The Great In-Between: Notes on Body Neutrality
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I remember the first time I joined a gym as an adult. I finally got to see the full spectrum of body types from young to old, thin to fat, hairless to hairy. Fat pockets and cellulite in areas I’d never seen before. Stretch marks that stretched across stomachs, arms and thighs. Shy to proud nudity from all walks of life. It was glorious.
As someone who has had a love-hate relationship with her body as a small plus-sized, differently-shaped person, there seems to always be a mountain to climb. The beautiful fat models tell you to be a goddess while diet culture tells you you’re a troll until you lose the weight. Even watching the plus-sized models, my body wasn’t like theirs, and the comparison game began again. Where are my breasts? My larger stomach isn’t proportionate to my ass. And so it goes!
After years of oscillating between “Fuck the haters! I’m a GODDESS!” (Which, frankly I didn’t believe, even if a post-it on my mirror told me I was), to “I am incredibly disgusting!” which started to not feel true either, I decided to investigate a third option: Body Neutrality. The great in-between. The middle way.
Starting from where you are (for me, it was self-loathing for never being thin, shaped wrong, or too masculine, or never sexy, or never being hit on, etc.) to feeling neutral seemed like an achievable goal. I didn’t have to think about being a 10/10 Queen Goddess on the mountain top with the perpetual wind blowing through my hair or impeccable fashion statements so all eyes are on me. I could just be. You know, in a thrifted t-shirt. Or my Old Navy shorts. A missed patch of hair on my legs. Moving through the world, noticing sensations, appreciating what my body does for me versus what it looks like (which changes, you know, on a daily basis).
Body neutrality feels like an understanding that we are organic, wildly differentiated shaped human beings, moving, changing, and getting older. And that it’s all-natural. You are exactly how you should look. And it doesn’t have to be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The things found in nature often are much more complex anyway and serve a purpose well beyond beauty.
I love that body neutrality is an alternative to body positivity. Not everyone can love their bodies all of the time. Sometimes they fail us. Sometimes they take a left turn into unexpected sorrow. Sometimes they are scarred. Acceptance for who we are and aren’t, and loving our loved ones madly without self-consciousness is a blessing. Divorcing yourself from constant worry about how you look is a godsend. Letting go of what you thought you should be, so you can discover what you’re capable of is a sweet and tender surrender.
Body neutrality perhaps isn’t meant to be a powerhouse statement (though, to get from self-loathing to neutral is a high achievement). It’s about finding peace. Waking up, looking at your face in the mirror and saying, “Wow! So this is my face!” and then moving forward with your day. Moving with ease and acceptance that this organic, sometimes unpredictable vessel is yours. An understanding that you don’t have to be the hottest, most flamboyant peacock on the block to have equal self-worth in your own right. You are meant to be here. Not as a profoundly overly special, shiny object, but as you. And that is just enough.
