I am completely and utterly beautiful, body wise.

[Reality]

I was going to have this as an AIBU but then I thought, nah, you lot will get it. I hope so, anyway.

I got out of the shower and was standing in my bedroom in bra and pants, putting the washing away. I caught sight of myself in the mirror and literally thought 'fuckeroo'.

I'm 33 and have had three children, and my body shows all the signs of that. I have a huge skintag, some ill thought out tattoos and lots of scars and stretchmarks. Just so you know I'm not talking about some magazine standard of beautiful

But honestly, I had a bit of a moment. It's a beautiful thing. I've grown three whole people in it, for a start, but it's more than that, it's my body and my skin and I live in it and it's amazing. I've probably abused it more than the average person with hard living and self harm, but it's kept me safe and healthy. And it looks FABULOUS. I was all glowy and scrubbed from the shower, and I was just blown away by how gorgeous and amazing my body is.

Anyway, the moment was fairly fleeting, and it was broken by DD warbling and DS1 telling her to shut up, usual morning service was resumed. But I wanted to share it in a sisterhood kind of way, and urge you all to find those moments.

Happy monday!

Oh Pumpkin, I'm sorry if this upset you, tbat wasnt my intention at all.

Im not exactly there yet with waltzing round naked like a toddler, to be fair. It was a moment of positive reflection though. I hope you can find some for yourself, your body is beautiful and amazing too.

this is a lovely thread.

am a bit cross with mine at the mo but this has helped me regain perspective

Pumpkin, I'm certainly not body-confident, nor do I love my body as it is all of the time. But I have moments. Moments when I am at peace with my body, my appearance, how it feels from within. And at peace with the difference between how it feels from within and how it looks from outside. Sometimes even moments of happiness and love.

But that's what they are, moments. Plenty of times when I hide from view, too.

Find one tiny goodness and celebrate it. Just think...there are some little people who adore you and know that you are beautiful, soft, strong, sweet-smelling. That the feel of your skin against theirs is probably the most comforting, loving thing they know.

Oh Pumpkin, I'm sorry if this upset you, tbat wasnt my intention at all.

reality please don't think you have upset me, I genuinely meant it that I think it is lovely people can look at themselves and be content or even pleased. It just seemed ironic as I nearly posted the exact opposite. It's not this thread that makes me sad just been down on myself looks quite a lot lately

I do hope one day to have that but there is always an "if"

If I lose weight, if I lose the stretch marks, if if if.

Anyway sorry for making this about me!

Thanks for this thread. I'm working on accepting my body exactly as it is, flaws and all, and this will help me.

I had my first ever moment of this a few months ago. I was lying down and relaxed for the first time in a loooooong time and the thought just popped into my head "I love my body". And I can't ever remember thinking that before.

But I do, I love my body. It works hard for me.

Penguins its not about wearing battle-scars proudly or finding other things to be happy about. While that 'thought-space' would work for anyone it probably has a valid basis for perhaps 25 percent of women at worst, for the vast bulk it should be about coming to a self realisation your not even half as badly scared in the eyes of others as you are in your own. Its coming to understand that the balance of probability is you are your own worst critic, no 'dictated by outside forces' needed as TheBookofRuth wrote, just you in your own imperfect gaze of yourself.

Penguins, women like PumpkinGuts who will not walk past their husbands naked, others who make sure the lights are off at night before they undress, some uncomfortable to sleep naked next to their lovers, they are unlikely to be able to get past all that by being distracted or comforted/empowered by ideas that 'my body is a ruin but I glory in the children I brought forth from it'. Nobody deserves to lose sexiness to motherhood. Some do, but most think they have lost something they have simply lost sight of.

My wife went through a stage where she did not want to be seen naked by me, and it took me a while to cotton on it was happening. It left me utterly stunned she could come to think about herself that way. Having birthed and breast fed our kids, over 40 and very much into plus size territory she had arrived at a point where she had come to doubt her own desirability.

Worst part as her husband my opinions of her sexiness meant very little to her. I was in a version of the 'trolls dilemma' (two people compliment a woman on her beauty using the same words, one a handsome younger man and the other an ugly old troll. The woman is very flattered by the compliments of the younger man but not by the same compliments from the old troll). In other words people value and appreciate others opinions only when they extend authority to them that their opinion has worth in the context they offer it. In my case my opinion that she was hot and sexy had no broad basis for her, because although she believed that was how I genuinely felt she dismissed it as being an abstracted thing that sprang from my love for her.

It frustrated the hell out of me because I am more than capable of telling the difference between a woman I would make love to because I loved her and a woman I (and I know other men) would want to f from sunset to sunrise because she oozed sexiness.

Dadwashere- I am afraid you have totally misunderstood my point. Where did I say women should 'glory in ruin' or wear battle scars proudly? What did you base your 25% on by the way?

What I was saying is that, for most women, part of coming to terms with their body is likely to be a process which is wider than simply 'learning to see themselves as beautiful' or 'learning to love their body'.

This was the opinion of the director of an eating disorder charity. What she was saying that, in her opinion, whilst there was some value in women learning to see the beauty in their bodies, truly moving past these types of issues often requires something deeper:

• learning to see your body as more than the aesthetics. Learning to put the appearance of your body in the context of your body; and

• learning to put your body in the context of your life as a whole. so that the importance of your body has proper perspective. She talked about how body issues could expand to fill most of your self perspective and it was very hard to reduce that, but what you could do is grow the other areas until body image got pushed back into a more manageable chunk.

"There were a few things that stood out for me. The first was what you were talking about on this thread. Thinking about your body for what it can do, not just how it looks. Not analysing it as a piece of meat with good bits and bad bits. But thinking, as people on this thread have said "This body can birth children. This body is meet the physical demands of looking after young children. This body gives my husband a hug after a long day....""

That's a good way of looking at it.

I know I find it actually makes it harder for me right now though, as my body is currently disabled, so it's hard to focus on what it can do rather than what it can't.

I look in the mirror now and see a body that not only doesn't work like it should, but that also doesn't look how it should (by society's terms).

MurderofBanshees - I'm sorry for your trouble, it must be extra difficult to deal with ridiculous society norms without being able bodied too.

for you.

But you are witty, intelligent and kind from what i have read on here, promise I'm not a stalker

That is worth so much more than a "smoking hot body"

Murder - Sorry to hear about your ill health. I think you mentioned it on another thread I was on with you and the conversation sort of moved on before I commented. It sounds really difficult and I really feel for you.

I think what I would say about your point (recognising that I am by no means an expert and am no longer summarising one!) is that, logically, it makes sense to be angry at your body for what it cannot do. To take the example of a friend, it makes total sense that she is angry at her body that her arthritis means she sometimes can't pick up her baby when he cries. I would be angry. It's unfair and it's random and it would take a very zen type of person not to feel anger at their body for letting them down in that way.

What makes no sense at all is that societal influence then means that we beat the same body up for having thighs that don't look good in skinny jeans, hair that frizzes in the rain and a wobbly bottom. It's an additional layer of pain that should't exist.

And although it is wonderful, utterly wonderful, to have those moments when you catch sight of yourself and think "damn I look gooood", as most people have said those moments tend to be fleeting. Because even Cindy Crawford doesn't look like Cindy Crawford (she was the one who said that wasn't she?). And seeking external validation (by seeing that others see you as attractive or sexy) is unlikely to lead to long term balance. As Dadwashere pointed out, you find reasons to doubt that person's opinion. Or you get older, or fatter, or whatever, and realise that that hot bloke actually now probably wouldn't fancy you based on societal standards and your self esteem plummets again. I really think that there was a lot of sense in what was said at this talk - that we need to try to consciously move to place where the aesthetics of our body become a smaller part of our whole.

"It's an additional layer of pain that should't exist."

Absolutely. And in a weird way you notice that actually society places more worth on your body if it looks right over if it works right. So if I were slim/sexy/toned but still disabled, that'd be ok. But if I were able bodied but overweight/flabby/scarred that wouldn't.

Priorities are all wrong.

Oh, wow, what a FABULOUS thread!

My body's managed to look all saggy & collapsey without having children. It never did work properly, and certainly doesn't at the moment. I am 'comfortable' with it, though I still have to catch myself putting me down a dozen times a day. You've made me think. There has only ever been ONE day when I actually found my body completely and utterly beautiful. I had been working out, two hours a day, seven days a week, for two or three years. I took myself so much by surprise, I went back & looked in the mirror again, thinking "Goodness me! That's me!"

I can treat myself better than this. Affirmations do work, and I'm starting some NOW, for this :) Thanks, Reality!

Penguins what you talk about makes perfect sense, its quite accurate and I understand the points. Whatever works in restoring positivity is a good thing, and restoring the body to its proper place as being a part of a whole person rather than the definition of the person is a huge step and a vital one that must be realised as we age.

Though in terms of body image alone I have seen it expressed time and again by women that they wish they had the body image confidence of their male partner. Of course, like almost anything, its a range of behaviours that overlap gender boundaries but IMO men do not so much possess body confidence as they posses a positive perceptual filter. Many men look in the mirror and see something better and many women look in the mirror and see something worse. (As an unrelated aside I know that over several decades in the western world the broad body positive image men have for themselves has been steadily eroding.)

But baseline body self image for women seems to be quite skewed. Some in feminism would seem to put that down to women being/choosing to be oppressed by social expectations of unobtainable levels of beauty. I am not wholly convinced. While I recognise its a contributor I don’t think it addresses the problem in totality. As you wrote, 'Cindy Crawford doesn't look like Cindy Crawford (to Cindy Crawford)'.

Its great to reclaim body positivity by taking a different look at yourself in a different light but why should a woman have to go as deep as coming to terms with the perceived flaws of her body when it seems (to me anyway) often more about the validity of her perception itself? If a 35 year old woman thinks she has ended up with the breasts of a 65 year old after raising her child she will have to come to terms with that view of herself, one way or another. That may mean she 'accepts herself' or it may mean she comes to realise she drastically underrated herself. I think the later is a preferable way to think to the former and I think its also more commonly accurate, women seem to focus on overstating their perceived physical flaws to themselves far more commonly than men.

As an unrelated aside I know that over several decades in the western world the broad body positive image men have for themselves has been steadily eroding.

I don't think it's unrelated at all. Since the mid-nineties, men have been subjected to an increasing amount of the same undermining media messages that have been assaulting women's self-confidence & self-perceptions since the 1920s (approx.) I know it started in the mid-nineties because I worked on the first UK campaign deliberately launched to produce this effect

It's not as bad - yet - for men as for women, and we had a three-generation head start on being fucked up like this. I agree that self-love is a great improvement on self-acceptance and, as I posted, I am working on that from today!

I once lived in a country famed for the beauty of its people. On arrival, I felt overwhelmed - and grotesquely ugly by comparison. Over time, I realised that what makes these people beautiful is their confidence and self-love. They constantly tell all their children, boys and girls, that they're amazingly beautiful. As adults, they continue to tell one another. I watched & learned, and got it for myself. (Interestingly, I lost weight as soon as I'd stopped finding myself fat. Go figure ) I'm quite shocked to realise how thoroughly I've been re-britished! For me, this stops NOW!

The Cindy Crawford thing isn't about self perception actually. She means it literally:

"I always say even I don't wake up looking like Cindy Crawford! What people see on magazine covers is one moment that was perfect — the wind, the light, the hair, the makeup. That's a two-hour process. " (quoted on Redbook.com)

She's not saying she doesn't look like Cindy Crawford to herself. She's saying that the Cindy Crawford you see in magazines is an illusion.

Also, just to be clear, nowhere in any of my posts have I talked about this as a process of coming to terms with your own flaws. You seem to have extrapolated that from my reference to seeing your body for what it can do , where one of the things I referenced was bearing children. I also referenced giving someone a hug after a bad day, if that example resonates more without the connotations of 'ruin'.

I think that the point about self perception is a good one. Except that you have to go the extra mile and ask why men have that filter. I think in large part it is because men have not been taught to look in the mirror and take their body apart piece by piece. They don't examine (on the whole, and recognising that society is sadly shifting this way even for men) the thighs, the stomach, the arms, the hairline, the jaw..... They are much more likely to take a look at themselves overall and reach an assessment. Which is far more likely to be an accurate representation of what others see.

As to why men overestimate attractiveness. I suspect that this has a lot to do with social conditioning generally. Men are encouraged to be confident (female equivalent - boastful, pushy), men are encouraged to be ambitious (female equivalent - grabby, pushy), etc. It would be odd if that didn't translate into areas like self image too.

Yes, I agree, it would be a great step forward if women could realise how much they under rate themselves. But what if an accurate assessment simply is that you aren't that attractive? What if an accurate assessment is that, due to disability or illness, your body is letting you down? I think that self-love (in the non-masturbatory sense for the purposes of this discussion!) is a great thing. But I also think that women need to learn to put it all back in perspective. That's what I personally am working on at the moment.

Thank you, Reality.

what if an accurate assessment simply is that you aren't that attractive?

What if "attractive" were a subjective quality?

... wait a minute, it is, isn't it?

What would you think of a parent who says their child is ugly (or unattractive)? Most would agree this is damaging to the child, and shows a worry lack of parental bias. Lack of bias might indicate a lack of love, yes? So why on earth should we love ourselves any less than we think a child should be loved by its parent?

I once lived in a country famed for the beauty of its people. On arrival, I felt overwhelmed - and grotesquely ugly by comparison. Over time, I realised that what makes these people beautiful is their confidence and self-love. They constantly tell all their children, boys and girls, that they're amazingly beautiful. As adults, they continue to tell one another.

Interesting, which country was that garlicvampire?

^"what if an accurate assessment simply is that you aren't that attractive?

What if "attractive" were a subjective quality?

... wait a minute, it is, isn't it?

What would you think of a parent who says their child is ugly (or unattractive)? Most would agree this is damaging to the child, and shows a worry lack of parental bias. Lack of bias might indicate a lack of love, yes? So why on earth should we love ourselves any less than we think a child should be loved by its parent?"^

Yes, I totally agree. We should all love ourselves with the unconditional love we would show our children - and basically everyone thinks that their children are gorgeous. But I was responding directly to the point DadWasHere was making about women realising that they are underrating themselves, which by necessity I think must refer to societal judgements of conventional attractiveness (his example was how a woman saw her breasts after child rearing). I think that there is a difference between learning to love ourselves because we see ourselves as wonderful and learning to love ourselves because we realise we have been 'underrating' our appearance.

Yes, agreed, but I think we may as well learn to love ourselves as wonderful while we're at it :)

Yoni, I'd love to talk about it more but that post could out me - and I plan to keep my vampire costume on until Hallowe'en!

Just going back to something you said earlier, Penguins - It seems to me that women are trained, from a very early age, to see themselves as a collection of parts. It's hard for us to see "pretty face" in our reflection or photos, because we don't really see the whole face. We see a series of facial components, each of which is compared (and found wanting) to those in our 'ideal' face ... and that face isn't a whole face, either; it's a set of components.

I'm not altogether sure how prevalent this phenomenon is, but it always comes up in group talk about beauty ideals, so I reckon it's 'most' women at least. Given that we do it to our whole bodies - which we never see as whole - it's quite frightening, isn't it? Our self-images are not only tarnished, they are broken - fragmented.

Just realised there's lots about this in one of the classic books: could have been The Beauty Myth?

It is frightening. When I first became aware that I thought like that I tried to focus really hard to see some sort of whole figure and face in the mirror, it was surprisingly difficult and still is. I also recon most women have this problem. You can see it when people post in S&B for example - things like, "can you recommend me a dress please I have naice boobs but crap legs and flabby arms" instead of describing their overall shape and taste.

Yes, absolutely. Women are taught to analyse each bit of the body for flaws. To break it apart into chunks of meat to be scrutinised and found wanting.

Some women are better than others at seeing 'face' as a whole (I, for example, generally think of my face as one 'bit' of me. Though I wouldn't have done as a teen, when I hated my ears and my nose). But I think you'd struggle to find many women who don't pull their bodies apart. I know that when I get out of the shower and am faced with a massive mirror I don't see 'my body', I see 'my bum' and 'my thighs' (my least liked body parts, original me).

Yes, our self image is very fragmented. Not helped by the commercial obsession with products for fixing 'problem' areas and those dire surveys that say we all want Jennifer Anniston's arms, JLo's bum, etc, etc.

This is a lovely thread. But I think I would need to be on mescalin to look in the mirror and think I looked beautiful.

I am lucky in that my body functions well, and I am now (after a horrible chronic disease which has now gone away) fit and healthy.

And I am extremely tall, which I have always loved. I like my great big gangly orangutan arms.

So, happy that it functions, but beauty, no.