#body policing
after gaining a whopping 5 pounds (on my, then, 103 pound body) that I no longer “had the body of an oriental” and the whole reason he found me attractive to begin with was that I was “a white girl with the body of a pre-pubescent Jap girl.”
(submitted by anonymous)
[TW Sexual Assault]
When I was fifteen, a friend of a friend forced me to suck him off and then forced his fingers into me in a park. When my friend came to find me, he whispered “I would have fucked you, but I don’t have a condom on me, and only sluts with STIs don’t shave their pussies” in my ear.
(submitted by anonymous)
[TW Self Harm]
I once had a guy who I was sleeping with at the time tell me that I had a hot body apart from my self harm scars and that I should get tattoos over them so they wouldn’t make him uncomfortable.
(submitted by anonymous)
I once had a bunch of guys tell me that they didn’t approve of my short skirts (that I had only put on because we were in Jamaica) because it made me look slutty, and then proceed to call me a slut because they found out I was bisexual and couldn’t make up my mind about whether I wanted c*** or p****. Joke’s on you, dearest male cousins, because I’m actually a decent person, which is why girls are happier to flirt with me than any of you.
(submitted by whatanovelconcept)
I once had a teacher tell me to not wear low cut shirts because I would “distract the other male teachers from teaching” by showing my cleavage. I was 13.
(submitted by anonymous)
[TW Eating Disorder]
I once had a guy (my ex, now) tell me that he wouldn’t date me anymore if I got fat. That was after I told him I was recovering from EDNOS.
(submitted by anonymous)
I once had my ex-boyfriend’s cousin tell me, after we’d broken up, that whilst we were together my ex had shown him pictures I’d sent meant for his eyes only (and I suspect he also showed him pictures he took of my body whilst I was asleep) from different stages in our relationship to complain about my weight gain.
(submitted by anonymous)
[TW Homophobia/Lesbophobia]
I once had a guy tell me I was “beautiful and should have no trouble finding a good fuck after dropping a few pounds” after I confided in him that I am a lesbian.
(submitted by anonymous)
I once had a guy tell me that i would only be considered attractive if I lost weight, fixed my teeth, and somehow managed to lighten my skin.
(submitted by anonymous)
“if there were a cure for your disability, would you take it?”
Recently I’ve been having a little bit of disability related angst. A lot of times people ask me “If there were a cure for your disability, would you do it?”
It’s true that my disability is a burden to me sometimes, but not in a way most people would think. I think people assume that I would want to be cured so that I could walk or drive or do things like that. But really the biggest hurdle to me is the social stigma surrounding disability. People only pay attention to people with disabilities if they can use them as inspiration, porn, or as cute little sidekicks to boost their ego, but as soon as they get bored they just kind of cast us aside and move on. I wish that people wouldn’t patronize me, I wish that people would be attracted to me, or not act like they deserve a special place for being attracted to me. I wish that they would take me as seriously as an adult, because I’m 24 years old and people still talk to me like I’m a small child.
It’s not so much that I want to be able-bodied, but I would kill to just have 10 minutes to not be perceived as disabled. Just 10 minutes. Because sometimes it really does wear you down and it is really upsetting. You can’t just pick and choose which parts of someone are salvageable and make a new person out of that because that’s just not how life works. My disability has influenced every other aspect of my identity. So, if you reject my disability you reject every other part of me.
I feel like the issue at the crux of that whole cure question is “Would you rather exchange your disability if you could have a wholeness of your humanity instead?” but I would counter that my disability is my humanity. Just because someone is disabled that doesn’t automatically mean that their quality of life must be inherently less than an able-bodied person. I have more strength and wisdom and experience in my pinky finger than most able-bodied people do in their entire body.
So if you wouldn’t mind please kindly take your shitty eugenics hypothetical elsewhere! My body does not need a cure. Society’s attitudes do.
Nicely said
