When you first stop sleeping you can develop all kind of symptoms. Auditory and visual hallucinations and vomiting are some; I got all three. As the temperature hovered above forty-three degrees, this only served to compound my delirium. I didn’t know any more whether I was asleep or awake. I was seized by a choking, irrational fear and intrusive paranoid thoughts. Particularly distressing among these thoughts—which were bullet-proof in their certainty—was that my boyfriend was going to leave me. My boyfriend, who left work to look after me, who went out for bags of ice and jury-rigged an air conditioner from an electric fan, who cooked a light dinner every night in the hope that I would eat something, who plied me with cold packs and combed my hair with his fingers. He was going to leave me because I was an insane person. This logic was sound.
Bikinis and Body Image
It’s Summer in the Northern Hemisphere (or getting there, I don’t know how that hemisphere works), which means talk (or rather, posts) about bikinis.
To be able to wear a bikini in Summer at the pool/beach, regardless of what you look like (fat, thin, whatever) is kind of the height of body-love. If you can enjoy all that salt mixed with water has to offer with only a couple of flimsy pieces of expensive lycra, then you are one Empowered Babe. Or something.
I rather like swimming. I also own a bikini (though I also have Sun Smarts, which means that in the height of the summer sun I would definitely wear something over it, lest I want to get skin cancer in particularly sensitive areas). And a tankini, and a few one-pieces (if you are actually swimming for exercise, a one-piece is by far the most practical option). So, I’m not about to say what I’m about to say as someone who doesn’t like the beach or someone who would never wear a bikini.
A bikini is not empowering. It doesn’t make sense that it would be. It’s not necessarily unempowering, though it might be worth thinking about whose gaze benefits most from a woman wearing one (that’s right, the male gaze!) or whose profit margins benefit most from you buying one (that’s right, swimwear manufacturers who get to charge you the same amount for less fabric!).
All that said, if you want to wear one, there is no reason why you shouldn’t.
I have this crazy idea that maybe talking and worrying about our body image is a distraction. For instance, when I’m busy with life and doing the things I like doing and properly living ‘in the zone’, my mind doesn’t even wander to considerations about how I look. Sure, I look in the mirror in the morning and primp and what have you, but for most of the day I’m completely embedded in thinking about things which are important to me.
That is, when I’m living best, body image is irrelevant.
Is it possible that all these talks and programmes about bettering the body image of young girls is actually working against them? Is it putting to the forefront of their mind a consideration which stops them from getting on with the things that are really important to them? Perhaps the solution to body image problems isn’t so much about trying to overcome your various neuroses, but about finding something else to do.
Girls would probably be more at ease in their bikinis if they thought about the kinds of activities they could do at the beach: how they’ve going to win their next round of beach volleyball, the symbolism in the book they’re reading under their beach umbrella, what kinds of plants or shells they’d like to find, how far out they can swim before they start getting tired. They might even be given the choice to wear whatever beach outfit they’d like to wear, that gives them the most freedom of movement, whatever style or pattern they like the look of best, whatever makes the statement they want to make.
Beyond a world where body confidence registers as the only topic to talk about, there’s lots to do, lots to think about, and so much time and energy for actually having fun.
Just some suggestions.
