Own Yourself

body image. first of all, i’m a professional bra fitter. what that means is that i look at women with no shirt on and talk to them about their boobs all.day.long. what this also means is that i’ve seen literally (yes literally) thousands of women with no top on. which means i know a lot more about what people REALLY look like naked than you do. because this, this tumblr thing, with all the skinny white girls…. this is not real.

i’m scared that young girls who live on tumblr (there seem to be a LOT of you) are going to grow up thinking they need to look like these pictures of hipbones and tummies and collar bones… just the same way i’m scared they’ll think they need to look like the victoria’s secret models or the people in movies or on tv. 

tumblr is scary because it’s 95% images. mostly images of young girls, most of them nude or nearly nude. don’t get me wrong, i’m obsessed with the female form & i post them all the time too, but i also look at them for aesthetic value only because i know better. tumblr photos seem to have a certain style, which from what i gather is based on thin girls wearing hardly any clothing… perhaps with some melancholy quote photoshopped on top, or maybe they just have really pretty hair or something else that makes you wish they were your friend/girlfriend/whatever.

what i know, and wish everyone understood, is that THERE IS NO NORMAL. there is no “ideal” body type, because every single one of you looks different without your clothes on. what these 14-17 yr old young girls on tumblr know is what they see here on tumblr, porn, their own bodies, and maybe the bodies of their close friends or family members. 

what this results in is a skewed perception of what people really look like naked. which means if these girls don’t look exactly like these little gangly things on tumblr, they’re going to feel like they’ve failed, or that they’re not “normal”. this is just not fair for these girls. they need to understand that whatever they look like, whoever they are… they’re fine. anything they want to do to change their bodies or appearance should be for THEM, not to fit into any type of person they think they should be.

this is all sort of bothering me right now because someone reblogged a picture of me in their thinspo tumblr. this bothers me for oh so many reasons, lots of which are my own issues… but for real. i work all day every day at a store i love fitting women for bras and assuring them that they are perfectly fine and that there is nothing wrong with them, their breasts or their bodies. being forced by the internet to participate silently in what is exactly the opposite of that disappoints me greatly. this girl has a tumblr dedicated solely to images of girls she deems to be better than her because they’re thin. the whole purpose of this tumblr (according to what i’ve gathered from the tags she puts on images) is to make herself feel fat (which is somehow the worst thing imaginable) in order to fuel her eating disorder and get thin, which will apparently finally bring her peace. i hope that she finds that peace some other way, and i’m sorry that a picture of me made her feel bad, or sad, or jealous, or whatever it did to make her post it.

between this and the trends of both congratulating weight loss with television shows like the biggest loser (which imply that these people were worthless before they lost weight) - and the conflicting “REAL women have curves omg skinny bitches we all hate you” mantra so many women have developed… how is anyone supposed to feel good? thin people are accused of being too thin or eating disordered. fat people are accused of having no self control or self worth, and anyone in-between is deathly afraid of going to one extreme or another. 

the truth is some people are thin. some people are fat. lots of people are somewhere in between. and each and every one of you fatskinnycurvywhatever mother fuckers are fine.

what we really need to do is shut the fuck up about people’s bodies. ladies, when you’re with your girlfriends, stop calling yourself fat so people will compliment you. because you know what? that makes your girlfriends feel bad because if you think that about you then oh my god what are you thinking about them?!?!?! don’t tell your friend you think you have fat thighs. don’t make comments about people based on their appearance. because you can’t help yours, so how can they help theirs? calling that girl a fat bitch isn’t going to make her fatter or you thinner. it’s just going to make you sound like a judgmental cunt. we all judge ourselves so harshly we feel like we have to make comments before anyone else gets a chance to because oh my god they must have noticed your horrible disfiguring cellulite or your ridiculously huge thighs, you disgusting pig! truth is, they’re too busy thinking about themselves to think about you. most people don’t give a shit what you look like, because face it, your body size & shape is really only important to you and whoever wants to stick their dick/fist into you… which generally is a rather small portion of the population.

so lay off this “oh i’m so fat” bullshit, because the marketing companies know you do this and are making so much money off of you in diet food, drinks, pills, campaigns and whatever else you’ll throw your money down for in hopes that you’ll come out of it looking like megan fox. even megan fox doesn’t look like megan fox (anymore) so please stop wasting your money and fueling this vicious cycle!

all i’m saying is, try to love yourself for who you are. because if you don’t how the fuck is anyone else going to?