Cathedral of the Body
Aug. 9th, 2002 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrigirlI have an idea of what I want to write about. And I know how I would like to say it. I know how to state my thesis and back it up with evidence. Last night while I was turning in bed and reflecting on my body I thought "I need to remember this, it will make a fabulous entry." As if my thoughts are to be used solely to entertain others.
But now that I sit down to write this entry whose title and content I've been planning all day, I don't know where to go or how to start. I begin to write one thing and my command of words falters. And I move to fast, providing the reader no tension or build up. A writer's worst nightmare is being forced to write crap.
I want to write about my body.
Last night I realized that I'm more hung up on the way I look now than I've ever been in my entire life. I guess growing up I was lucky in that sense. I may have hated my personality, my fashion sense, my intellectual ability, but I was perfectly accepting of my body. I grew up believing the positive articles in fashion magazines that told women to accept their bodies as is, that there was nothing wrong with being chubby (which I was), and not all women were built to be a size six. I knew I wasn't. I'd never been skinny. Even as a kid I was heavier then most of the other children my age. So it was through JHS and HS. It didn't bother me and it didn't seem to bother any one else. Even as I fell into my sexual experimentation phase I was never afraid of getting naked in front of a trusted lover.
But then senior year of high school I guess all that Tae Kwon Do caught up with me because I dropped 30 pounds, 30 pounds that I'd had for the past four years as my weight had plateaued at 155, and I nosed dived down to an incredible 125 pounds, a weight I hadn't been able to obtain since I was 11.
And of course it was with this drop that I discovered I actually have a small body frame more suited to weights in the low hundreds rather then destined to be big forever frame I had been convinced I had.
And all was well until this year. All was well while I was still slipping my ass into size 5 jeans. But then when the overeating began, the 6 mile walks stopped, and the depression sank in, I gained back the 30 pounds I'd live happily without for four years. And now I knew that I was SUPPOSED t be a size 5 not a size 12. I had been privy to the experience of wearing mid drift tops without fear. I knew what it was like to be THIN and all the pleasures that accompany it. Always being able to find clothes in your size, the blessing of looking good in almost everything you try on, being able to wear the trendy styles meant only for the young and waiflike. Having tasted this sweetness, ballooning back up to a size 12 was extraordinarily upsetting.
Now for the first time ever I am looking into my mirror and thinking "fat." Now for the first time in my life I am considering the use of going on a diet, of exercising not for pleasure, but as a means to an end. All of which is so very depressing it paralyzes me and prevents me from starting on the "health" IE WEIGHT regimen I keep saying I'm gonna begin.
I don't think I really realized how uncomfortable I've grown with my body until that day Kirk and I were messing around. I was just so afraid to take my shirt off. While he held me and touched me I thought of how huge my thighs were, of the rolls his hands were wandering over, of all my softness and pudginess. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to touch me. I was scared with every touch he was gonna discover something he would find repulsive and he'd find a quick excuse to leave.
Like I said I have NEVER had problems taking my clothes off for people. By the same token I didn't become sexually active until I dropped all the weight. (Coincidence? I think not.) So I'd never taken my clothes off in front of a stranger when I was 155.
Now this self-image problem is invading both my sexual and romantic life. I think this negative image is contributing in no small part to my lack of desire at the moment. I mean, lets face it I'm a fast girl. The fact that I have known Kirk this long and haven't slept with him yet, and furthermore feel no genuine desire to, is indicative of something. I feel so repulsed by my own body it's like I have no desire to use it.
While I still find myself being turned on by the sweet things Kirk and I do like cuddling, I can't move beyond it. Like last night he held my hand for the first time and just that simple action made my crotch feel like it was going to explode! Ditto the time we kissed.
I never get the gentle stuff. I don't get cuddles, or kisses, or handholding. I'm used to... more base physical interactions between the sexes. The gentle stuff that is more a sign of caring touches me on a deeper emotional level. Even so, I feel no desire to expand that feeling into physicality and this bothers me a bit. I feel like I want the emotional stuff without the physical stuff and something inside me thins that’s a little cheap. Like I want pleasure on a purely superficial level without the threat of it penetrating any deeper into my psyche.
Because with the heightened sense of self-consciousness, has come a suspicion that I need to keep my defenses up, stay on guard, keep anyone from harming this fragile distorted little body of mine.
I haven’t felt like that since I was 14. I swear I think I’m regressing. It’s like I’m a pre teen to whom sex and the body is still uncharted territory. I’m terrified to venture into it for what I might find there. And at the same time I feel obligated to do some exploring. But with the knowledge of a girl who has been around the block a couple times if you know what I mean, I’m certain that this trip, that I’ve made time after time will yield no new or pleasurable discoveries. I’ll just come back big and ugly and rejected like I’ve been all my life.
But now that I sit down to write this entry whose title and content I've been planning all day, I don't know where to go or how to start. I begin to write one thing and my command of words falters. And I move to fast, providing the reader no tension or build up. A writer's worst nightmare is being forced to write crap.
I want to write about my body.
Last night I realized that I'm more hung up on the way I look now than I've ever been in my entire life. I guess growing up I was lucky in that sense. I may have hated my personality, my fashion sense, my intellectual ability, but I was perfectly accepting of my body. I grew up believing the positive articles in fashion magazines that told women to accept their bodies as is, that there was nothing wrong with being chubby (which I was), and not all women were built to be a size six. I knew I wasn't. I'd never been skinny. Even as a kid I was heavier then most of the other children my age. So it was through JHS and HS. It didn't bother me and it didn't seem to bother any one else. Even as I fell into my sexual experimentation phase I was never afraid of getting naked in front of a trusted lover.
But then senior year of high school I guess all that Tae Kwon Do caught up with me because I dropped 30 pounds, 30 pounds that I'd had for the past four years as my weight had plateaued at 155, and I nosed dived down to an incredible 125 pounds, a weight I hadn't been able to obtain since I was 11.
And of course it was with this drop that I discovered I actually have a small body frame more suited to weights in the low hundreds rather then destined to be big forever frame I had been convinced I had.
And all was well until this year. All was well while I was still slipping my ass into size 5 jeans. But then when the overeating began, the 6 mile walks stopped, and the depression sank in, I gained back the 30 pounds I'd live happily without for four years. And now I knew that I was SUPPOSED t be a size 5 not a size 12. I had been privy to the experience of wearing mid drift tops without fear. I knew what it was like to be THIN and all the pleasures that accompany it. Always being able to find clothes in your size, the blessing of looking good in almost everything you try on, being able to wear the trendy styles meant only for the young and waiflike. Having tasted this sweetness, ballooning back up to a size 12 was extraordinarily upsetting.
Now for the first time ever I am looking into my mirror and thinking "fat." Now for the first time in my life I am considering the use of going on a diet, of exercising not for pleasure, but as a means to an end. All of which is so very depressing it paralyzes me and prevents me from starting on the "health" IE WEIGHT regimen I keep saying I'm gonna begin.
I don't think I really realized how uncomfortable I've grown with my body until that day Kirk and I were messing around. I was just so afraid to take my shirt off. While he held me and touched me I thought of how huge my thighs were, of the rolls his hands were wandering over, of all my softness and pudginess. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to touch me. I was scared with every touch he was gonna discover something he would find repulsive and he'd find a quick excuse to leave.
Like I said I have NEVER had problems taking my clothes off for people. By the same token I didn't become sexually active until I dropped all the weight. (Coincidence? I think not.) So I'd never taken my clothes off in front of a stranger when I was 155.
Now this self-image problem is invading both my sexual and romantic life. I think this negative image is contributing in no small part to my lack of desire at the moment. I mean, lets face it I'm a fast girl. The fact that I have known Kirk this long and haven't slept with him yet, and furthermore feel no genuine desire to, is indicative of something. I feel so repulsed by my own body it's like I have no desire to use it.
While I still find myself being turned on by the sweet things Kirk and I do like cuddling, I can't move beyond it. Like last night he held my hand for the first time and just that simple action made my crotch feel like it was going to explode! Ditto the time we kissed.
I never get the gentle stuff. I don't get cuddles, or kisses, or handholding. I'm used to... more base physical interactions between the sexes. The gentle stuff that is more a sign of caring touches me on a deeper emotional level. Even so, I feel no desire to expand that feeling into physicality and this bothers me a bit. I feel like I want the emotional stuff without the physical stuff and something inside me thins that’s a little cheap. Like I want pleasure on a purely superficial level without the threat of it penetrating any deeper into my psyche.
Because with the heightened sense of self-consciousness, has come a suspicion that I need to keep my defenses up, stay on guard, keep anyone from harming this fragile distorted little body of mine.
I haven’t felt like that since I was 14. I swear I think I’m regressing. It’s like I’m a pre teen to whom sex and the body is still uncharted territory. I’m terrified to venture into it for what I might find there. And at the same time I feel obligated to do some exploring. But with the knowledge of a girl who has been around the block a couple times if you know what I mean, I’m certain that this trip, that I’ve made time after time will yield no new or pleasurable discoveries. I’ll just come back big and ugly and rejected like I’ve been all my life.
