At War With My Body

I’ve been at war with my body ever since I was old enough to feel shame. I began to apologise for my imperfections before I reached 13, not because I was criticised, but because my grandmother tortured herself over her own flaws every day—loudly enough for a child to pay attention, and so I learned that to be flawed was to be hideous. The rest of her lessons came from her silence.

She never spoke about the grand success she made of her marriage, so I never learned her lessons about love.

She never mentioned her extraordinary gifts, so I paid less attention to my own.

She never discussed her strength, so I put my personal power away and focused on being a pretty face.

As much as she loved all my inadequacies, she hated her own. She was ashamed of her body, so I learned to feel the same. If she’d spent half that time talking about her many triumphs, I might have experienced my own victories much sooner, but in our home, women were to be seen and not heard. We owed the world our beauty, and without it, we were failures.

We must all recover from our childhoods in one way or another. For me, that meant kicking aside my body shame. By the time I sought help, I was dysmorphic, anorexic, and malnourished.

Years of therapy brought improvement, but it seemed I’d never be entirely free. I would have enjoyed more success if I’d taken to wearing a hessian bag to hide behind. I found recovery impossible.

Kink is a challenge for people like me, especially if you’re a sub. Sex in the dark ain’t happening too often, and you’d best get used to being put on display in all those positions that emphasise your lumps and scars. BDSM won’t let you hide your body, not because you are perfect, but because you are celebrated.

The only reason I found that tolerable was you—you with the size 38 waist tied to a St Andrews cross with your stretch marks in full view of the entire room. You with not a curve to speak of walking around half-naked at a play party. You with the ordinary body who posts her suspensions in her Fetlife album. Every single woman who celebrated her flaws showed me that flaws were not rare. They were not even satisfactory. They were all-pervasive and exquisite.

None of the many tools I used to get beyond my shame achieved as much as the kink community did. Because of you, I ended my war on my body and took up arms against my perfectionism instead.