Earning My Tiger Stripes
Photoshop is a thing. Its use is ubiquitous and pervasive and it's affecting all of our lives more than we realize. Other than your own family pictures, you never see a photo that you know for sure has not been retouched, or radically changed, through the wonders of photo editing software (that is, unless you used one of those handy new apps to smooth out and model-fy your own pictures too - you didn't, did you?)
We never see photos in magazines that have not been altered in some way - never - not even the red carpet or vacation pictures that both the media, magazines and celebrities like to pretend are semi-candid. Everything is altered or adjusted, and the most common changes are the most insidious.
They smooth the skin, removing lines, wrinkles, random hairs, flaws. They make everyone, but especially women, look thinner. There's a lot of ways to do this - skimming the waist, thighs and general silhouette, but also elongating necks, stretching legs, and whittling arms. (To see examples, check out this great Pinterest page)
This is toxic for our society at large - we are starting to expect people to look like the plastic, impossible simulacrums we see in ads, on TV and in magazines.
And then shit like this happens where a woman is openly mocked and derided for daring to appear in public, IN PUBLIC, looking like a real human being who has lived, and aged, and carried five babies in her body. How the ever living hell have we gotten to the point where this happens?
And for every woman who bravely faces down disparaging looks, shitty remarks and sneers, there are 50 more who won't take off their cover up, who won't put on a swim suit, who won't wear shorts in public, because their self esteem can't stand up to the battering from this warped public opinion. This bothers me for my own sake, but even more because I'm raising three girls in this noxious, shitty culture, which tells every woman, even the most beautiful women alive, that they're still not good enough.
I've been wearing this bikini for the past 10 years. I've worn it through four pregnancies - which is why I bought a bikini in the first place, no need for a maternity suit. I had to get different board shorts to wear with it while I was at my most rotund pregnant size (floating around in the blessed weightlessness of a pool like a pasty hippo), but the bikini has been the same; with a halter top that has been both accommodating and flattering as my poor boobs went through a three cup size change, three times.
I am, to my perpetual amazement, the same weight I was when I met my husband. The number on the scale is the only thing that is the same. Four pregnancies took their toll. Age and use have rearranged and altered the details of my body, and gravity works (not just a good idea, it's the law).
I am blindingly white, my skin is looser (when did my mother's elbows appear on my arms? Don't know, but there they are), silvery stretch marks radiate up my belly like lightning burns on sand, broken capillaries punctuate my skin with cheerful red dots, my chest, face, arms and shoulders are mottled with freckles, and scars of all shapes and sizes are carved into my skin. I am gloriously lived in.
I do not look like a model, but then, neither do they. No one actually looks like that.
The problem is, we've all accepted the Photoshop fiction as reality. We actually think that 50 year old celebrities look like they're 14; with perfect, unlined and unmarked skin. In reality, the way they look is the product of great makeup, flattering lighting and digital lies.
We have internalized the advertisers assault on our self esteem - not only that we need to look that perfect, and must buy their products to do so, but that anything less than this unachievable perfection is wrong, bad and ugly. In our current culture, being “ugly” (a broad category according to the wielders of Photoshop) is a cardinal sin and physical beauty is more important than any other virtue. This is sick and wrong.
The first time I had a reckoning about body image was when Athena was a year old and was invited to a classmate's pool party. It was the most depressing party I've ever attended. There were more than 20 moms, all standing uncomfortable and self conscious around a pool. None of them would take off their cover-up to get in the water and swim with their kids. Dads of all shapes and sizes were in the water playing with their children, but all of the moms were on the side of the pool. All of them.
I felt uncomfortable too. It was my first time in a swim suit after having a second child and things were different. I was pale and baggy and feeling down about showing off the loose skin around my middle in front of all of these people. And there was my little chubby Athena straining toward the water, while her big sister Quokka, only three at the time, splashed with their dad.
And I thought, fuck this - If anyone here is offended by the red stretch marks radiating up my stomach and my baggy tummy skin, they can go to hell.
Besides getting over it for my own sake, what was I telling my girls if I sacrificed playing with them in the water for the sake of hiding my less-than-perfect body. They didn't even know what that meant - to a one and three-year-old, a body is a body. It does stuff, and jumps and runs and gets you around, and that's cool.
So I took off my cover up and I played in the water with my little girl who didn't care at all that her knees and elbows were dimpled, that her belly stuck out and that she had creases on her thighs. She didn't care that my tummy bagged when I bent forward to pick her up, or that my stretch marks were still red and purple exclamation points against my pasty skin. Our great, functional bodies played in the water together, and that was fun and cool, and all that really mattered.
(This was also the party that taught me not to play with toddlers in a bikini without having board shorts that tie on - lost my bottoms twice to a kicking foot. Pretty sure that the glimpse of shrubbery distracted everyone from the stretch marks - oops.)
About three months after Badger was born, Quokka walked in to talk to me while I was in the shower (why we ever thought a clear glass shower wall was a good idea is questionable). She stared for a moment, then started musing aloud about what my sad, saggy stomach skin reminded her of.
"Maybe it looks like ham..." she pondered.
Then she gasped, "No! I know what it looks like. That dead bird! You know mom, that dead bird Grandma had in the sink at Thanksgiving. THAT'S what it looks like!"
She was so proud of herself for realizing what my stretched out, emptied, hanging skin resembled that the sharp blow to my self esteem did not even register in her mind. And it was a stab - there are few points lower in a mom's body image than the first six months after having a baby.
Yes, I was proud of what this amazing, kick ass, warrior body had accomplished. I mean holy shit, I grew another human being, nurtured it to life and then managed to push the gargantuan thing out and turn it into a new autonomous person. How cool is that? But that sense of pride can be hard to muster when you're also contemplating damage to torn lady bits, raw nipples from nursing, angry red weals where my skin broke under the strain, and folds of flesh draping over the top elastic of my panties. And coping with all of this in the midst of a hormone shit storm and sleep deprivation that would get a jailer tried by the Geneva Convention for torture.
I barely managed to refrain from weeping about it, or telling her off.
The years and some crunches have fixed some of the issues that inspired the turkey comparison. My stretch marks have faded, the skin did snap back some. But I have damage from growing babies that will never be resolved, like the two-inch-wide gap in my stomach muscles that creeps even me out when I sit up and the split between the tensed abs drops away to a yawning crevasse. It's disturbing, and one of those things that makes you go, ewwww, the human body is NOT supposed to do that.
Another artifact is the loose, draping skin that hangs like bunches of crepe paper garland when I bend forward (you haven't seen sexy until you see me do a downward dog pose during yoga wearing a sports bra and shorts - it's an awesome sight and makes me feel like I'm wearing an Edgar suit in this skin that is stretched to fit a larger person - or two people really)
Yet, I still wear that bikini, pasty skin, red spots, separated abs and all.
The stretch marks are still there too, but now they're silver lines etched on my skin, a ghostly reminder of the babies I sheltered once upon a time.
A little while ago, Quokka walked in on me as I got out of the shower. Three years have passed, and I'm pretty sure she does not even remember the dead bird stomach conversation - though it's engraved in my brain as one of those funny/sad stories we tend to hang on to.
This time her gasp was one of delight, and a little envy. She reached out her smooth little hand, and gently brushed the stretch mark scars tracing my abdomen. "Wow mom - that is so cool! How did you get those silver tiger stripes? I want some! Can I get that when I'm older? I want stripes like a tiger too!"
I beamed at her, "yes sweetie, you'll have some too some day. I didn't buy those tiger stripes; I earned them growing you and your sisters."
My scarred, stretched and battered skin is perfect just as it is, and anyone who doesn't think so can just shut the hell up. These are my epaulets, my badges of honor - I earned these tiger stripes and I'm going to show them off.
We never see photos in magazines that have not been altered in some way - never - not even the red carpet or vacation pictures that both the media, magazines and celebrities like to pretend are semi-candid. Everything is altered or adjusted, and the most common changes are the most insidious.
They smooth the skin, removing lines, wrinkles, random hairs, flaws. They make everyone, but especially women, look thinner. There's a lot of ways to do this - skimming the waist, thighs and general silhouette, but also elongating necks, stretching legs, and whittling arms. (To see examples, check out this great Pinterest page)
This is toxic for our society at large - we are starting to expect people to look like the plastic, impossible simulacrums we see in ads, on TV and in magazines.
And then shit like this happens where a woman is openly mocked and derided for daring to appear in public, IN PUBLIC, looking like a real human being who has lived, and aged, and carried five babies in her body. How the ever living hell have we gotten to the point where this happens?
And for every woman who bravely faces down disparaging looks, shitty remarks and sneers, there are 50 more who won't take off their cover up, who won't put on a swim suit, who won't wear shorts in public, because their self esteem can't stand up to the battering from this warped public opinion. This bothers me for my own sake, but even more because I'm raising three girls in this noxious, shitty culture, which tells every woman, even the most beautiful women alive, that they're still not good enough.
Pull On Your Combat Boots and Take Off That Sarong
So, I wear a bikini. Defiantly, aggressively, confidently, I wear a bikini. |
| The bikini in action |
I am, to my perpetual amazement, the same weight I was when I met my husband. The number on the scale is the only thing that is the same. Four pregnancies took their toll. Age and use have rearranged and altered the details of my body, and gravity works (not just a good idea, it's the law).
I am blindingly white, my skin is looser (when did my mother's elbows appear on my arms? Don't know, but there they are), silvery stretch marks radiate up my belly like lightning burns on sand, broken capillaries punctuate my skin with cheerful red dots, my chest, face, arms and shoulders are mottled with freckles, and scars of all shapes and sizes are carved into my skin. I am gloriously lived in.
I do not look like a model, but then, neither do they. No one actually looks like that.
The problem is, we've all accepted the Photoshop fiction as reality. We actually think that 50 year old celebrities look like they're 14; with perfect, unlined and unmarked skin. In reality, the way they look is the product of great makeup, flattering lighting and digital lies.
We have internalized the advertisers assault on our self esteem - not only that we need to look that perfect, and must buy their products to do so, but that anything less than this unachievable perfection is wrong, bad and ugly. In our current culture, being “ugly” (a broad category according to the wielders of Photoshop) is a cardinal sin and physical beauty is more important than any other virtue. This is sick and wrong.
The first time I had a reckoning about body image was when Athena was a year old and was invited to a classmate's pool party. It was the most depressing party I've ever attended. There were more than 20 moms, all standing uncomfortable and self conscious around a pool. None of them would take off their cover-up to get in the water and swim with their kids. Dads of all shapes and sizes were in the water playing with their children, but all of the moms were on the side of the pool. All of them.
I felt uncomfortable too. It was my first time in a swim suit after having a second child and things were different. I was pale and baggy and feeling down about showing off the loose skin around my middle in front of all of these people. And there was my little chubby Athena straining toward the water, while her big sister Quokka, only three at the time, splashed with their dad.
And I thought, fuck this - If anyone here is offended by the red stretch marks radiating up my stomach and my baggy tummy skin, they can go to hell.
Besides getting over it for my own sake, what was I telling my girls if I sacrificed playing with them in the water for the sake of hiding my less-than-perfect body. They didn't even know what that meant - to a one and three-year-old, a body is a body. It does stuff, and jumps and runs and gets you around, and that's cool.
 |
| That's number three in there - one and two are playing in the waves |
(This was also the party that taught me not to play with toddlers in a bikini without having board shorts that tie on - lost my bottoms twice to a kicking foot. Pretty sure that the glimpse of shrubbery distracted everyone from the stretch marks - oops.)
Gravity Works
I've continued on bikini wearing, through two more pregnancies and weight shifts of more than 45 pounds. After my last pregnancy, things were really different - I was older for one thing, and for another, the more you stretch that skin out, the stranger things get.About three months after Badger was born, Quokka walked in to talk to me while I was in the shower (why we ever thought a clear glass shower wall was a good idea is questionable). She stared for a moment, then started musing aloud about what my sad, saggy stomach skin reminded her of.
"Maybe it looks like ham..." she pondered.
Then she gasped, "No! I know what it looks like. That dead bird! You know mom, that dead bird Grandma had in the sink at Thanksgiving. THAT'S what it looks like!"
She was so proud of herself for realizing what my stretched out, emptied, hanging skin resembled that the sharp blow to my self esteem did not even register in her mind. And it was a stab - there are few points lower in a mom's body image than the first six months after having a baby.
Yes, I was proud of what this amazing, kick ass, warrior body had accomplished. I mean holy shit, I grew another human being, nurtured it to life and then managed to push the gargantuan thing out and turn it into a new autonomous person. How cool is that? But that sense of pride can be hard to muster when you're also contemplating damage to torn lady bits, raw nipples from nursing, angry red weals where my skin broke under the strain, and folds of flesh draping over the top elastic of my panties. And coping with all of this in the midst of a hormone shit storm and sleep deprivation that would get a jailer tried by the Geneva Convention for torture.
I barely managed to refrain from weeping about it, or telling her off.
The years and some crunches have fixed some of the issues that inspired the turkey comparison. My stretch marks have faded, the skin did snap back some. But I have damage from growing babies that will never be resolved, like the two-inch-wide gap in my stomach muscles that creeps even me out when I sit up and the split between the tensed abs drops away to a yawning crevasse. It's disturbing, and one of those things that makes you go, ewwww, the human body is NOT supposed to do that.
Another artifact is the loose, draping skin that hangs like bunches of crepe paper garland when I bend forward (you haven't seen sexy until you see me do a downward dog pose during yoga wearing a sports bra and shorts - it's an awesome sight and makes me feel like I'm wearing an Edgar suit in this skin that is stretched to fit a larger person - or two people really)
Yet, I still wear that bikini, pasty skin, red spots, separated abs and all.
The stretch marks are still there too, but now they're silver lines etched on my skin, a ghostly reminder of the babies I sheltered once upon a time.
A little while ago, Quokka walked in on me as I got out of the shower. Three years have passed, and I'm pretty sure she does not even remember the dead bird stomach conversation - though it's engraved in my brain as one of those funny/sad stories we tend to hang on to.
 |
| Playing on the beach with my girls - appreciating our useful, fun bodies |
This time her gasp was one of delight, and a little envy. She reached out her smooth little hand, and gently brushed the stretch mark scars tracing my abdomen. "Wow mom - that is so cool! How did you get those silver tiger stripes? I want some! Can I get that when I'm older? I want stripes like a tiger too!"
I beamed at her, "yes sweetie, you'll have some too some day. I didn't buy those tiger stripes; I earned them growing you and your sisters."
My scarred, stretched and battered skin is perfect just as it is, and anyone who doesn't think so can just shut the hell up. These are my epaulets, my badges of honor - I earned these tiger stripes and I'm going to show them off.
