WARNING: A lot - and I mean a LOT - of swearing will ensue. Not for the lighthearted. There's also a lot of referencing to pubes.
‘This is cute.’
‘Fuck it. I’ll try it on.’
‘Do they have my size though?’
‘Hmm, I’ll take one smaller and one larger, just to be on the safe side. Just in case.’
‘It is kinda expensive…’
‘But so cute.’
’I mean, if it doesn’t fit or looks shit, I won’t buy it so I’ll be saving some money.’
‘But if it looks good, I’ll buy it because…’
Does that sound familiar? It always starts off so innocently, doesn’t it? But buying jeans - or any article of clothing, for that matter - can be a real hit or miss. If you’re anything like me, you’ll leave feeling either a million dollars or…not. Really not. This is an example of the ‘really not’ variety (but don’t fret! It will end on a high note. I think.)
The other day, actually yesterday, I went to Primark and ended up trying on some jeans. That hadn’t been part of my original action plan as I tend to shy away from trying jeans on - I was buying socks for someone.
But, anyway, I wound up there and saw some beige corduroy mom jeans and thought fuck it, why not give them a try. Fast forward a few minutes, as soon as I had zipped them up, I saw exactly why I shouldn’t have given them a try.
There were about a solid two minutes where the sight of my stomach, my ass, my thighs and my calves made me want to cry because my GOD, did I feel like I looked hideous. Stretch marks of all sorts and in places that aren’t considered desirable; flabby skin; pubic hair everywhere; cellulite (actually the first time I’d ever even noticed it); spots and pimples and more pubes.
And the fucking light - God, what’s up with that? I always used to think that the point of changing room lights was to make you look ‘better’, whatever the fuck that means, so you’d be more inclined to buy what you’ve been trying on. These lights seemed to have the adverse effect.
All I wanted to do was leave and go drown my feelings in a shit tonne of ice cream (which, as I’m sure I’ll theorise at a later date, is all part of the big masterplan that is the capitalist beauty industry. And I will definitely utilise the brain of Sara who will articulate it much better than me. Actually, I might do a little visual chart or cycle to illustrate my point…anyway…).
Like, excuse me, when do you ever see this shit in movies or in adverts? You know those ads for probiotic yoghurts in which photoshopped woman number 1, 2 and 3 all pat their perfectly flat and hairless stomachs as they tell you this yoghurt will 100% guarantee that you look like them? I have one question for you: where the fuck are your pores? Like, for real, your skin is a living, breathing organ - it can’t breath if there’s nothing to breath through?
This is just one example that comes to mind off the top of my head. I looked, and still look, nothing like those women. I can’t even tell you why I want to look like them. I just do.
Anyway, as I was standing there thinking about those poreless women with my jeans around my knees, a funny thing happened. One moment I was ready chop my own legs off it meant that I’d be cellulite free from the waist down (yeah, ok, that’s a little melodramatic but you get my point) but then that self-disgust drained like dirty water from a bathtub after the plug’s been viciously yanked out.
Because, at the end of the day, this is my body.
There are a lot of things I could do to alter my appearance. I could shave the ring of hair off my calves every few days so when I wear jeans my legs look smooth. I could wax the mass of pubes growing in a bunch of weird places that no-one will ever see anyway unless I get horizontal and naked with them. I could go to the gym and through the copious sweat, maybe tears and definite nausea (you know the kind where you feel like you’re legit going to gag up a lung), show everyone just how committed I am to changing my body. I could get fake nails, fake eyelashes, I could perm my hair, I could dye my hair, I could wear contact lenses, I could fake tan or bleach my skin, I could get laser hair removal or get freckles tattooed on. I could wear push up and padded bras (or pants or why not both) and a corset to create and accentuate a truly feminine figure. I could slather myself in so much bio-oil that all my hidden stretch marks might fade into a watermark against my skin. The list is endless and I'm bumming myself out writing it so I'll stop here but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say here.
And don’t get me wrong, if these are activities you personally want to pursue for yourself, you should. I shave my pits. I don’t want to but once they get long enough, no matter how often I wash or how much deodorant I use, I get stinky. And I personally don’t like the smell of BO, on myself or anyone else. Will I be a dick about it? Of course not but that’s my personal preference. And that’s cool. And your personal preferences are also cool. But if you take the moment to ask yourself ‘who am I doing this for?’ and answer it frankly - is this for yourself or for someone else? Not necessarily one individual but is it for all those adverts that show you how you should be? The movies, the magazines, the T.V. shows? Is it for that prick who bullied you at school about your appearance? Is it family, friends or colleagues who have made harmless enough sounding comments but something’s lowkey stuck and now you’re feeling insecure about something that you had previously not given a single flying fuck about?
The only thing that you should bare in mind is that you do this for yourself. I’ve done it all - minus the bio-oil because that shit is expensive (I mean, it’s all expensive but for some reason I could never bring myself to spend that much on oil) - but it’s never been for me. I’ve come to realise that I’m actually not bothered by my body. It just is. Also I think, more than anything, I’m too lazy and too stingy with money to maintain these habits.
The longer I stood there, the more I realised that it only becomes an issue when I contextualise my body in relation to what other people might think, to the various societies I find myself in, to the ideals that are pedal-pushed on us all. So, when I think of it these terms, maybe I don’t want to look like those probiotic-yoghurt eating women after all.
For further reading, see Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth - that shit’s good.