I feel like I could write a whole blog on rude comments people make about my body. I get a lot of comments about my body from people and most of them are rude. Of course it would be difficult for someone to comment on my body without being rude, because turning someone's physical appearance into a topic of discussion is as disrespectful as is chatting publicly about their psychological condition or medical history (How's that depression coming along, Mike? Any news on your heart murmur?). It's worse, in fact, because those at least may be expressions of concern or a poorly contrived attempt to offer advice. Making unsolicited comments about people's bodies is simply objectifying.
I recently had a conversation with a lovely woman that I've had with many lovely women many times after not seeing them for a while. It goes like this:
Them: Hi, how have you been?
Me: I've been well. I recently made a siyum on masechet brachot. How are you?
Them: Oh, I'm good. Have you lost weight? You look great!
Me: No, I haven't.
Them: Are you sure? But you look so good!
Me: I've actually gained ten pounds.
Them: ...... But, you look good.
Let's get one thing straight: I'm definitely overweight. My BMI is a few points higher than it should be, and I'm about fifty pounds heavier than my ideal weight. However, I'm very well proportioned and I dress neatly. If you look at me, it's no secret how much I weigh, but I don't look fat, and I do happen to be gorgeous. The truth of the matter though, is that this doesn't matter. The question would be as rude even if I were thin or had really lost weight.
Imagine that the question were turned on its head: "Have you gained weight? You look pretty fat!" Or if it were the same question, but had been directed toward some other aspect of my figure: "Have you had a reduction surgery? Your boobs look so small!"
Would any person with even the most minute perception of social conduct consider that question to be anything less than offensive? Especially in a society that so shamelessly touts the value of modesty.
It'd be one thing if they just told me I look good, but they must attribute it to the assumption that I'm thinner than I was last time I saw them. Is it so hard to believe that a fat girl can be beautiful? Or that a beautiful girl can be fat? Apparently so, because it violates our paradigm of beauty as blond, thin, white, short and petite, which is a strange paradigm to have considering how remarkably uncommon, not to mention unfertile, it is.
What this greeting tells me first is that any actual accomplishments I may have are negligible in significance compared to my attractiveness, and second that my good looks are actually contrary to my physical appearance. I shouldn't look good. I don't deserve to look good. But I'm lucky that I do.
Actually I'm not lucky. I look good, because I look good, fat and all. Having a wide build and fat deposits in the hips actually make a woman more capable of bearing children, and thus more desirable as a sexual partner. It's the evolutionary definition of sexy. A woman who is too thin or too petite can't bear children. Naturally, they may be able to bear one, but it would kill them. The original Caesarian section birth involved slitting open the abdomen of a woman whose hips were not broad enough to release her child. Until recently, having one's gut slashed apart generally meant the person died. Having multiple children by C-section is a medical miracle of the modern age. It has enabled us to spread a trait that is undesirable inasmuch as it is ineffective and deadly. The obsession with small waists, flat bellies and thigh gaps is simply destructive toward the propagation of a healthy human race, and from an evolutionary standpoint is a hideous deformity. Add to all this, if you please, our psychotic fettish with airbrushed, photoshopped female skin and glistening hair.
Here are some facts:
Women have body hair. You don't like it? Men, try shaving your crotch, see how comfortable that is.
Women have fat deposits that enable them to bear and care for children. This is sexy. Some of these deposits include hips, waist, thighs, breasts and upper arms.
Women's skin tone is not uniform. Women are as susceptible as are men to topical infections and chronic skin conditions or discoloration.
Women are not smooth. As stated above we have hair, and our skin is also made out of dead cells. These can be rough. They often cover fat deposits making the skin appear lumpy. This is known as cellulite.
Women get stretch marks. Giving birth stretches our skin out. Really quickly. So does developing a figure. Young women who have never given birth can have stretch marks too.
Women get scars too. Our skin does not magically regenerate itself.
Women have many kinds of hair. It can come in a wide array of colors, can be anywhere on a range from straight to curly and kinky, and it can be cut to any length and style a woman prefers, just like men's hair. It's almost like we're human!
Women get bags under their eyes. We have no more excess time than men do, and we frequently have less. Spending ten minutes every morning covering up the offensive blemish of a busy and productive life is a shameful practice, and even more shameful as an expectation.
Women do not have perfect complexions. We have networks of tissue under our skin that directs blood, lymph and other fluids throughout our bodies. The particular arrangement of these networks, and the color and thickness of our skin will determine where our skin appears more red. Color will not always appear as a smooth blush. It will often be patchy, splotchy or bright. Sometimes it won't appear much.
Women also get varicose veins.
Women's nails grow from the nail bed out. They do not come manicured. They do not come colored. They may bear white spots. They are not shiny or smooth.
Women may have short nail beds. This makes their nails appear stubby. It can also make their fingers appear stubby, which they sometimes are. Women can have stubby fingers.
Women have facial hair. Just like the rest of our bodies, hair grows on our faces as well. Women can have thick eyebrows, hair between their eyebrows, hair on their noses, cheeks, upper lip and chin. Some women have sideburns. This is normal.
Women get fat and develop many blemished after childbirth. Almost no woman has the same body before and after bearing children. It is stressful and will cause changes.
If you aren't aware of these obvious facts you're living a different world from the rest of humanity. If you refuse to become aware of them, then you have no place in the real world.
What really amazes me is how many women seem to be unaware of the reality of their own bodies. Many women and girls burden under the impression that all women look just like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is a very beautiful girl, but she's also one out of three and a half billion currently alive on the planet. Not all of them look like her. Not even all of the healthy or beautiful ones look like her. I have seen many healthy and beautiful women complain of their lack of health and beauty because the blond, thin, white, short and petite model fails to encompass their bodies. This trend has been directly linked to a public health crisis marked by psycological trauma as well as eating disorders that lead to anorexia and obesity among women. This sometimes becomes a cause of death in women spanning any age, beginning in childhood.
Another unhealthy product of this model is that is produces a population that is sexually unsatisfied. It has been found time and time again that more religious groups of people tend to have stronger family lives, have sex more often, and are more satisfied with their sexual relationships. This is no surprise, since religious groups tend to value modesty and discourage pornography producing a male population without obscenely perverted expectations. They also tend to place a stronger value on people's personal and spiritual accomplishments. I'll speak of the religious world with which I'm most familiar: the yeshivish world. Marriages are made based on people's mutually shared values and respect for each other's life decisions and goals, not the size of anyone's ass. A typical man and woman marry, and they have no previous sexual experience or exposure to anything that would have imposed a false standard of sexual pleasure on them. They sometimes have never heard of sex before. They do not become traumatized. They figure it out. They enjoy it. And the model of sexual contentment according to which they judge their relationship is their own relationship. When I was in Israel for my post high-school gap year, I met a sex therapist who worked within the Orthodox community. She mentioned in conversation that the more religious her clients were, the more sexually healthy they tended to be. I don't know how limited the range of her clientele's religious affiliation is, but that stuck with me, because I don't think it's a coincidence.
