A Thousand Naked Pictures of Myself

Growing up in a world where women taught each other to disappear

Image by juliasorokina from Pixabay

At the beginning of the year, an old trend resurfaced and social media flooded with side-by-side images of people 10 years ago versus now. Uncharacteristically for me, I considered to hop on this trend. Looking for pictures from 2016 I found a video of me belly dancing in front of a live audience.

Wow. Who was that girl?

One thing for certain: she was gorgeous, fit, and thin.

Shocking, because I distinctly remember that at that time I was upset about my tummy not being flat enough and actively but unsuccessfully trying to lose weight. I was harsh on myself for not sticking to a workout routine or a diet plan. At one point, after gaining weight despite excersizing regularly, I even went to my GP to look for a health issue.

Huh?

Looking at that tummy I don’t know anymore what the concern was. That girl weighed 55 kg and an extra kilo or two should have been a healthy sign, not a pathology. I can’t help feeling angry thinking back to that doctor’s consultation.

I’m having a Moira Rose moment:

“Take a thousand naked pictures of yourself now. You may currently think, ‘Oh, I’m too spooky.’ Or, ‘Nobody wants to see these tiny boobies.’ But, believe me, one day you will look at those photos with much kinder eyes and say, ‘Dear God, I was a beautiful thing!”

Constant search for a flaw in my body started when I was a teenager. The women in my family constantly shared grievances over perceived flaws of their body: boobs too small, thighs too thick, “boxed” butt. To this day, I haven’t figured out what exactly that last one means, but it caused my grandma a great deal of distress on behalf of one of my cousins.

When choosing outfits with my girlfriends, we discussed what to hide and how to correct these flaws by our clothing more often then highlighting what we liked or simply having fun with fashion. Fashion magazines seemed to echo that notion. I still avoid horizontal prints to avoid looking broader as per fashion advise at the time.

Complaining about your body seemed like a rite of passage into womanhood, a way of belonging and fitting into a conversation. When I was looking in the mirror and couldn’t point to something I didn’t like, I felt wrong for admitting it. I had to find something.

Luckily if you don’t find anything others will out for you and share some to your face and even more behind your back. Cue the “boxed” butt.

As a result, I was conscious about my body even if I couldn’t point out exactly what I’m cautious about (do I have a “boxed” butt?). It is likely that the doctor’s consultation about extra kilos was a manifestation of that anxiety.

I also can’t help but notice, that to this point, there was no man involved in the stories I told myself about my buddy. Criticism and objectification came from women in my home and later in my friend circle. Even the said doctor was a woman.

So maybe it was never man propagating toxic beauty standards? Or maybe that’s what internalized misogyny looks like.

As I am writing this, I remember that a male coworker was in that life audience as I danced. I was a PhD candidate in life sciences at the time, working with cell cultures. Apparently he was affected so much he couldn’t bring himself to discuss any professional topics with me for a while after. Joke is on him, because all that time he struggled with a cell culture issue I happen to solve the day of that performance. If only he asked!

Ironically, his confession was one that made me stop dancing, because I decided that dancing in my free time will reflect negatively on my professionalism. That’s why there are no dancing video of me in 2026 to put next to that 2016 version.

I have long since made peace with my body and its changing shape. What I am still unlearning is the idea that my body is somehow at odds with being taken seriously.