Lots Of Body Image Stuff (Sorry It’s Kind Of Long)

The other week, the lovely Nicole wrote a post about “ass issues”. Well I had to make mention of the subject myself because I also have a history of the booty to write about. Growing up, back in the day, I absolutely hated my ass. In fact, I have always been excessively self-conscious about my lower body. Even when I was very young I had what could be referred to as childbearing hips which now, as a woman in my twenties, I’ve come to accept and embrace. But I started getting my hourglass figure before the age of ten and back then I was only aware that my lower body was way bigger than any of my friends’ bodies. I didn’t have the benefit of twenty years of living to know that every body is different and that our curves fit our height/frame/body type naturally. At the time, for me, bigger equaled Fat. I also think I didn’t realize the concept of “developing into a woman” and that for me the boobs and the butt came a little early. In my adolescent mind, all I saw was that I was way bigger than my peers. And of course during this time trading clothes with your friends was the in thing to do; you had to, it established and confirmed the sacred bonds of sisterhood. When we traded clothes I was able to exchange shirts but I was too big to trade bottoms. When you’re young, that can sometimes stick with you and bother you. As I grew older I never had a problem with the ta tas (I actually was pretty proud of my first training bra) but I really hated my butt. I thought it was big and wide and that it stuck out too much. I remember that I hated and feared to be called up to write on the blackboard at school because then everyone would be staring at my “gigantic” ass. It was around this time as a young teen that I started to refuse to wear shorts or skirts and instead tried to camouflage my lower body with dark jeans and pants and hoped that my top half would take the focus off the bottom. To this day, that’s still something that I tend to do. Now here’s the part that makes me laugh but at the same time I say it in all seriousness. The song by Sir-Mix-A lot, “Baby Got Back” actually did me a lot of good. I remember when this song came out it was the first time that I thought that it was possible that boys might like a body shaped like mine. Until that song, I had thought that a big butt was ugly. Then came a song that not only said that a big butt was not ugly but was in fact sexy and desirable. As silly as it seems, that actually meant something to me. I think that today it is probably tougher for young girls to have a healthy body image when you have role models like Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan splashed all over the cover of Teen magazine. But I also like the fact that J. Lo (whatever may be the opinion about her as an actress/singer/dancer/person) is able to be a big time celebrity who is appreciated for her trunk full of junk. Yes she’s a body type that is still difficult to live up to but at least body shapes that aren’t a strict size 0 are getting positive attention. I think that this new appreciation for a larger derriere is something that you can find more examples of today then could be found back in the early 90’s. Now I don’t want to even start to touch how this is just the same old unhealthy focus on women’s bodies dressed up in new clothes. That whether the focus is on freakishly thin or cartoonishly buxom, the larger problem is a deeper issue about the objectification of women and the double standard of society and media’s over-scrutinizing of women’s bodies. (Don’t even get me going on that soapbox) My point is that albeit wrong that there is this huge focus on the female form, I’m glad to see that there is a place somewhere in this world for a woman who has a generous sized badunka dunk dunk. I think it’s funny now that when I exercise I do squats and donkey kicks hoping to develop some seriously nice muscles in the booty. I don’t know when it happened but somewhere in my life I really started liking my rear end and even though I want to lose weight now, I no longer want to lose the butt. I think it’s a bigger reflection on my whole state of mind and approach to my body image. I still talk about fat and fatness (it’s something that’s been with me a long time and I have plenty to say on the subject) but I think that there’s a theme of health and healthiness that’s starting to creep into my mindset. Well, I hope this post makes sense; it’s a little disjointed and doesn’t even begin to cover all the things I could say about having a big booty. I didn’t even get into the problem with buying pants that fit both your butt and waist, a topic that is a whole other post within itself. I really think that to accurately express myself on this topic I would probably need to write an entire book. All I know is that with age comes the blessing of self-acceptance. Thankfully, I have come to the point where I love my curves. I guess to sum it all up, part of growing up is being able to turn around in the mirror to say hooray for the bootay!