Em-bod-i-ment

In this world, I feel like there are three kinds of guys... but for the purposes of this post, we'll only discuss two of them: men who can deal with bodies, and men who cannot.

I don't know if having sisters changes things, or being very emotionally intelligent,... I don't know that x-factor which is the game changer, but many men I meet are unwilling to interact with the idea that women have bodies... Real bodies.

Some men can't handle that women have bathroom habits... or that women have to actually take a dump... that we sweat, that we might smell... that we have body hair... nope... it doesn't exist (cover my ears and sing LALALALALA).

What do you think we do in the bathroom? When we're blowing our noses, is that how we get rid of our excretion? And let's not even talk about menstruation...

I come from a family of guys... there are only a few girls in my family other than my mom, and so I've always been used to guy "body" habits. I dealt with all the random bathroom habits of boys, night time habits, and listening to them talking about women, being confused about women, etc...

It all seems quite natural for men to be a bit hairy, to be a bit dirty, etc... But just because it's natural, doesn't mean it's pretty. It's not pretty, it's manly and rugged and attractive...

But I feel many men don't offer the same courtesy to women. If a woman is sporty, or a bit dirty, it's gross. If she has the stomach flu, it's gross... well yes, it's always gross... but it's not MORE gross because it's a woman instead of a man...

Women's bodies are gorgeous... but they've been twisted and shaped and shaved and tucked into something now socially acceptable.

News Flash!: Women have bathroom habits, we have body hair, we get ill, we have cellulite, and all these things make us profoundly human. These things make us beautiful...


The Victorian Era seems to be the most deluded of time periods when it comes to men's knowledge of women. Whispered stories of barren women... doctors came to observe the woman and found out she was still a virgin. Ruskin actually annulled his marriage after 6 years because he didn't know women got body hair...

While I liked clean-shaven men when I was a teenager, and they continue to look very dashing, now as a woman, I like men to be natural... hence, deodorant advertisements who host men with shaved armpits freak me out...

What is so offensive about women's bodies? What is so wrong that they have to be twisted into things that aren't real? Shellacked with makeup, shaved and polished and oiled... As much as I love taking care of my body, I don't want to feel like I'm somehow offensive just because I have a body. As if women are these ethereal beings who don't have real physicality unless they are pleasuring men...

And to these men who are grossed out... I feel for your partners... since you will probably be too busy retching to care for her when she's ill, to be there when she delivers your children, to help care for their small bodies, to take her as she is... instead of pretending she is not... I'll leave you with a little French Feminism...

"Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard. ~ Helene Cixous