Moar Thots on Being Mostly Naked on the Internet

I don’t sit on posts. I draft and publish, draft and publish. I know I shouldn’t. I know I’d have a better blog if I would let an entry cool off for a few days and then looked it over before I shot it into cyberspace. I just don’t. It’s not something I can force myself to do.

But I sat on Mostly Naked on the Internet. I drafted it last Friday and could not conjure up the courage to let people see it. I pulled it up on Saturday. No. Sunday. No.

Monday morning, I was doing a version of that scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where Cameron’s like, “He’ll keep calling me… He’ll keep calling me until I come over… OK! I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go, w— I’ll go. Shit. GodDAMMIT… Forget it. That’s it.”

Except mine was, “I’ll post it. I’ll post it. It’s going to bother me until I post it… No. No. No. Nope. Absolutely not.”

I waited until I was almost going to be late for work, clicked Publish, and then shut down my computer really fast, as if doing so might lock the post inside.

But it didn’t. And now I’m Mostly Naked on the Internet.

And it’s remarkably liberating. I mean, a lot of people have been complimentary of my body, which is sweet and flattering, but of course, not the point. Mostly it’s been validating to hear people use words like ‘honest’ and ‘brave’ and ‘inspirational’ and ‘totally bitchin’.

Here’s what I hope. I hope the post encourages other women to start their own Love My Body/Real Beauty campaign. I hope they’ll look at uniform femme-bots in ads and, instead of considering themselves deficient in some way, they’ll… I don’t know. Remark how odd it is that the models look like they came from a cookie cutter? Something like that.

(Don’t get me wrong: The Victoria Secret model is a totally valid version of the female body. It’s just not the only version.)

I hope women will look at their Rand-McNally stretch marks and their dimply legs and say, “This body grew another human inside it,” or “This body can deadlift 250.”

I hope when women have Bad Body Thoughts, their inner badass will perk up and say, “Cut. That shit. Out.”

I hope when their friends start saying mean things about their own bodies, their outer badass will perk up and say, “Cut. That shit. Out.”

Of course, when I say women, I’m including myself. I hope that I do these things.

(sigh) Growth. It’s hard. But good.

Now excuse me while I go clean out RiteAid’s supply of Dove products.