Wow...

So after reading a friend's comments about her body, I felt like posting one of my own. Granted, this isn't a response or anything, but I just need to put some things out there...

A lot of people comment about my positive self-image, and I have never really though twice about it. I love my body, not because of what it looks like to other people, but what it looks like to me, and what it does for me. Yes, I would like to be thinner. But yes, I also exercise more than 3 times per week, and I try to eat healthy the majority of the time. If I were constantly denying myself what I enjoyed, I would have no reason to eat at all. I may as well just go on a liquid diet at that point, because what is the point in eating at all if you can't occasionally indulge?

I wear things that I find pretty, attractive to me. If something makes me feel sexy, I AM sexy. Maybe not to anyone else, but to someone whose opinion matter to me, I do. And I for one, DO find myself sexy. It isn't a type of body style, it isn't an outfit, it is a feeling. It is feeling comfortable in your own skin. For some people, they happen to feel comfortable at a size 2, but for some people, they can feel comfortable with themselves at a size 28. I am not ashamed of who I am, but I strive to be healthier. Not for my weight, but for my health. If I were perfectly healthy, I could weigh 3000 lbs and wouldn't care.

I love the fact that my body is porportioned correctly. I carry my extra weight in my hips and thighs, and my body looks very feminine because of it. I would never want to get to the point where my hips jutted out, and I felt boney. My body is soft, and supple, and my skin is a very healthy rosy color. I am fleshy, and when I see paintings from the Renaissance of goddesses and women, I see my body. I love the comfort that it brings when I hold my baby cousin on my side and she falls asleep in the warmness of my skin. I love knowing that those huge hips that I curse now will make it easier to have children.

I once spoke to my friend Adrienne, one of the smartest, ambitious girls I know, and she told me that when introducing me to her boyfriend Tyler, she described my confidence. We had a long conversation where we talked about how many larger girls are shy and introverted because they don't feel comfortable around other people. Why should they when people are judging them all of the time? Usually these people are thinner women trying to make themselves feel better, and appease their own body issues.

I don't think thinner women are any less attractive than larger women, but I don't find them any more so. Women are who they are, regardless of size. I am not a thin person in a fat body, I am Stacey, and I am in my own body. Because my body fluctuates. It is bigger sometimes, and smaller at others, but no matter what, I am still the same. Even on my biggest days, I don't feel any less attractive than my smaller ones.

I used to think that guys wouldn't want because I wasn't small. Because they couldn't lift me up against the wall. Or that they couldn't carry me. Or that, God forbid, I might be larger than them. Reality check? I am a little under 6 feet tall, of COURSE I am going to be bigger than most men. Not even that, but I don't necessarily sleep with big guys, in fact, I never have. Not because I don't like them, but because most of the bigger guys I have dated have horrible self esteem issues that you don't see until you really start to get to know them. And the guys I have been with sure haven't complained. Strange that even when you are bigger you can still exude that kind of confidence and have sex the same way as every other smaller woman can. In fact, I got really pissed off at Kirstie Alley for saying that she refused to put men through having sex with her because she was fat. Excuse me? PUT THEM THROUGH IT?! I have yet to meet a MATURE man that would consider sleeping with an attractive woman a punishment.

Adrienne is right, I don't have hang ups about my body. I am not ashamed to take off my shirt in front of my friends, and I don't care if they see how much stomach sticks out, or that my back isn't completely flat. My legs aren't the greatest, mostly due to scars that I still have from my accidents that look like bruises. So I usually don't wear skirts. For the most part, I try to stick to clothes that flatter me in my own mind.

I don't know. I don't lug my body aroound like it is less important than a thinner girl's--because it ISN'T. I don't walk around thinking I am fat, no one wants me. Because from past experience and experience yet to come, it isn't true at all. And if you think that way, no one WILL want you. There are days when I wake up feeling bad about my body, usually because of a completely unrelated reason, men don't really look at me. But most days, I feel good about myself and my body, and I walk into a room thinking "if you are lucky enough, you will notice that air I have about me too".

Ok, I am beginning to babble now, so I should go to sleep while I still feel tired enough. Sorry if I offended anyone, I tend to do that when I get on my soapbox... oh well, it's all true. I probably wouldn't have gone on like that, but when you work in a women's department, you get a lot of women that come in and think that they can't look attractive, and there are a lot of designers that make clothing so fucking ugly and boxy that they convince women that this is what they are supposed to wear. There is nothing wrong with curves, or lack thereof, and it is very depressing to watch women walk away with something they bought just to hide in it. People (well except the shallow ones) aren't looking for a certain body to be with, they are looking for confidence. And if you don't have that, you are pretty screwed.

I love my body.
I love my face.
I love my confidence.
I love my strength.
I love my sex appeal.
I love my intelligence.
And above all, I love myself, "flaws" and all.