“Anger seeped through my very pores the day I was supposedly let down gently over the fact that I wasn’t thin enough, yes, thin enough for the restaurant owner. I only wanted a job on the side, something to pay for my postgraduate studies but I wasn’t hired. I even ignored the fact that everyone, yes everyone on the dining room floor resembled a glam out of work model. Three more job applications later and my self esteem not only plummeted, it deflated and I don’t think that I’m able to inflate it to its former glory, that’s if it was ever inflated to begin with. Haven’t you ever hated being a woman?”
I said something like this to my therapist and it’s the very reason I am having issues with the entire process. It’s a nice idea to get it all out, to dislodge the hardened crap from the past in order to deal with it. But how is that done? I’m fine with body positivity, but the reality is somewhat different. There are snarky retail store assistants, size conscious fashion designers and, wait for it, fussy men.
I’m aware of the fantasy factor, but sex did take a different turn once the porn waltzed in. How is a woman to know if her lover thinks about her or the over-inflated sex doll lookalike in a porn film? A woman’s body is often treated like her sexual passport. Take the below quotes as an example:
A woman is as young as her knees. ~Mary Quant
I use the word “fat.” I use that word because that’s what people are: they’re fat. They’re not bulky; they’re not large, chunky, hefty or plump. And they’re not big-boned. Dinosaurs were big-boned. These people are not overweight: this term somehow implies there is some correct weight. There is no correct weight. Heavy is also a misleading term. An aircraft carrier is heavy; it’s not fat. Only people are fat, and that’s what fat people are! They’re fat! ~George Carlin
While I can laugh at George Carlin’s quote (fashion designers are some of the nastiest, insecure people on this planet), sex is another matter. It doesn’t matte what I weigh or what my measurements are. I can be thin. I can be middle of the road…but I’ll always feel uncomfortable.
“What do you think you can do to work on this?” asked my therapist.
“Aren’t I paying you for advice?” I asked, knowing I’d posed a silly question.
“Short of taking a job as a life model?” I said, with a sarcastic tone.
My therapist leaned forward. “Exactly.”
“What?”
“There is a partial answer.”
“If it pushes me one step closer toward feeling comfortable during sex and getting me out of my slump, I’m in…even though I feel like I need a bucket to relieve my antsy stomach,” I said.
So off I am to enquire about life drawing modelling. I hear it’s the one form of modelling that doesn’t require a lettuce eating stick insect.
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