You have a beautiful body
You have a normal body, you have some kind of a body, and you and other people may have opinions on it
Dear Reader:
Sorry for the delay. I can only say that I continue to struggle with self-inflicted deadlines, and that recently, I came across more emotional hurdles trying to write into something uncomfortable. There are many things that I avoid consciously: my actual sex life or lack thereof in present tense; my Mother and my Father; and my actual complicated feelings about my body. I like to write about celebrities. I was pretty obsessed with the new documentary Controlling Britney Spears because Iām obsessed with how powerful women can have their power co-opted in 2021. Apparently, if you run into a gas station bathroom barefoot with many paparazzi chasing you with large cameras bigger than your head as your processing a public divorce, youāre a lunatic? Running into a gross gas station bathroom shoeless is just gross, not insane. My heart fucking broke. Today, in 2021, Monica Lewinsky and AOC are my heroes and Britney Spears can be my blood sister. I donāt care if that doesnāt make sense.
Welcome to Issue 19 of Obsessions, one queer femmeās look at the nexus of culture, politics, bodies and identities. Todayās post is about my body and so itās clumsy because this topic I find particularly hard. Iāve always personally believed we shouldnāt be punished for our thoughts, and that we are personally living in a moment where almost all people who are not cis white men are questioning themselves so much that it is stifling. We will continue to make mistakes with our thoughts and our words or we really, really arenāt evolving.
When yoga used to be at the center of my universe, I decided to take several teacher trainings with someone I deeply respected. I already had several 200 YA certifications so this opportunity didnāt open up more jobs, but it did make me a better teacher. This was the first time I was surrounded by many yoga teachers who were successfully etching out a small living. Granted, itās pretty easy to bet that my peers that were overwhelmingly heterosexual and lived largely in West L.A. and Orange County also had husbands who made large salaries. Meaning, the idea of the career-ed yoga teacher is a blanket that we place over the privileges of heteronormative decisions.
Lark, the pedestaled tiny white woman who became my yoga teacher, was passionate, excited and serious. She was also so, so slight and spright that she made Sarah Jessica Parker look like the poster child for body positivity. Larkās students were nice white women who followed the rules. And nice white women who follow the rules tend to be thin because thatās a rule. They also tend to wake up to racism and sexism much later, but they get much more credit when they do wake up.
We were studying bound twists one day when it was still acceptable to talk about other peopleās bodies. Gathered in a loose circle of fifty teacher trainees in Lululemons, we were looking at twisted, bound poses like parivrtta parsvakonasana. Thereās a large advantage for people who are tall and very thin because you have to wrap your arms often around the thickest part of your thigh while opening your shoulders and twisting your back. Someone had remarked how easy the pose was for Lark.
āWell, Renee,ā my beautiful bony teacher explains, āhas a normal body.ā Fifty women from across the country in Lululemons stare in my direction. Nice white people following directions. Assessing my lack of a thigh gap maybe. Maybe admiring my shapely butt. Maybe looking away.
I resent my beautiful bony teacher.
My throat was dry, closing off like a venus fly trap swallowing its poison.
Itās hard to show and not tell, but I felt the implication. I couldnāt twist as deeply because my body was less skilled or something.
Queer AFAB people deal with so much bullshit when it comes to our bodies. We are supposed to be grateful that we have Rachel Maddow on television, but we donāt have any one on the Supreme Court or anyone who actually has ever run for President. We are supposed to be thankful that queer roles that play to the Oscars get played by Emma Stone or Julianna Margulies in 2021. We are supposed to be grateful that other people are taking huge pots of money at the end of the rainbow for having the imagination to pretend to be us. And then when the nice heterosexual ladies in 2016 start having a tiny ounce of courage because Roe v. Wade could be overturned, we are supposed to hand over the mike and say thank you Jessica and Diana for all you do for us. Taking our ideas but repeating them for a bigger platform. Thank you oh so much.
I, with my frizzy hair, and a body that just couldnāt look like the 5ā10ā teacher assistantsā bodies. I object to playing the part in this heterosexual play. I object to the word normal because it implied a realistic standard. And it simply didnāt recognize that shorter bodies will have a harder time with bound, twisted poses simply because of the geometry of the shape. She took away my headstand, my splits, my king pigeon pose, my breathwork, my resistance to letting juice cleanses take over my life. In most American movies, there is a hero and everyone else is happy to have their story muted to this one plot. I mean I would love to hear an analysis of how Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman threatens any American or Israeli hierarchy at all. In the aughts, we were still berating Britney Spears emotionality, critiquing Britney Murphyās body, and acting like Angelina Jolieās bisexuality showed how truly unwell she was. We berated women louder than we do now. And anyone who was weird or hard to define we called a lesbian. So here I am objecting to being diminished. Objecting to homogeneity. Objecting to always thinking of diversity as a last resort. I object to the assumptions we make loudly about other peopleās bodies without their permission.
Thanks for reading,
Renee
What Iām reading now:
Artist Pockets $84K From Danish Museum-And Submits Empty Frames. Daily Beast. AJ McDougall. September 28, 2021.
Eighteen Photographers on What It Means to Embrace the Unknown. Aperture.
How R. Kelly Got Away With It. NYTimes. Opinion. Kimberlee Krenshaw. October 1, 2021.