{"id":39414,"date":"2011-06-11T15:00:05","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T19:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=39414"},"modified":"2011-06-12T13:46:10","modified_gmt":"2011-06-12T17:46:10","slug":"i%e2%80%99m-not-pretty-enough-to-be-poly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/i%e2%80%99m-not-pretty-enough-to-be-poly\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m Not Pretty Enough to Be Poly"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Maria Padhila<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Tonight, my daughter told me that I look like Alicia Silverstone. It\u2019s not just that she had her love goggles on. We were looking at a website of photos of Celebrities Without Makeup — gasp! — that I\u2019d found by chance, and I called her over to see what models and actresses really look like. She commented a lot on how the women looked angry sometimes, putting words in their mouths: \u201cWhy do they have to try to take my picture when I\u2019m just TRYING to walk my DOG?!?\u201d We talked about photos invading privacy, and how you could change photos using the computer, and how most of the pictures she saw were fixed up. Some of her favorites — Vanessa Hudgens, Miley Cyrus and Princess Arwen (Liv Tyler) — she declared to be much prettier without makeup. And then she saw Alicia and said she looked like me. <\/p>\n

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Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well, I\u2019m really more Hillary Swank, with a lot more nose and jaw. And scars. And wrinkles.<\/p>\n

I came face to face with the looks issue at a recent hot tub and potluck gathering of poly women. They were talking about a recent \u201cLaw and Order\u201d episode that involved swinging and poly in the plotline, and laughing about how everyone in the club was hot and in great shape. Very close to reality, yes? No. The women at the gathering were all shapes and sizes and ages. Like most Americans, a high percentage of them were larger than the magazine norm. Yet they all had the nerve to claim the sexuality they wanted, despite not looking like the porn star or TV ideal. <\/p>\n

At almost 50, I\u2019ve definitely been guilty of thinking I didn\u2019t want to get out there and try for what I wanted until I looked the way I\u2019m ‘supposed’ to look. Are you waiting, too? Why?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thin and have an athletic shape, because I\u2019m a distance runner and addicted to Bikram yoga. I do this, and eat carefully, because it means I can avoid depression and other health disorders I\u2019m prone to and avoid medication. But I could use more solid abs, a boob job, dermabrasion, botox. Can\u2019t afford a bit of it, and it scares me anyway. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m definitely trading up when it comes to both my men. They\u2019re handsome and fit and younger than I am. How did I get away with this, in a world where women are supposed to be perfect, where TV shows are full of ‘loveable’ schlubs hooked up with beautiful, hot women? <\/p>\n

Just lucky, I guess. My husband, Issac, likes older women, thank goodness. His physical ideal, however, is not so much like me: a smaller woman with short blonde hair (currently embodied in one of our yoga teachers, whom he has a little crush on but whom we’d never approach–not cool!) Chris, my Other Significant Other, has wide-ranging tastes physically but hews pretty closely to what I would describe as typical Playboy American with an overlay of European\/indy movie actress — also not like me.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m still curious about meeting a nice woman for myself, so I headed out to the women\u2019s gathering. If you’re polycurious, and you don’t think there’s a similar group in your area, you’re probably in for a surprise. Search Google, search Meetup. Just put your zip code and the word “poly” in the search on Meetup. Check that the group respects anonymity, and you’re off. The poly networking group in our region also has a women-only group. I think this is a good idea, as would be a men’s group. I know every group that segregates by ‘gender’ can run into some gender identification, genderqueer and fluid gender issues, but as long as people are up for talking and being basically polite, decent people who take others as they come, this doesn’t have to be a problem. Maybe I’m naive, but it seems to work so far in the group I attend. There are some genderqueer people who identify primarily as women in the group. No one seems to worry that ‘men’ are sneaking in.<\/p>\n

In my explorations, I come up against my own biases and blocks. I am facing feminist guilt over the fact that I have a physical ‘type’ in women I like. If I were a good feminist — hell, even an enlightened person — I would not care about the outside. I really like real strawberry blondes, but the color of hair or skin isn\u2019t the most important thing to me. The biggest attraction physically for me is a certain body type — lanky and willowy.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always liked curvier women than you do,” says my best friend, talking about maybe introducing me to someone. “So she might not be right.” She doesn’t say, as others have, that maybe I’m just looking for a woman who looks like a man. If you’ve ever looked at a willowy woman close up, you’ll know for damn sure that she looks nothing like a man. Big boobs do not make the woman, friends!<\/p>\n

“Maybe if you could just let yourself relax into that kind of energy for a while, that giving, maternal energy, you’d really like it,” my friend says. “It may be coming to you now because that’s what you need.”<\/p>\n

I do wonder if I’m looking for a mirror image — which disturbs me, so that means it’s something I should investigate. But I don\u2019t really like my own looks much. I hate having my picture taken, and even avoid much mirror time.<\/p>\n

Talking honestly about size — apart from that tired script about how one has to lose this or fix that (see above for example) — is taboo among women in general, certainly among Pagans, and seems to be so among polyamorists as well, though it’s more talked about in the fetish and BDSM communities (which I’m not part of but know tangentially through friends). “When I see a large woman, I still see pain,” I tell my friend. “I see someone who gives and gives and gives to everyone, and thinks no one will give to her, so she has to give food to herself.”<\/p>\n

I know this is mirror talk — the way I’ve felt when I’ve tried to use food as an addictive substance in the past. It didn’t work; it just made me sick. My body isn’t set up to be able to get too large.<\/p>\n

I also know that people can be large and fit. As a runner, I\u2019ve been passed by enough larger women at enough races to know many large women are in better shape overall than I am. And you\u2019re not supposed to notice different abilities in yoga, but it\u2019s hard not to see when someone is more flexible, balanced or stronger than many in the class are — and often that someone doing the hardest poses is larger.<\/p>\n

I am convinced also that overweight has environmental causes, and often has nothing to do with psychology and definitely nothing to do with character or strength of will. With mainstream medicine finally beginning to admit to the presence and effect of endocrine disrupters in the world’s waters, perhaps they’ll cop to the effect this is having on our bodies, instead of using the convenient scapegoat of blaming weight on character disorders (“lack of discipline or control”). <\/p>\n

The social factors are enormous as well — most of us are chained to the office chair or the hospital floor or the day-care center, women in pink-collar jobs most of all. Good food and time to exercise and freedom from stress is a luxury. And even people who can afford these things haven’t woken up to the fact that they could walk or run instead of shop, make themselves feel better through their breath alone, instead of a quick consumer fix.<\/p>\n

But I’m not so ignorant that I don’t realize that for many women, being large is not an illness but a choice, a heritage, natural. They enjoy sensual pleasure in all forms, and I salute that confidence. <\/p>\n

I myself have a chronic disorder that may make me less attractive to some. Ironically, it\u2019s one that wasn\u2019t diagnosed for much of my life, because one of the symptoms is being overweight, and I\u2019m not, so doctors discounted it out of hand. Polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS causes pain, infertility, acne and hair on the face. All but the latter I treat with diet, herbs and acupuncture. That last symptom gets waxed and lasered. I\u2019m lucky that it\u2019s mild and that I was able to get pregnant and have a child, but still, my face has scars and marks. It makes me reluctant to put myself out there. I don\u2019t feel attractive in the least. Yet here I am, with two loves.<\/p>\n

The poly and many lesbian women I\u2019ve met seem to have shed a lot of this. Of anyone, they are the least downtrodden with the world\u2019s demands that one be attractive according to conventional, current standards. The message is that you can be large or small or genderqueer or look like you walked off the set of a soap opera; you still have the right to try for the kind of sex and love you want.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a radical act for any woman to claim her sexuality openly, more so for a woman who doesn’t fit the mold of conventional attractiveness in some way. I’ve experienced being overlooked and ignored by men when I’ve been either “too bony” from heavy running training, or “too hippy,” just another plump mommy on the playground, never a sexual being, after my daughter was born. The revolution lies in declaring that you’re beautiful and sexy whether or not someone in particular or someone in ‘power’ is looking and affirming. It\u2019s about not letting someone else be the mirror. <\/p>\n

And that radical action, that way of framing the world, does indeed make my heart beat faster when I see you do it — whether or not I want to try to eventually get you into bed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Maria Padhila Tonight, my daughter told me that I look like Alicia Silverstone. It\u2019s not just that she had her love goggles on. We were looking at a website of photos of Celebrities Without Makeup — gasp! — that I\u2019d found by chance, and I called her over to see what models and actresses … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1,207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}