I don’t blog my random musings much anymore, partly due to busyness and other writing and partly from having burned out on blogging. Today, I’m a little low on spoons and too fatigued to do much else, so I’m putting some thoughts down.
Today, I read two posts which I wanted to process a bit because they stirred some feelings. I’m sure they will for others, so if you find talk about body image, sex negativity, food, and/or dieting triggering, take care of yourself first. If you can’t read this, that’s okay! If you can or those aren’t your triggers, then come hang out with me for a few minutes.
These two articles (7 Myths About Women and Masturbation and 8 Reasons Why I Don’t Want to Hear About Your Diet) were posted to Everyday Feminism this morning, and both gave me some things to chew on. I will start by saying I don’t have a great relationship with my body. We’ve never gotten along all that well. From the time I was little, I knew what body shaming was (even if I didn’t know what to call it). I won’t give you all the details, but for just about the entirety of my school years, I was bullied for the way my body looked in one way or another. This was not only at school; I heard comments from family, too. My body was a source of shame in other ways at home (which, again, I won’t expand on here).
When I became a Christian, I believed I could escape that kind of shame. I wasn’t hiding; I genuinely had faith, and I felt I’d found home, spiritually speaking—this is why I can continue to hold my faith in the tension. Except I didn’t only find solace from my troubles. I also found more shaming. We tend to think purity culture only involves sex, but churches are notorious for pressuring people with regard to food and body image as well. The “deadly sins” (which aren’t even biblical, by the way) include lust and gluttony. Two of the most natural urges the human body has—for food and for sex—became inextricably linked to my loathing for my body. This is not in any way healthy or appropriate, but it’s what so many of us learn.
I can remember being a fairly awkward teenager, doing everything I could to hide my real self. For a long time, I didn’t eat in front of people other than family if I could help it (trips away from home were brutal). I pretended not to have any crushes, and when friends whispered about sex, I feigned having no interest. If I was going to be imperfect, a person who couldn’t actually stop wanting food or sex, then I could at least fake being SuperPure. If I couldn’t be a slim, pretty girly-girl who was just the right balance of sexually appealing but chastely unavailable, then I could be the absolute best at making people think I was extra “holy and blameless.”
Guess what? I was really, really good at that, until I wasn’t, and “fake it til you make it” isn’t a real thing when it comes to the kind of purity I forced on myself. I was never truly that good, no matter how it seemed on the outside. It took me another twenty years to finally begin putting the pieces of myself back together. I’m still not there, but for the sake of my kids, I’m trying. They don’t seem to have the same sense of shame I did, so I hope that means I’m doing something right.
As an author, I’ve chosen to work through some of the shame by way of what I put in my writing. Sometimes people wonder why I write fairly descriptive sex. It’s in part because putting it into a story—writing about lgbtq+ people who are unashamedly sexual with one another in ways that are contrary to the shaming of purity culture—is a way of being transgressive to that culture. It’s a way of blatantly saying, “You don’t own me. You don’t own my body or my mind.”
When I began writing my recent novel, Passing on Faith, in the spring of 2014, I never imagined the story would go where it did. It was supposed to be a lighthearted re-imagining of “Puss in Boots.” Instead, it became one of the most personal things I’ve ever written, and my own anxieties were personified in the main character. It was both terrible and wonderful to finally put a voice to those feelings. Simultaneously, it became part of my own path toward healing.
I have yet to write healing words about health and food and body image, but I have something already outlined for that tender point as well. Too many of us have felt as though we were broken, have lived with soul-crushing shame because of who we are or what we look like. We need to see ourselves on the page too. Our stories are worth being told.
I’m certain I’m not the only one whose family, social, and religious environments collided in a perfect storm. If you, today, are still feeling shame, you’re not alone. Take care of yourself however you can. Create something. Talk to a friend or a professional. Do whatever it takes to break the cycle of shame in yourself and help others break it too.
Much love to you all in your journey.
This is brilliantly written and poignant. The two lists you link to are also very interesting – the whole thing had me nodding and repeatedly saying ‘yes!’
Thank you for sharing part of your story.