The Weight of Beauty
I’m 5’4” and I haven’t weighed myself in over a year. I know I weigh more than 150 pounds and less than 200 pounds. I know that I’ve never worn a pair of jeans sized in the single digits. I know my thighs rub together, creating uncomfortable, red chafing bumps during the summer months and causing thinned out tights or pilled jeans in the wintertime. And I know that the fashion industry would deem my upper arms unsuitable for anything sleeveless.
I also know that I don’t care.
For a long time, I did care. Growing up, I would vacillate between the desire to be tall and thin like my mother and sister and the opposing desire to gain more weight so that I would be “officially” plus-sized. My mom was always sure to compliment my sister and I as we were growing up. These were not always compliments about our appearances, and her holistic approach resulted in me having pretty decent self-confidence. But sometimes I would hear her complain about her thighs or her arms, and I didn’t understand how she could call me beautiful when she didn’t feel beautiful herself — especially since her body type was obviously the more “desirable” one to have.
When I started to date boys, I was acutely aware of my size and their reactions to my body.
While I never confirmed it during our nearly five years of dating, my first serious boyfriend almost certainly weighed less than me. When we would go out, I would try to gauge how others perceived us and always feared that he would think he was “dating down” just because of my jean size.
All of my insecurities were self-inflicted. He always told me that I was beautiful, and I believed him. It never felt obligatory or disingenuous. He was the first person to see me naked, to have sex with me, and to make me feel beautiful and worthy of love.
My next relationship was with a man who was much too old and in far too powerful a position over me for it to have been appropriate. Our relationship was a “secret” and everything about our interactions was shrouded in shame. I fell in love with him, but wasn’t allowed to say it. This was supposed to be fun and purely physical… except when it wasn’t. Sex with him was never fun because he never complimented me or my body. He made me feel like my curves and imperfections were a problem that I somehow had to compensate for. He made me feel like I had to provide him with unparalleled emotional availability and engagement, though he would never return the favor. I could maybe be “hot and used” but I would never be valued. The sex wasn’t there, the intimacy wasn’t there, and my understanding of beauty — both broadly and how it applied to me — was starting to bend.
The next man that I seriously dated was only slightly less age-inappropriate and slightly more emotionally available than the last. We had a long and mostly beautiful relationship, at least from my perspective. It felt like my first “real” and “grown-up” relationship, and I could see myself being with him forever…but he couldn’t see ahead even one week. The strains on our relationship intensified. A few months into dating him, I asked him why giving compliments made him uncomfortable (it had been brought up before more broadly, and I hadn’t related it to myself until this point). He responded that he felt it was awkward to compliment people and that specific to my appearance, he was fine to say that I looked “nice” or was wearing a “pretty” dress but that a word like beautiful should be preserved for a stand-out moment of extra effort (on my part) to look good.
I struggled to understand this and was immediately struck with hurt by such a comment. I wanted to be beautiful to him no matter what — dressed to the nines with a face full of make-up or at home in sweats and unwashed hair, it shouldn’t matter.
My early conceptions of beauty that my parents bestowed upon me had been clouded by societal expectations. My understanding that a man who loves you will think you’re beautiful and will call you beautiful and will be referring to a beauty both internal and external had been warped by a man who used me. And now, a man who I loved and trusted was telling me that I wasn’t enough — that I wasn’t worthy of being beautiful.
That marked the beginning of the end with him. It also marked the beginning of my new relationship with beauty and with feeling beautiful. I knew I never wanted to put my self-worth into the hands of a man. But I recognized that I could set expectations for the people who I allow into my life. I don’t need to be showered with compliments, but I never want to be made to feel “not enough” ever again.
Because I can be 5’4”, somewhere between 150 and 200 pounds, wearing size 10 jeans that are thinning at the thighs and a tank top that is showing my un-toned arms, and still be beautiful.
