A couple of months ago I did an interview with a German television station as a part of my pole dancing studio to support Lulu Browne, a plus size pole dancer who rose to fame after her appearance on America’s Got Talent. The interviewer asked me if I thought I would have the strength and courage to put myself out there if I were in Lulu’s shoes (weight-wise). Though I told the interviewer that I could only hope so, looking back, I realized that I knew my real answer was very different.
Like so many other men and women in this crazy, media-hyped, perfect-body driven world, I suffered (and still do suffer) from serious self-doubt about my body. In a family of dancers, bodybuilders, and gym teachers, I was the brainy, but chubby couch potato. I was not graceful or lithe or flexible or beautiful. I had zits and wore stretch pants and no bra whenever I could get away with it. Things have changed a lot since then—I’ve lost weight and gained muscle mass, my face has cleared up somewhat, and I’ve ditched the stretch pants for fitted shirts (although I still ditch the bra probably too often…). And even though I’m closer than I ever was to our culture’s idea of the “perfect body”, I still have moments of self-loathing and frustration, when my thighs jiggle too much, or my stomach bunches up when I sit.
That’s why I have complicated feelings about this article from Bitch Media (wow is it hard to make that sentence sound serious…) about 
self-image and weight.
Author Tasha Fierce writes: I’m sure we all know a fat girl who feels like crap about her size until she receives some positive sexual attention from someone. Unfortunately, healthy self-esteem is not built on the slippery slope that is random affection from potential partners. If you only feel good about yourself when you’re with a partner to validate your attractiveness, once that partner has moved on (and they most certainly will when they figure out your feelings about yourself are inextricably tied to them), you’re back in the same, leaky, no-self-esteem boat.
She makes a strong point: Feeling good about yourself starts with feeling good about yourself, it doesn’t start when someone else starts feeling good about you. Your self-image should never be built on the approval of another person, no matter how important that person is in your life.
However, the reality may not be so simple. I have done the work, internally, to get myself to a much more stable place with embracing my body. I purposefully do one activity naked every day to feel more comfortable in my skin (plus, clothes suck!). I look at myself in the mirror and find things I like. But some days it’s still a struggle. And moreover, I don’t think I could have ever gotten over that initial hump of disapproval without the help of my first boyfriend, who decided I was sexy enough to desire. His approval gave me the power to love myself, even after he was gone.
My journey has shown me how unfair it is to expect people to self-motivate that journey toward acceptance from the very beginning. It is really hard living in a world where everyone and everything in media, society, culture, even family, is telling you to look a certain way, and you DON’T. The tiniest bit of sexual interest from someone else can “flip that switch” inside that gives you the power to start approving of yourself.
It also reinforces the things you already know about yourself when you lose sight of them. My girlfriend kisses my back and says she loves the graceful arch it carries. She nods approvingly and notes that my legs have strength and definition to them. And she loves my butt (!!), which has always been my greatest insecurity.
Case in point, yes, acceptance of your body should come from within, but there’s a place for others—to push us, to light a fire, to remind us— to bring us closer to that inner sense of balance and bodily love.
Great article, this was a wonderful read as usual! While reading though, I started thinking: self esteem and positive body image are good and important things to be sure, but how do they seem whenever dysphoria or other related issues come into the picture? A lot of body image campaigns and organisations out there emphasize how you should strive to meet your own expectations and ignore society’s, but what would this mean for a good many trans* individuals who want their bodies to match society’s expectations for a certain gender? Or is that even the case at all, and is there a different sort of internal equilibrium that non-cis individuals strive for or feel that they already match? I think that this is an incredibly complex issue, but would love to explore it further/read about others’ explorations. If it would be alright, I would be more than happy to write a guest article on this issue from an agender perspective (which would of course be my own, and certainly not reflect the collective views of our entire community), or even just sit back and see what other views and experiences come from it. Regardless, I enjoyed your article greatly and hope the rest of your day is wonderful!
Ahhh, Alex I would love a guest article from you. Please feel free to email it to me anytime–I’d love to hear what you have to say. I obviously can’t speak from the trans perspective on this at all, but if you know anyone else who’d like to throw in their two-cents, we could make this a series of articles.
Really liked what you said here. So many blogs post about loving ourselves as we are and not worrying about how others view us.
Love your body… Blah blah… It is true we should not need a ton of reassurance from others, but some is very nice.
We all want and need to feel attractive to others to some degree. That need inspires us to do things too. Maybe it is to dress nice, maybe go to the gym, maybe it compels us to shave daily. Who knows?
When we get that appreciation it certainly makes us feel good and it does last.
Maybe it was a year ago… Or two, and the guy or gal was temporary. Maybe they turned out to be a jerk.
Still… They found attraction. Sexiness. Beauty.
That is a good memory.