Getting Naked For Cancer, or, Why Having Naked Pictures Taken of My Fat Body Did Not Kill Me

[onceupon]

My fat body is also a political body. I know this. Ways to use my body in a political fashion however... I've been a little shy about that sort of thing. I've had a livejournal for more than 5 years and it is only the last 3 years (years in which I have gained weight after significant -- though not on purpose -- weight loss) that I've stopped

Comments

[onceupon]

Thank you for letting me know about the picture -- I thought I had cut it but I obviously forgot that part when typing this entry.

[follansbee]

Ah, bless me, you're gorgeous. I'm going to take pictures with my husband tonight!

[onceupon]

Thank you. And have fun!

[fearfuloptimist]

There's a lot I love about your post and your retelling of the experience - going from shame / dismissal about your body to full showing and playfulness.

And what I absolutely adore about the gorgeous photo is your playfulness and exuberance. I tire greatly of "fat women as art object, look at the rolls of flesh in the interesting lighting" shots I've seen other places. For me they ring false and very othering. They're about the fat woman as "an object to be appreciated, maybe for the first time." Your photo, on the other hand, was simply about being: beautiful, cute, playful, funny, spontaneous. And it's well balanced. It just works honey. It just works.

Brava!

[onceupon]

I have such a weird disconnect, sometimes, with my body. And for once, in these pictures, I really feel like my intellectual knowledge of my body and my size matches up and syncs with my emotional knowledge of my body and my size.

*nod* While I appreciate the intentions of people who treat fat bodies "artistically" what I really crave are far more simple representations. I want to see fat people just BEING.

Thank you very, very much.

[bounce_n_jiggle]

hear hear hear!
very gorgeous both the actual you and your expression of being.

what a wonderful project that you all put together and a beautiful testimony of love and friendship.

thanks for sharing with us.

[onceupon]

Thank you for looking.

[definatalie]

i think your body is wonderful! i've posed naked before, and i still don't feel comfortable with my own fat body type.

[onceupon]

Thank you. And I think it's so much easier to appreciate the bodies of others than it is our own. It was only by gaining a little distance and looking at the images as though they were of someone else that I was able to gain some perspective.

[naamah_darling]

That is simply a smashing picture. There is nothing about it I don't love.

I'll be pimping this on my journal. Can I link to this entry, too, when I do it?

[naamah_darling]

Grr. Just saw in your email where you said it was cool. So I shall.

The account of the picture-taking is too good not to point people at it. (That was bad grammar, but you get the idea.)

[onceupon]

Thank you very much, hon.