#some of her hangups on the gender/sex binary

[child-of-hurin]

In the early 1960s, influential researcher André Leroi-Gourhan proposed a grand theory to explain most, if not all, of the art. He divided the imagery, including the signs, into a unified binary system that classified everything at a given site as being either male or female. For Leroi-Gourhan, animal species such as horses represented the masculine, while bison had a feminine aspect; the signs were also divided into male (linear and angled) and female (rounded or curved) categories. This theory was widely accepted, and for the next three decades or so, most studies that included signs tended to approach them with this preconceived notion in mind. In general, though, researchers both past and present have felt that the abstract nature of the geometric signs made it difficult, if not impossible, to study them properly, resulting in a lack of knowledge about this intriguing type of imagery. (....) On top of the spatial organization, this famous French researcher came to believe that there was also a sexual division to the imagery, with some animals or signs representing the masculine aspect, while others represented the feminine. As I mentioned earlier, he interpreted bison as being female and horses as being male, and when they appeared together, which happened quite often, he saw this as the two aspects achieving equilibrium. All the images were divided up this way, but the category where it probably had the most impact was in the geometric signs. Overnight they went from having a broad range of interpretations to all being considered either male or female signs, with many of them having a sexual interpretation. Linear and barbed signs were classified as male, owing to their supposed phallic resemblance, and all the rounded and triangular signs were identified as being female and collectively came to be known as “vulvas.” The identification of certain individual signs as vulvas, or, more discreetly, as “female fertility symbols,” has an even longer history. Early rock art researcher Henri Breuil first started identifying some of the circular or triangular imagery as such, but it was Leroi-Gourhan’s sweeping classification system that really took off (these were the days of the Sexual Revolution, after all). Many other researchers from that time also adopted this description, and before you knew it, circles, half circles, ovals, open-angle signs, and triangles were all being lumped into this category. This made my life pretty challenging when I first started building profiles for each of the rock art sites in my database, because I would regularly run into site descriptions which listed off image inventories somewhat like this: three bison, one possible horse, two red deer, and six vulvas.

- The First Signs, Genevieve von Petzinger

[corvuscorona]

reminds me of the post(s?) I've seen this pride month abt "boy" vs "man" and "girl" vs "woman" being distinct genders & some people vibing okay with their agab until society goes "now you're the adult version of it" which rings pretty true as a concept..

like FOR ME "girl" mostly was "child" and that was fine; I was extremely very enabled to be a little goblin kid and do whatever the fuck so I didn't have to THINK about it but it would be HARD to really effectively steel someone for the barrage of endless dumb bullshit they can expect to be assaulted with re: the Adult Version of whatever their Child Gender is, yk.

"woman" was either "women like on tv or whatever" (obviously worthless to me) or "wombyn like people who are taking the whole thing entirely too seriously" or "women as in ascended girls as in my aunt who did the GIRL POWER!! thing at me despite my thing mostly being anime & goblin activities because I guess her having sons & her brother having a daughter meant she was gonna do that at me no matter what I was actually like" or MAYBE WORST OF ALL "young women" as in what people called me when they were telling me all about the responsibilities I was so totally ready to have and DEFINITELY UNDERSTOOD literally ANYTHING about. yes I am PREPARED to live in your SOCIETY. I understand ALL the words coming out of your mouth and will be doing things like "major in computer science" with great intentionality and awareness of my surroundings and NO adhd at all. thanks. thank you.

for me like ME PERSONALLY this disconnect was very easily gotten over by going "wait a second. women can do whatever the hell they want actually" not that this wasn't a moment that came after some scrabbling around in the mud with myself or whatever but I mean honestly. once you really commit to "lesbian" the whole "woman means AT THE MINIMUM whatever the fuck I say it does" thing is kind of small potatoes even when you have to be your own godforsaken role model for the most part. but. presumably many people who simply said "no thank you" to binary gender instead, or did whatever other thing, are coming from the same sort of general trajectory. noticing the disconnect and feeling that there's no particular reason you shouldn't do SOMETHING about it; you're already Weird (tm) or what have you.

much in common with the "am I asexual maybe? no WAIT I'm just the fucking JOKER because living in this world without having eight hundred million hangups about sex and attraction is ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE even for people whose BRAINS WORK" thing. there are asexual people who did not have this conversation with themselves & there are allosexual people who make conscious decisions to work on their relationship with sex without ever once considering the asexual label. there are also PRESUMABLY other people who stood at this particular fork in the road and had to sort of consider their shit for a minute like me.

spend your entire childhood Knowing (tm) that there are things about you that SEEM VERY SIGNIFICANT that 99% of the people you encounter STRAIGHT UP do not understand even a little bit & you just, you learn to look at Constructs with your eyes unfocused and just kind of take whatever you want from them and leave the rest. it's not like anyone is going to EXPLAIN any of this to you; you may as well be the expert; who cares. if any weird kids want to grow up into women (Me Edition) I'll stand here and model behaviors for them. I'm the expert now and my expert advice is that you can do whatever you want. about everything. forever. happy pride lol

[gascon-en-exil]

You might find ContraPoints' video on Autogynephilia interesting. It argues against trans people as fetishists and eventually goes into her own experiences as a trans woman who used to be into feminisation (with female partners in this case) before coming out as trans and what eventually clued her in to this being different from her other kinks.

Not sure if this is the type of resource you were interested in, but it's the closest I can think of (since it needs to cover some hows and whys of her trans experience while addressing the main point).

The whole video is pretty good, but it's also 50 mins long - the part where she talks about her sexual experiences in relation to also being trans starts around 17 - 18 mins in if you don't have time for everything.

I took the time to watch the whole thing. I’ve had ContraPoints recommended to me a few times and have seen some of her videos, so I was already a little familiar.

The main issue I had is that the controversial theory she’s refuting starts by dividing trans women into two categories - essentially, straight and non-straight - and she almost completely upholds this binary and devotes the majority of this video to the allegation that non-straight trans women are autogynephilic. Now, I don’t necessarily disagree with either her methodology or her focus. As I’ve rambled about earlier one of my biggest problems with talking about my personal experiences with gender identity is that most online resources about and for trans women center around lesbian or otherwise non-straight experiences, whereas my own experiences have come entirely in the context of sexual relationships with men. Additionally, as a non-straight trans woman herself it’s only logical that she would feel more comfortable speaking from that perspective.

However, I do think there’s an entire conversation about the other side of the coin here: the claim that straight trans women are really fem gay men pursuing a sexual strategy that gives them access to straight men. Purely from personal experience I won’t say that that’s entirely off-base (just as ContraPoints concedes that there’s an element of autogynephilia to all female sexuality, and not just that of trans women), but there’s a lot of room for variability too...not to mention the assumption that feminization kink only comes into play with self-identified straight men is incredibly suspect. Every single man who’s explored something like that with me identified as queer himself, and I could name multiple reasons why that be appealing from their points of view. In any case crossdressing/feminization for male sexual partners is always safer if said partners don’t have any hangups about their own sexualities; the panic over “traps” and the violence it can potentially lead to is still a serious issue, after all.

Still, I think that conversation is beyond the scope of this blog. People follow me for fandom stuff and salacious sex stories and possibly stuff about New Orleans. Uncommon trans takes are a bit beyond all that.

[merry-melody]

ship meme 4. Curtis/Nathan  

The rarest of rare pairings, lol. (Well, that’s an exaggeration, I’ve seen at least one fic and a vid out there, which puts them above some of my other faves in this meme.) I like these two, bit of a crackship, but that’s the fun.

Nathan reads bi to me, and it’s fascinating that while Curtis is a character who can be very moralistic about sex (‘You can’t remind who you had sex with? Classy.’) he’s actually probably one of the least into binaries.

Kelly (‘we have to put labels on things because otherwise no-one will know what they are!’) Simon (‘Are you a lesbian? So…is she a lesbian?’) and Alisha (‘He’s not gay, he’s the best shag I ever had!’) are all fairly traditional about gender and sexuality.

(I’d argue with Simon, it’s because he’s trying to prove something, in that a lot of his early characterisation seems to be about the failure to fit into the macho heterosexual superhero ideal – notice when he’s rejected by Matt in 1x4 and Nathan in 1x2, he immediately follows this by spying on or touching the girls.)

Curtis generally seems fairly quick to see people’s softer sides – he falls for Nikki who starts off by calling him a ‘weird twat’, he’s the most tolerant of Rudy, he likes Alisha prior to her personality shifts in later seasons; and interestingly, he’s not a guy’s guy specifically because Nathan, Simon and Rudy One rely on a very performative masculinity that revolts him.

When Simon leers at him in 1x3 as if he’s going to reveal that Alisha and Curtis had sex – it’s not really clear whether he’s aware that it was against Curtis’ will – he looks horrified.

(It’s also funny to see how Simon’s not much fonder of Curtis than Curtis is of him – there’s a shot of him laughing while Nathan calls Curtis ‘Mr. Backwards’, and he’s fairly gleeful to have the upperhand in 3x2: ‘Have you been wanking?’

They seem closest when Curtis is in Melissa’s form, which plays into the gender issues for both of them.)

Curtis laughs with Nathan when he makes jokes about Simon in 1x1, but is disgusted when Nathan acts crassly about the girls.

Where Nathan and Rudy can use corrective masculinity with Simon to embarrass him or control him (‘Are you asking me out on a date?’ ‘That’s about the gayest thing I’ve ever heard!’ ‘Have you two finished looking at each other’s cocks?’); Curtis leaves the others without tools for mocking him because he’s not afraid of looking effeminate. It’s interesting that Alisha, too, tries this initially (‘Ugh, you’re like a whiny little bitch!’) probably because she’s so used to this working on men. (‘I don’t know if this cop is gay or what…’)

In 3x2, while it’s discussed how Curtis can be a downer and self-pitying, the resolution to his liason with Rudy being revealed is that while he remains clear on his ethical code (‘If a girl says no, you listen, right?’) he can’t repress a smile at his own expense as the others laugh at: ‘For a bloke, he’s got a lovely pussy.’

Similiarly, Nathan’s cheerfully into shades of grey, being only ‘98%’ sure he’s straight.

In a parallel of the 3x2 ending for Curtis, in which the others are amused by his having been in love with Simon; Nathan bats back the insults by reminding Simon that he’s a virgin, but does so by assuring him that if they’d had sex, it would have been ‘the best,’ and claims nothing embarrasses him. In 2x7 he mentions having sex with a ‘ladyboy’ (‘let’s just say I didn’t not go with him!’)

While Curtis/Nathan are a fairly minimal friendship, and a pairing it’s a struggle to get behind (without AUs) just because of the group dynamics – there’s very little reason for them to put up with each other’s company when there are others they prefer (even on a same-sex level, there’s Curtis/Rudy and obviously Nathan/Simon ) but I would definitely argue that they’d have got it on at least once if they’d stayed in that 1x4 universe, lol.

I think Nathan (and Simon for that matter) genuinely admires Curtis - they both have these masculinity hangups where Curtis doesn’t, and Curtis is pretty much living the male ideal – sporty, good body, attractive to women (he’s rarely single in the first two seasons). He has the most useful power, which again kind of shifts the power differential in their view a little, arguably – this guy’s pretty much taking care of the rest of the group.

I don’t think there’s a single person  Nathan meets (apart from family, one would hope!) who he doesn’t consider in a sexual context (‘nice cock, man!’) – he’s slapping Curtis’ ass in the first episode.

They get on each other nerves since Nathan is so childish and Curtis is a bit of a stick in the mud and doesn’t really engage with humour; but I think Curtis probably does also have a soft spot for Nathan - if nothing else than because he’s not Simon, lol; like at least they can play foosball or wheelchair race or engage about general social experiences like 1x5

(Again, Nathan kind of misreads Curtis as the cool player type: ‘I always wanted to be a cheat!’ but they can both admit to a certain amount of vulnerability there, even if it just hating to make girls cry, lol.

It’s hilarious that Nathan wants to sound ‘intelligent’, and that Curtis is such a jock he hasn’t even seen Spiderman – he shoulda stuck with Alisha, who also seems pretty pop culture deficient: ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about!’)

I think it also helps that he sees Nathan’s vulnerable side through his power, like how broken he is without the others in 1x4.

It’s implied Curtis has some kind of awareness when he turns back time of other people’s experiences (we see shots through his eye in 2x6 of scenes he wasn’t in) and obviously his own power gives him a certain amount of feeling responsible for all of them - it bothers him that he couldn’t turn back time when Olly dies, and I don’t doubt it made him feel pretty shitty that Kelly begs him to do something when Nathan dies in 1.6 and he can’t.

We see he’s quick to help Nathan when he’s stuck in a vending machine in the extras videos; in the S1 promo; when he gets knocked over in 2.7; and in 2.4, Curtis’ kicking Tim saves not only Alisha, but also Nathan, who’d just volunteered himself to be chainsawed.

In 2.7 they’re as affectionate as they ever get, Curtis is actually smiling at Nathan’s ‘I’ll miss you, too!’ and his needling Nathan on his fucking horrible jumper and ‘losing your cool’ is the first time he smiles post-Nikki.

[ellenlucasonlinedatingblog]

Making My Hair Mine

Katie Klabusich

My adoptive mom’s hangups convinced me I was an ugly duckling with noticeable imperfections. Turns out, it was about her, not me, and certainly not about my hair, which isn't the enemy she -- or I -- thought it was, either.

I have a bit of an obsession with the Instagram feeds of my friends who parent. All those pics and videos of their kids being… well, kids! At 39, my inner child’s heart bursts with appreciation for all that praise of their uniqueness, the silly moments alongside them, and even encouragement for them to experiment with whatever clothing and hairstyles feel right to their personalities, genders, and whims.

A few years ago, my good friend and fellow writer Avital Norman Nathman wrote about why she “lets” her son — who inherited her whimsically curly, often multicolored locks — grow his hair past his shoulders. She’d fielded comments from self-professed, well-meaning bystanders who worried he’d be confused with a girl. As both a fierce feminist and loving mom, she rejected the false gender binary — which taught her son that he’s unique and valuable just as he is, however he is.

My own experience growing up was different.

Parents (and guardians of all titles) are people. They have their own emotional baggage, insecurities, habits, and idiosyncrasies that are part of their personalities. Because they have authority over us, it is naturally hard to see them that way when we’re growing up. Their words and actions have power long before we’re able to see themselves outside their role as the chief influencers in our lives.

Meanwhile, they incorporate those insecurities and habits into their relationships with us. In my house, my adoptive mom’s primary obsession was my hair — all of it: the length, the color, the style, and the amount of curl. And most importantly: how much it made us alike or different.

When a parent has and expresses a particular and constant attentiveness to your appearance — be it praise or criticism -- that constant feedback takes root. When I had light blond hair and soft baby ringlets through age four or five, she LOVED my hair. She played with it like I was a doll. I remember wanting to run around, but having to sit still while she brushed or braided it.

As I got older and let my hair grow, it got thicker, browner and straighter. I hit a couple of growth spurts and lost my chubby baby cheeks, too. Overall, I started looking less and less like her — triggering her insecurities about having had to adopt a child rather than being able to carry and give birth to one. At a glance, anyone who cared to take notice and didn’t know I was adopted would've simply assumed I was going through a phase where I just looked more like my darker, Hungarian father.

But people stopped commenting about how remarkably alike we looked. For her, every new trait pushed us further apart and made me less hers. I’m positive this would've been true even without a birthmark on my scalp for her to focus intently on.

Since reuniting with my birth mother last year I learned that my delivery was long. Like, so long she wasn’t particularly sure which date she’d given birth on. I was born after almost forty hours of labor, and that makes the birthmark — a dime-sized bald spot with a small bump in the middle — likely a result of the doctor using forceps to help me along. It’s always been there, just left of center midway down my skull in the back. My hair has always been thick, so it’s always been covered. But the fear that it could be seen — what if I did a cartwheel? or the wind blew at recess? — pushed my mom to cater hairstyles around it, narrating her thought-process as she did.

At some point she noticed that the hair around the bald spot was curlier than the rest of my hair. It was also darker (probably because it was covered and never got bleached by the sun like the top layer). With a furrowed brow, she sat me down in front of a movie and cut the curlier hair down to half an inch, creating — of course — a larger bald spot. Three times the size of the original, in fact. I couldn’t leave it alone because it was new and felt weird. And thus, an almost thirty-year-long tick was born. Beating it would take therapy, meds, and an intense desire to cast off all the insecurities I have that are tied to her.

In the ten or so years between the first time my mom excised the “extra” curly hair and when I won the battle to control what was done to my head just before my senior year of high school, she went through various phases — which meant I had to go through them with her. At one point she was so grossed out by this thing that made me weird and different and ugly (or at least that’s how it made me feel) that she leaned down and, in a giggle-whisper voice like we were both ten years old, said: “It’s almost like ya got pubic hair back here!”

What kid wouldn’t get a complex? I think that now, but I would never have asked a peer for validation or their opinion. I was terrified of just the idea that someone would see it.

She’d also been frosting my hair at home for what felt like forever. For those who don’t know, frosting was a do-it-yourself highlighting kit from the olden days (the 70’s). It was something my friend’s moms usually did for themselves while we kids played with less permanent homemade concoctions for our hair made from different Kool-Aid flavors.

Frosting first required brushing your hair to within an inch of your poor scalp’s life, and then squeezing a plastic cover, like a swimming cap, over your head, eyebrows, and ears. Then, a tool that should only be used for crocheting is poked through the cap 75-200 times, to pul a few hairs through at a time. Once you look like a potato that’s been allowed to sprout, all those pulled-through hairs are brushed again (OUCH!) and a packet of chemicals is mixed using a mask. Why a mask, you say? Because the fumes are f’ing toxic. My hair usually took half an hour to get tugged, completely stripped of color, super dry, and extra frizzy.

It is perhaps unsurprising that I did not undergo this process willingly.

By the time I got to middle school, I’d completely adopted my mom’s paranoia about the hair around the spot and the spot itself. The popular hairstyle in my peer group was “The Rachel” (from “Friends” — flat, straight, with just one or two playful layers in the front to fall in the face). My hair was never going to be flat, but it hadn’t totally transitioned to curly, so I was still trying to wrangle it smooth. That two-or-so-inch ring of trimmed down hair was making most of the hair near the crown of my head poof out noticeably. I was willing to do something more time and money intensive.

Lye had already gone out of fashion as a chemical in hair straighteners because it burns like hell. It feels like your scalp is being literally fried. I — voluntarily, this time — let my mom take me to a stylist who applied the old-school formula and brushed it in, dragging a comb over the skin of my bald spot. The back of my head hurt for days afterward. We repeated this every three or four months.

Eventually, I told her I was tired of messing with it. I’d never picked up her love of a two-hour morning make-up and hair routine. I was going to be taking a “zero-hour” class at 6:50am before the regular school day started the following Fall. I was smartly looking to cut out things I didn’t need (or want) to spend time on. I must have sounded sensible enough (I often cited my academic goals when I needed something), because I got to drop all the extras, and so I also got to see what my actual hair looked like. Luckily, the 90’s had loosened up a bit (or I had) and my curly hair was either a non-issue (better than being bullied!) or people liked it because it was different.

Even though it felt like a HUGE victory to have wrested control over my hair back from my mom at 17 (and without a fight!), it would be another two decades before I was truly comfortable with it. Appearance is about our features, and my often waist-length curly hair was my most distinguishing one. I’d let Mom talk me into cutting it the month before I went to college and it’s the only decision I regret. So I let it grow. And grow. And the more I heard how cute it was short, the more I grew it out of spite.

More than seven years after disowning me the first time (just before Christmas in 2011), when I looked in the mirror I still saw the result of choices that have been about defiance.

Why was anything this toxic person had ever said about my hair to me or anyone else still defining what I did with it?

I think about my hair every day, even if it’s just to pull it back out of my face. So every day a tiny piece of that trauma plays out in the back of my head — right underneath that damn spot causing all the trouble, LOLsob — even if I don’t consciously notice.

Then I thought: what if I just cut it?

I realized I didn’t care if it was perfectly even (a big step for someone with even my mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder). I didn’t care if my current partners would like it. I popped by a drug store and grabbed decent scissors. I flipped my head upside down over a towel and started chopping!

I didn’t expect to feel so lightweight and fancy free.

I brushed it. I washed it. I ran my fingers through it. I posted a selfie three full days after washing it, sleeping on it, putting it up and taking it down for work, and otherwise playing with it because it was new. As people popped up to say how great it looks, I didn’t feel my typical trepidation and immediately launch into rejecting or mitigating the compliments. I thought, “Yeah. It does!” By the next day, it’d been elevated to my favorite haircut EVER.

I had a date with my primary partner/boyfriend who I’d been with for almost two years. This is someone who has seen my body at various weights and shapes as my health fluctuated, different versions of my hair, with and without makeup. I've never been perfectly comfortable naked in front of a partner; like most of us, I have an insecurity or two. But I believe him when he says he loves my body — including my hair, which I always wear up when we have sex.

Every time my hair got in the way during a sexual situation and a partner groaned (not in the good way, but usually not intentionally) I had a jolt of mood-killing insecurity. Which lead to me automatically pulling it back. I didn’t realize it until very recently, but those unintentional disapproving sounds definitely triggered memories of my Mom’s judgemental noises as she snipped the tight curls around my birthmark.

Even though my current boyfriend has said it isn’t/wouldn’t be in the way, and I believe him about that too, I never wanted my hair down. I just didn’t want to have to manage it — or be distracted by it, or think about it at all — during an enjoyable, but admittedly often messy, activity. Even though wearing it up was a long-standing habit, it hadn’t ever occurred to me that it was affecting my overall body image.

Well. Two weeks ago I found myself unconsciously taking my hair tie OUT OF MY HAIR as things were heating up with Current BF! When I realized it — I realized it felt GOOD. That I felt good! I didn’t feel any kind of insecurity. An hour later when I was all blissed-out I didn’t even try and picture what I looked like — what my hair might look like. I didn’t care. It was just part of the rest of me.

Of course it was. It is! IT’S MY HAIR. It always has been, but now it feels like it is.

body image

self image

self esteem

family

growing up

identity

comfort

hair

appearance

parents

adoption

sex

relationships

working it out

empowerment

Bodies

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[neilmillerne]

{#TransparentTuesday} Boy Jessi + Girl Jessi: What Gender Identity Has to Do With Body Image

Today we’re going to talk about gender.

Something I’ve noticed coming up a LOT in my webinars and coaching calls lately is the question of what it means to be female, and what to do when being “female” doesn’t quite feel right.

Now, I (like you, probably) grew up in a gender binary system. Our options used to be male, female, or “transexual.” Some men liked crossdressing and some lesbians liked looking butch, but gender and sex were basically the same thing and we were expected to like it.

In recent years, culture has changed to reflect a different understanding of gender, and I’ve changed along with it.

It is now widely recognized that sex is assigned at birth based on genitalia, while gender is the identity a person resonates with. That no longer means each person has to check the box next to “male” or “female,” either.

We have only begun to scratch the surface of recognizing intersex people, non-binary individuals, gender-fluid and gender-queer people, and more.

Gender identity and gender expression have created a whole new landscape for us to consider ourselves, our identities, and our bodies, as well as our beliefs about how things “should” be and where we have hang-ups. (Note: If you find this whole conversation ridiculous, offensive, or annoying, I humbly suggest you have some major hangups.)

So what does this new gender landscape have to do with body image?

Fucking EVERYTHING.

When I look back on my life, having been born into an unambiguously female body, I can see that the vast majority of my personal body shame and hatred came from the fact that I did not want to be female.

I had an older brother, and I was always EXTREMELY aware of how differently we were treated. From a very young age,I felt existentially cheated, and angry. He could run and show off and be difficult and get dirty and be forgiven for being an entitled dick sometimes (sorry Ben), while I was expected to be helpful, nice, calm, pretty, and polite.

Before I could even read or write I was aware that being a boy was indisputably better, and being a girl was indisputably worse. I was mad that I had to be a girl just because my stupid body said so, and I was mad that everyone treated me like one as if they couldn’t tell it didn’t suit me.

Questions I’ve asked myself a lot, as I process this experience within our new non-binary gender landscape:

How much of my resentment came from living in a sexist patriarchy, and how much was my inherent gender identity?

How much of my resentment came from an intuitive (and accurate) understanding that girls are more vulnerable targets, and that I was unsafe?

I’ll never know the answers.

My parents didn’t buy into gender roles the way some people did, thank goodness, so many of the messages I got about gender roles came from elsewhere, but they came nonetheless. My parents proudly empowered me to do and be whatever I wanted, which was great, but what I wanted was to be a boy, and that wasn’t on the table.

Examining and choosing my own gender identity wasn’t an option at the time. So a girl I stayed, and then I hit puberty and became a “woman” and I hated every fucking second of it.

I hated my breasts. I hated my vagina and the fact that I had periods and could get pregnant and had to take birth control. I hated that I was supposed to like girly stuff and supposed to want to get married and grow babies inside my body (NO THANK YOU) and generally just be something I wasn’t.

I hated the gross attention from men.

I hated the unfairness of how we females got treated, and the stories from history of how women had to work so hard to convince everyone that we were worthy of the vote, or physically capable of running a marathon. I hated that even today sexism and misogyny are alive and well, but also completely invisible to most straight men, who have the privilege of not being affected by it.

I hated how boys were taught to be entitled dicks whose only job in life was to convince girls to put out. I hated the fact that I had been initiated into my sexuality at the age of 7 by an older boy who felt like my female body existed for his pleasure.

I hated myself for being female, I hated my body for being female, and I was in an enormous amount of pain.

I was, however, way too others-conscious to do anything about this.

My boobs were huge, and I was a good kid from a good family in a hyper conservative town who wasn’t about to screw up my whole life by calling myself a boy when I obviously wasn’t a boy. No fucking way. Even if I’d had the language around gender expression we have now, I wouldn’t have risked being seen that way.

Instead, I learned to wield my female body like a weapon. I learned how to control everything, especially boys and men. I tried to find an identity that fit me while living in a body I resented, and the parts of my body that I hated the most were the ones that gave away my femaleness: my curves, my softness, my breasts.

I obsessively focused on my flaws, distracting myself with the wild goose chase of pursuing “body perfection” while trying to harden, tighten, and erase all the most female parts of me.

Looking back, I can see that many of these feelings were the result of terror and rage. Crushed under the weight of centuries of unequal treatment, I was afraid for my safety, and angry at the situation.

Being female in this world is scary, and unfair, and painful.

I’ve done a lot of work to heal my relationship with my body and my gender since then, and I’ve even come to love being a woman in some ways.

But I do so wish I’d had the freedom back then to NOT identify as female, without stigma, as I sorted through the experience of being in this body.

I’ve never felt a need to talk about gender identity before, although I’ve been slowly processing my own for years.

However, someone recently asked if my coaching program was open to people who weren’t sure if they identified as male or female or what, and I realized I’ve been doing a major disservice to the conversation on body image by not discussing gender.

So I’d like to make a few things clear:

Your sex is assigned at birth, and your gender is how you identify, based on what feels right for you.

Gender is no longer a male/female binary.

If everyone agrees respects everyone else’s gender identity without judgement than more people can explore themselves and their identity in a way that makes them feel safe, authentic, and accepted for who they are.

Body image and gender identity/expression are deeply interconnected, and for many women (even if they identify as fully female) this is a topic that needs to be discussed, considered, explored, and healed.

Please understand, this is absolutely terrifying for me to write, but I believe in transparency and I believe we need to talk about this.

Years ago, I told my best friend I was a boy sometimes.

I had been consciously exploring my own femininity for a while, and had committed to wearing dresses for an entire summer to see if I could face my distaste for female-ness head on.

I told him that I was doing it because deep down there is a boy Jessi and a girl Jessi, and that I was trying to get girl Jessi to show up more by making her feel welcome.

He gave me a look I’ll never forget, nodded supportively, and said “Wow… how does that feel to say out loud?”

It felt… liberating. Embarrassing. Exhilarating. Ridiculous. Glorious.

There is a Boy Jessi and a Girl Jessi!! It felt so hilariously and obviously true. I couldn’t believe I’d never let myself say that before.

In the years since, I have welcomed Woman Jessi, too. (Interestingly, I never feel like a Man. Just a Boy, Girl, or Woman.) Some days I feel more one or the other, and most days I feel like a blend.

When I started to write this, I had no intention of getting so personal or vulnerable. I actually had to stop midway through, to tremble and cry and come up with a thousand reasons not to send this. (It might not feel like a big reveal to you, but it sure as hell feels like one to me.)

But here you are reading it anyway.

My hope is that this helps us all open up a better, more nuanced, and compassionate conversation about gender, identity, and our relationships with our bodies.

There are SO many ways in which gender identity (and expression!) can affect your relationship with your body. Even if you don’t resonate with my story, I challenge you to think of ways in which traditional gender roles, expectations, and “norms” have helped you create (or reject) your identity, and the possible relationships between gender, safety, beauty standards, and feeling like you belong in your body.

I cannot believe I’m about to hit send on this.

I love you.

<3

Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Boy Jessi + Girl Jessi: What Gender Identity Has to Do With Body Image appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2E5yqOD

[joshuabradleyn]

{#TransparentTuesday} Boy Jessi + Girl Jessi: What Gender Identity Has to Do With Body Image

Today we’re going to talk about gender.

Something I’ve noticed coming up a LOT in my webinars and coaching calls lately is the question of what it means to be female, and what to do when being “female” doesn’t quite feel right.

Now, I (like you, probably) grew up in a gender binary system. Our options used to be male, female, or “transexual.” Some men liked crossdressing and some lesbians liked looking butch, but gender and sex were basically the same thing and we were expected to like it.

In recent years, culture has changed to reflect a different understanding of gender, and I’ve changed along with it.

It is now widely recognized that sex is assigned at birth based on genitalia, while gender is the identity a person resonates with. That no longer means each person has to check the box next to “male” or “female,” either.

We have only begun to scratch the surface of recognizing intersex people, non-binary individuals, gender-fluid and gender-queer people, and more.

Gender identity and gender expression have created a whole new landscape for us to consider ourselves, our identities, and our bodies, as well as our beliefs about how things “should” be and where we have hang-ups. (Note: If you find this whole conversation ridiculous, offensive, or annoying, I humbly suggest you have some major hangups.)

So what does this new gender landscape have to do with body image?

Fucking EVERYTHING.

When I look back on my life, having been born into an unambiguously female body, I can see that the vast majority of my personal body shame and hatred came from the fact that I did not want to be female.

I had an older brother, and I was always EXTREMELY aware of how differently we were treated. From a very young age,I felt existentially cheated, and angry. He could run and show off and be difficult and get dirty and be forgiven for being an entitled dick sometimes (sorry Ben), while I was expected to be helpful, nice, calm, pretty, and polite.

Before I could even read or write I was aware that being a boy was indisputably better, and being a girl was indisputably worse. I was mad that I had to be a girl just because my stupid body said so, and I was mad that everyone treated me like one as if they couldn’t tell it didn’t suit me.

Questions I’ve asked myself a lot, as I process this experience within our new non-binary gender landscape:

How much of my resentment came from living in a sexist patriarchy, and how much was my inherent gender identity?

How much of my resentment came from an intuitive (and accurate) understanding that girls are more vulnerable targets, and that I was unsafe?

I’ll never know the answers.

My parents didn’t buy into gender roles the way some people did, thank goodness, so many of the messages I got about gender roles came from elsewhere, but they came nonetheless. My parents proudly empowered me to do and be whatever I wanted, which was great, but what I wanted was to be a boy, and that wasn’t on the table.

Examining and choosing my own gender identity wasn’t an option at the time. So a girl I stayed, and then I hit puberty and became a “woman” and I hated every fucking second of it.

I hated my breasts. I hated my vagina and the fact that I had periods and could get pregnant and had to take birth control. I hated that I was supposed to like girly stuff and supposed to want to get married and grow babies inside my body (NO THANK YOU) and generally just be something I wasn’t.

I hated the gross attention from men.

I hated the unfairness of how we females got treated, and the stories from history of how women had to work so hard to convince everyone that we were worthy of the vote, or physically capable of running a marathon. I hated that even today sexism and misogyny are alive and well, but also completely invisible to most straight men, who have the privilege of not being affected by it.

I hated how boys were taught to be entitled dicks whose only job in life was to convince girls to put out. I hated the fact that I had been initiated into my sexuality at the age of 7 by an older boy who felt like my female body existed for his pleasure.

I hated myself for being female, I hated my body for being female, and I was in an enormous amount of pain.

I was, however, way too others-conscious to do anything about this.

My boobs were huge, and I was a good kid from a good family in a hyper conservative town who wasn’t about to screw up my whole life by calling myself a boy when I obviously wasn’t a boy. No fucking way. Even if I’d had the language around gender expression we have now, I wouldn’t have risked being seen that way.

Instead, I learned to wield my female body like a weapon. I learned how to control everything, especially boys and men. I tried to find an identity that fit me while living in a body I resented, and the parts of my body that I hated the most were the ones that gave away my femaleness: my curves, my softness, my breasts.

I obsessively focused on my flaws, distracting myself with the wild goose chase of pursuing “body perfection” while trying to harden, tighten, and erase all the most female parts of me.

Looking back, I can see that many of these feelings were the result of terror and rage. Crushed under the weight of centuries of unequal treatment, I was afraid for my safety, and angry at the situation.

Being female in this world is scary, and unfair, and painful.

I’ve done a lot of work to heal my relationship with my body and my gender since then, and I’ve even come to love being a woman in some ways.

But I do so wish I’d had the freedom back then to NOT identify as female, without stigma, as I sorted through the experience of being in this body.

I’ve never felt a need to talk about gender identity before, although I’ve been slowly processing my own for years.

However, someone recently asked if my coaching program was open to people who weren’t sure if they identified as male or female or what, and I realized I’ve been doing a major disservice to the conversation on body image by not discussing gender.

So I’d like to make a few things clear:

Your sex is assigned at birth, and your gender is how you identify, based on what feels right for you.

Gender is no longer a male/female binary.

If everyone agrees respects everyone else’s gender identity without judgement than more people can explore themselves and their identity in a way that makes them feel safe, authentic, and accepted for who they are.

Body image and gender identity/expression are deeply interconnected, and for many women (even if they identify as fully female) this is a topic that needs to be discussed, considered, explored, and healed.

Please understand, this is absolutely terrifying for me to write, but I believe in transparency and I believe we need to talk about this.

Years ago, I told my best friend I was a boy sometimes.

I had been consciously exploring my own femininity for a while, and had committed to wearing dresses for an entire summer to see if I could face my distaste for female-ness head on.

I told him that I was doing it because deep down there is a boy Jessi and a girl Jessi, and that I was trying to get girl Jessi to show up more by making her feel welcome.

He gave me a look I’ll never forget, nodded supportively, and said “Wow… how does that feel to say out loud?”

It felt… liberating. Embarrassing. Exhilarating. Ridiculous. Glorious.

There is a Boy Jessi and a Girl Jessi!! It felt so hilariously and obviously true. I couldn’t believe I’d never let myself say that before.

In the years since, I have welcomed Woman Jessi, too. (Interestingly, I never feel like a Man. Just a Boy, Girl, or Woman.) Some days I feel more one or the other, and most days I feel like a blend.

When I started to write this, I had no intention of getting so personal or vulnerable. I actually had to stop midway through, to tremble and cry and come up with a thousand reasons not to send this. (It might not feel like a big reveal to you, but it sure as hell feels like one to me.)

But here you are reading it anyway.

My hope is that this helps us all open up a better, more nuanced, and compassionate conversation about gender, identity, and our relationships with our bodies.

There are SO many ways in which gender identity (and expression!) can affect your relationship with your body. Even if you don’t resonate with my story, I challenge you to think of ways in which traditional gender roles, expectations, and “norms” have helped you create (or reject) your identity, and the possible relationships between gender, safety, beauty standards, and feeling like you belong in your body.

I cannot believe I’m about to hit send on this.

I love you.

<3

Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Boy Jessi + Girl Jessi: What Gender Identity Has to Do With Body Image appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2E5yqOD

[ruthellisneda]

{#TransparentTuesday} Boy Jessi + Girl Jessi: What Gender Identity Has to Do With Body Image

Today we’re going to talk about gender.

Something I’ve noticed coming up a LOT in my webinars and coaching calls lately is the question of what it means to be female, and what to do when being “female” doesn’t quite feel right.

Now, I (like you, probably) grew up in a gender binary system. Our options used to be male, female, or “transexual.” Some men liked crossdressing and some lesbians liked looking butch, but gender and sex were basically the same thing and we were expected to like it.

In recent years, culture has changed to reflect a different understanding of gender, and I’ve changed along with it.

It is now widely recognized that sex is assigned at birth based on genitalia, while gender is the identity a person resonates with. That no longer means each person has to check the box next to “male” or “female,” either.

We have only begun to scratch the surface of recognizing intersex people, non-binary individuals, gender-fluid and gender-queer people, and more.

Gender identity and gender expression have created a whole new landscape for us to consider ourselves, our identities, and our bodies, as well as our beliefs about how things “should” be and where we have hang-ups. (Note: If you find this whole conversation ridiculous, offensive, or annoying, I humbly suggest you have some major hangups.)

So what does this new gender landscape have to do with body image?

Fucking EVERYTHING.

When I look back on my life, having been born into an unambiguously female body, I can see that the vast majority of my personal body shame and hatred came from the fact that I did not want to be female.

I had an older brother, and I was always EXTREMELY aware of how differently we were treated. From a very young age,I felt existentially cheated, and angry. He could run and show off and be difficult and get dirty and be forgiven for being an entitled dick sometimes (sorry Ben), while I was expected to be helpful, nice, calm, pretty, and polite.

Before I could even read or write I was aware that being a boy was indisputably better, and being a girl was indisputably worse. I was mad that I had to be a girl just because my stupid body said so, and I was mad that everyone treated me like one as if they couldn’t tell it didn’t suit me.

Questions I’ve asked myself a lot, as I process this experience within our new non-binary gender landscape:

How much of my resentment came from living in a sexist patriarchy, and how much was my inherent gender identity?

How much of my resentment came from an intuitive (and accurate) understanding that girls are more vulnerable targets, and that I was unsafe?

I’ll never know the answers.

My parents didn’t buy into gender roles the way some people did, thank goodness, so many of the messages I got about gender roles came from elsewhere, but they came nonetheless. My parents proudly empowered me to do and be whatever I wanted, which was great, but what I wanted was to be a boy, and that wasn’t on the table.

Examining and choosing my own gender identity wasn’t an option at the time. So a girl I stayed, and then I hit puberty and became a “woman” and I hated every fucking second of it.

I hated my breasts. I hated my vagina and the fact that I had periods and could get pregnant and had to take birth control. I hated that I was supposed to like girly stuff and supposed to want to get married and grow babies inside my body (NO THANK YOU) and generally just be something I wasn’t.

I hated the gross attention from men.

I hated the unfairness of how we females got treated, and the stories from history of how women had to work so hard to convince everyone that we were worthy of the vote, or physically capable of running a marathon. I hated that even today sexism and misogyny are alive and well, but also completely invisible to most straight men, who have the privilege of not being affected by it.

I hated how boys were taught to be entitled dicks whose only job in life was to convince girls to put out. I hated the fact that I had been initiated into my sexuality at the age of 7 by an older boy who felt like my female body existed for his pleasure.

I hated myself for being female, I hated my body for being female, and I was in an enormous amount of pain.

I was, however, way too others-conscious to do anything about this.

My boobs were huge, and I was a good kid from a good family in a hyper conservative town who wasn’t about to screw up my whole life by calling myself a boy when I obviously wasn’t a boy. No fucking way. Even if I’d had the language around gender expression we have now, I wouldn’t have risked being seen that way.

Instead, I learned to wield my female body like a weapon. I learned how to control everything, especially boys and men. I tried to find an identity that fit me while living in a body I resented, and the parts of my body that I hated the most were the ones that gave away my femaleness: my curves, my softness, my breasts.

I obsessively focused on my flaws, distracting myself with the wild goose chase of pursuing “body perfection” while trying to harden, tighten, and erase all the most female parts of me.

Looking back, I can see that many of these feelings were the result of terror and rage. Crushed under the weight of centuries of unequal treatment, I was afraid for my safety, and angry at the situation.

Being female in this world is scary, and unfair, and painful.

I’ve done a lot of work to heal my relationship with my body and my gender since then, and I’ve even come to love being a woman in some ways.

But I do so wish I’d had the freedom back then to NOT identify as female, without stigma, as I sorted through the experience of being in this body.

I’ve never felt a need to talk about gender identity before, although I’ve been slowly processing my own for years.

However, someone recently asked if my coaching program was open to people who weren’t sure if they identified as male or female or what, and I realized I’ve been doing a major disservice to the conversation on body image by not discussing gender.

So I’d like to make a few things clear:

Your sex is assigned at birth, and your gender is how you identify, based on what feels right for you.

Gender is no longer a male/female binary.

If everyone agrees respects everyone else’s gender identity without judgement than more people can explore themselves and their identity in a way that makes them feel safe, authentic, and accepted for who they are.

Body image and gender identity/expression are deeply interconnected, and for many women (even if they identify as fully female) this is a topic that needs to be discussed, considered, explored, and healed.

Please understand, this is absolutely terrifying for me to write, but I believe in transparency and I believe we need to talk about this.

Years ago, I told my best friend I was a boy sometimes.

I had been consciously exploring my own femininity for a while, and had committed to wearing dresses for an entire summer to see if I could face my distaste for female-ness head on.

I told him that I was doing it because deep down there is a boy Jessi and a girl Jessi, and that I was trying to get girl Jessi to show up more by making her feel welcome.

He gave me a look I’ll never forget, nodded supportively, and said “Wow… how does that feel to say out loud?”

It felt… liberating. Embarrassing. Exhilarating. Ridiculous. Glorious.

There is a Boy Jessi and a Girl Jessi!! It felt so hilariously and obviously true. I couldn’t believe I’d never let myself say that before.

In the years since, I have welcomed Woman Jessi, too. (Interestingly, I never feel like a Man. Just a Boy, Girl, or Woman.) Some days I feel more one or the other, and most days I feel like a blend.

When I started to write this, I had no intention of getting so personal or vulnerable. I actually had to stop midway through, to tremble and cry and come up with a thousand reasons not to send this. (It might not feel like a big reveal to you, but it sure as hell feels like one to me.)

But here you are reading it anyway.

My hope is that this helps us all open up a better, more nuanced, and compassionate conversation about gender, identity, and our relationships with our bodies.

There are SO many ways in which gender identity (and expression!) can affect your relationship with your body. Even if you don’t resonate with my story, I challenge you to think of ways in which traditional gender roles, expectations, and “norms” have helped you create (or reject) your identity, and the possible relationships between gender, safety, beauty standards, and feeling like you belong in your body.

I cannot believe I’m about to hit send on this.

I love you.

<3

Jessi

The post {#TransparentTuesday} Boy Jessi + Girl Jessi: What Gender Identity Has to Do With Body Image appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

http://ift.tt/2E5yqOD

[ellenlucasonlinedatingblog]

Making My Hair Mine

Katie Klabusich

My adoptive mom’s hangups convinced me I was an ugly duckling with noticeable imperfections. Turns out, it was about her, not me, and certainly not about my hair, which isn't the enemy she -- or I -- thought it was, either.

I have a bit of an obsession with the Instagram feeds of my friends who parent. All those pics and videos of their kids being… well, kids! At 39, my inner child’s heart bursts with appreciation for all that praise of their uniqueness, the silly moments alongside them, and even encouragement for them to experiment with whatever clothing and hairstyles feel right to their personalities, genders, and whims.

A few years ago, my good friend and fellow writer Avital Norman Nathman wrote about why she “lets” her son — who inherited her whimsically curly, often multicolored locks — grow his hair past his shoulders. She’d fielded comments from self-professed, well-meaning bystanders who worried he’d be confused with a girl. As both a fierce feminist and loving mom, she rejected the false gender binary — which taught her son that he’s unique and valuable just as he is, however he is.

My own experience growing up was different.

Parents (and guardians of all titles) are people. They have their own emotional baggage, insecurities, habits, and idiosyncrasies that are part of their personalities. Because they have authority over us, it is naturally hard to see them that way when we’re growing up. Their words and actions have power long before we’re able to see themselves outside their role as the chief influencers in our lives.

Meanwhile, they incorporate those insecurities and habits into their relationships with us. In my house, my adoptive mom’s primary obsession was my hair — all of it: the length, the color, the style, and the amount of curl. And most importantly: how much it made us alike or different.

When a parent has and expresses a particular and constant attentiveness to your appearance — be it praise or criticism -- that constant feedback takes root. When I had light blond hair and soft baby ringlets through age four or five, she LOVED my hair. She played with it like I was a doll. I remember wanting to run around, but having to sit still while she brushed or braided it.

As I got older and let my hair grow, it got thicker, browner and straighter. I hit a couple of growth spurts and lost my chubby baby cheeks, too. Overall, I started looking less and less like her — triggering her insecurities about having had to adopt a child rather than being able to carry and give birth to one. At a glance, anyone who cared to take notice and didn’t know I was adopted would've simply assumed I was going through a phase where I just looked more like my darker, Hungarian father.

But people stopped commenting about how remarkably alike we looked. For her, every new trait pushed us further apart and made me less hers. I’m positive this would've been true even without a birthmark on my scalp for her to focus intently on.

Since reuniting with my birth mother last year I learned that my delivery was long. Like, so long she wasn’t particularly sure which date she’d given birth on. I was born after almost forty hours of labor, and that makes the birthmark — a dime-sized bald spot with a small bump in the middle — likely a result of the doctor using forceps to help me along. It’s always been there, just left of center midway down my skull in the back. My hair has always been thick, so it’s always been covered. But the fear that it could be seen — what if I did a cartwheel? or the wind blew at recess? — pushed my mom to cater hairstyles around it, narrating her thought-process as she did.

At some point she noticed that the hair around the bald spot was curlier than the rest of my hair. It was also darker (probably because it was covered and never got bleached by the sun like the top layer). With a furrowed brow, she sat me down in front of a movie and cut the curlier hair down to half an inch, creating — of course — a larger bald spot. Three times the size of the original, in fact. I couldn’t leave it alone because it was new and felt weird. And thus, an almost thirty-year-long tick was born. Beating it would take therapy, meds, and an intense desire to cast off all the insecurities I have that are tied to her.

In the ten or so years between the first time my mom excised the “extra” curly hair and when I won the battle to control what was done to my head just before my senior year of high school, she went through various phases — which meant I had to go through them with her. At one point she was so grossed out by this thing that made me weird and different and ugly (or at least that’s how it made me feel) that she leaned down and, in a giggle-whisper voice like we were both ten years old, said: “It’s almost like ya got pubic hair back here!”

What kid wouldn’t get a complex? I think that now, but I would never have asked a peer for validation or their opinion. I was terrified of just the idea that someone would see it.

She’d also been frosting my hair at home for what felt like forever. For those who don’t know, frosting was a do-it-yourself highlighting kit from the olden days (the 70’s). It was something my friend’s moms usually did for themselves while we kids played with less permanent homemade concoctions for our hair made from different Kool-Aid flavors.

Frosting first required brushing your hair to within an inch of your poor scalp’s life, and then squeezing a plastic cover, like a swimming cap, over your head, eyebrows, and ears. Then, a tool that should only be used for crocheting is poked through the cap 75-200 times, to pul a few hairs through at a time. Once you look like a potato that’s been allowed to sprout, all those pulled-through hairs are brushed again (OUCH!) and a packet of chemicals is mixed using a mask. Why a mask, you say? Because the fumes are f’ing toxic. My hair usually took half an hour to get tugged, completely stripped of color, super dry, and extra frizzy.

It is perhaps unsurprising that I did not undergo this process willingly.

By the time I got to middle school, I’d completely adopted my mom’s paranoia about the hair around the spot and the spot itself. The popular hairstyle in my peer group was “The Rachel” (from “Friends” — flat, straight, with just one or two playful layers in the front to fall in the face). My hair was never going to be flat, but it hadn’t totally transitioned to curly, so I was still trying to wrangle it smooth. That two-or-so-inch ring of trimmed down hair was making most of the hair near the crown of my head poof out noticeably. I was willing to do something more time and money intensive.

Lye had already gone out of fashion as a chemical in hair straighteners because it burns like hell. It feels like your scalp is being literally fried. I — voluntarily, this time — let my mom take me to a stylist who applied the old-school formula and brushed it in, dragging a comb over the skin of my bald spot. The back of my head hurt for days afterward. We repeated this every three or four months.

Eventually, I told her I was tired of messing with it. I’d never picked up her love of a two-hour morning make-up and hair routine. I was going to be taking a “zero-hour” class at 6:50am before the regular school day started the following Fall. I was smartly looking to cut out things I didn’t need (or want) to spend time on. I must have sounded sensible enough (I often cited my academic goals when I needed something), because I got to drop all the extras, and so I also got to see what my actual hair looked like. Luckily, the 90’s had loosened up a bit (or I had) and my curly hair was either a non-issue (better than being bullied!) or people liked it because it was different.

Even though it felt like a HUGE victory to have wrested control over my hair back from my mom at 17 (and without a fight!), it would be another two decades before I was truly comfortable with it. Appearance is about our features, and my often waist-length curly hair was my most distinguishing one. I’d let Mom talk me into cutting it the month before I went to college and it’s the only decision I regret. So I let it grow. And grow. And the more I heard how cute it was short, the more I grew it out of spite.

More than seven years after disowning me the first time (just before Christmas in 2011), when I looked in the mirror I still saw the result of choices that have been about defiance.

Why was anything this toxic person had ever said about my hair to me or anyone else still defining what I did with it?

I think about my hair every day, even if it’s just to pull it back out of my face. So every day a tiny piece of that trauma plays out in the back of my head — right underneath that damn spot causing all the trouble, LOLsob — even if I don’t consciously notice.

Then I thought: what if I just cut it?

I realized I didn’t care if it was perfectly even (a big step for someone with even my mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder). I didn’t care if my current partners would like it. I popped by a drug store and grabbed decent scissors. I flipped my head upside down over a towel and started chopping!

I didn’t expect to feel so lightweight and fancy free.

I brushed it. I washed it. I ran my fingers through it. I posted a selfie three full days after washing it, sleeping on it, putting it up and taking it down for work, and otherwise playing with it because it was new. As people popped up to say how great it looks, I didn’t feel my typical trepidation and immediately launch into rejecting or mitigating the compliments. I thought, “Yeah. It does!” By the next day, it’d been elevated to my favorite haircut EVER.

I had a date with my primary partner/boyfriend who I’d been with for almost two years. This is someone who has seen my body at various weights and shapes as my health fluctuated, different versions of my hair, with and without makeup. I've never been perfectly comfortable naked in front of a partner; like most of us, I have an insecurity or two. But I believe him when he says he loves my body — including my hair, which I always wear up when we have sex.

Every time my hair got in the way during a sexual situation and a partner groaned (not in the good way, but usually not intentionally) I had a jolt of mood-killing insecurity. Which lead to me automatically pulling it back. I didn’t realize it until very recently, but those unintentional disapproving sounds definitely triggered memories of my Mom’s judgemental noises as she snipped the tight curls around my birthmark.

Even though my current boyfriend has said it isn’t/wouldn’t be in the way, and I believe him about that too, I never wanted my hair down. I just didn’t want to have to manage it — or be distracted by it, or think about it at all — during an enjoyable, but admittedly often messy, activity. Even though wearing it up was a long-standing habit, it hadn’t ever occurred to me that it was affecting my overall body image.

Well. Two weeks ago I found myself unconsciously taking my hair tie OUT OF MY HAIR as things were heating up with Current BF! When I realized it — I realized it felt GOOD. That I felt good! I didn’t feel any kind of insecurity. An hour later when I was all blissed-out I didn’t even try and picture what I looked like — what my hair might look like. I didn’t care. It was just part of the rest of me.

Of course it was. It is! IT’S MY HAIR. It always has been, but now it feels like it is.

body image

self image

self esteem

family

growing up

identity

comfort

hair

appearance

parents

adoption

sex

relationships

working it out

empowerment

Bodies

Pregnancy & Parenting

Etc

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