I Wore A Bikini and Nothing Happened
Have y'all seen the story on HuffPost entitled I Wore A Bikini and Nothing Happened? It's great! Excerpts below the photo.
"This year, I made a New Year's resolution that confused some people. By confuse, I mean conversations about it usually went like this:
Me: "Next summer, I'm going to wear a bikini."
Them: "What a great goal! What are you doing? Weight Watchers? Jenny Craig? Are you going vegan? Paleo? Are you having the surgery?"
Me: "I said I was going to wear a bikini. I didn't say I was going to lose weight."
Them: Face melts off like they're staring into the Arc of The Covenant.
I'm not stupid; I know why people didn't want to see me in a bikini. But apparently, I seem stupid to the people who tried to discourage me. I wasn't supposed to see through their excuses, or realize that the connections they were making were flawed. Our cultural discussion of fat bodies and how we clothe them has nothing to do with health concerns, the obesity epidemic or the comfort of fat people. It has everything to do with what we expect from women, what we've been told by the fashion industry and the value we place on "perfect" bodies.
The reason these people do not want to see a fat body in a bikini is because traditionally, that garment is something a woman earns by proving herself attractive enough to exist.
As a society, we need to be more honest in our discussions of other's bodies. If we can't avoid those totally unnecessary conversations, then we should at least admit the truth to ourselves: That this has nothing to do with health, and everything to do with the control we believe is our right to exert over others."
Edit: her response to the responses which have been overwhelmingly positive, except for a couple, one of which was from a middle-aged white dude...
"The current record holder is the guy who left simply, “No thanks.” No thanks? Are women just on offer to you, and you deem them worthy of humanity based on whether or not you’d grace them with a fuck?"
Valid point. Everyone is entitled to their preferences. But if it was a skinny girl in a bikini, or a black woman, would people feel as free to say "no thanks"?
http://jennytrout.com/
"This year, I made a New Year's resolution that confused some people. By confuse, I mean conversations about it usually went like this:
Me: "Next summer, I'm going to wear a bikini."
Them: "What a great goal! What are you doing? Weight Watchers? Jenny Craig? Are you going vegan? Paleo? Are you having the surgery?"
Me: "I said I was going to wear a bikini. I didn't say I was going to lose weight."
Them: Face melts off like they're staring into the Arc of The Covenant.
I'm not stupid; I know why people didn't want to see me in a bikini. But apparently, I seem stupid to the people who tried to discourage me. I wasn't supposed to see through their excuses, or realize that the connections they were making were flawed. Our cultural discussion of fat bodies and how we clothe them has nothing to do with health concerns, the obesity epidemic or the comfort of fat people. It has everything to do with what we expect from women, what we've been told by the fashion industry and the value we place on "perfect" bodies.
The reason these people do not want to see a fat body in a bikini is because traditionally, that garment is something a woman earns by proving herself attractive enough to exist.
As a society, we need to be more honest in our discussions of other's bodies. If we can't avoid those totally unnecessary conversations, then we should at least admit the truth to ourselves: That this has nothing to do with health, and everything to do with the control we believe is our right to exert over others."
Edit: her response to the responses which have been overwhelmingly positive, except for a couple, one of which was from a middle-aged white dude...
"The current record holder is the guy who left simply, “No thanks.” No thanks? Are women just on offer to you, and you deem them worthy of humanity based on whether or not you’d grace them with a fuck?"
Valid point. Everyone is entitled to their preferences. But if it was a skinny girl in a bikini, or a black woman, would people feel as free to say "no thanks"?
http://jennytrout.com/