear.
Mainly, this is the statement I am fighting against:
“When I see magazine covers, the most famous women seem so unnatural: pulled and stretched and tightened and fake-tanned to an alarming degree.”
Let’s stop trying to squeeze ourselves into the same artificial mold.
I think A_B was addressing issues tied strictly to health, and Becky was addressing issues tied to self-image and acceptance, which I was trying (but failing desperately) to focus on.
I honestly don’t think A_B was saying, “People should feel shame based on my standards!” but more “Physical appearance is a strong indicator of health, and we should value health.”
Being happy with one’s appearance often has nothing to do with what we actually look like or what our health states are, and it’s in that aspect that we should be more accepting.
“Chestica Simpson.” Heh.
Attempt #24435:
I think the biggest issue had to do with my use of the term “normal range”.
I think that societal imposes an artificial notion of “normal range” that is like a tiny little sliver of the actually normal/healthy range as dictated by stats based on population studies.
And I agree that the American range has become must wider than the normal/healthy range.
This entry was supposed to address that seeing different bodies reaffirmed looking out of the tiny sliver state of mind that is constantly pushed on us to the bigger norm, but not to the point of believing the max of the US range is healthy.
Arg, grammar and words I thought I wrote but skipped while typing.
Oh well.
One more futile try! Even I am sick of myself, but still.
Women are beautiful in lots of different sizes & shapes.
No! *People* are. Not just women.
I just can’t get it right today.
The following is very much tongue-in-cheek:
“but it’s really reached a new level of self-comfort after having seen so many nude depictions of the human form at the Louvre and equally many naked women of all ages/colors/sizes/shapes in the Y locker rooms.”
Translation: Look at those fatties! At least I don’t look like _that_! LOLZ!
“All the differences and variety just seem so natural, not something that should be the source of shame for anyone.”
Translation: My god, they’re fat.
“All the nudes in the paintings and statues, all the depictions of Venus or Aphrodite, all of them have what by L.A. standards would be big arms and big bellies.”
Translation: who cares if their size was based on socio-economic factors and scientific ignorance that has no relevance to contemporary to society, look how fat they are! I hate those skinny L.A. bitches.
“But after gazing upon them for so long, I can see the beauty and naturalness of those parts.”
Translation: And Krispy Kreme is simply a natural way of realizing natural beauty!
“Where is the softness, the pleasing round curves?”
Translation: Would it kill Angelina to eat a burger once in a while?
“This is just… an increased sense of acceptance of what is actually within the normal range.”
Translation: Triathlons are overrated.
—————————
But seriously, what do you mean “normal range”? Is it “normal range” as in “the healthy range” or “the average size of an American”?
I can see how recognizing that normal healthy range doesn’t necessarily coincide with stuff you see on a runway or on the cover of Vogue (i.e., a healthy size is not skin and bones), but your discussion seems to be of the latter.
The women in the Louvre are often clinically obese. For example: http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rubens/rubens83.html
While it may be the “norm” of Americans, it’s not a healthy size. So, I’m not sure exactly what your more accepting of.
This is not to say that people should condemn overweight people, but, rather, from a health point of view, the size should be idealized. Moreover, using depictions of beauty hundreds of years old as guidelines or influences of current activities seems incredibly problematic.