Why Positivity Isn't the End Goal
Written by Reem Rizk
Let me start off by stating I applaud positivity. Your relationship with your own body is lifelong. I want nothing but positive interactions for you and your physicality. When I say I’ve moved away from body positivity, it’s a hard concept to grasp. In. a world where body image issues are ever-increasing, you may ask why. Why would one ever desire an elimination of positivity? After years of being told what I must love, I’ve begun to grow frustrated by the obligation. Why do I have to feel love for every square inch? Why can I not just feel neutral?
In the spiritual sense, sure, I find beauty in my left pinky toe. I can even appreciate the way my nose hairs filter debris. In a sense of divine configuration, sure. I see beauty in my kidneys and even my appendix. But cosmetically, body positivity has made me feel a need to demand aesthetic beauty from myself. I opt for body neutrality because it is the only end goal I find peace in. Body positivity was an excellent first step in my journey.
Coming across Instagram posts saying that all form is beautiful would be a valuable treasure in the slot machine of self-hatred. At age fourteen while in a regular routine of habitually applying anti-aging serums, feeling just-as-pretty was a survival necessity. But lately, I just don’t feel that way.
On a random Sunday last month, I ended the day with my usual skincare routine. There was nothing particularly different about this evening… only I skipped the application of a blueberry-scented oil that typically concluded the ritual. Instead, I gave a more theatrical finale. I grinned at my reflection in my vintage hand mirror. It was such a large expression that my cheeks were forced to form into big red apples. An outside observer may have even misread it as an act of insanity. In truth, it was a bliss that I could not replicate if I tried.
I pulled out my phone, noting the following to a dear friend “I’ve noticed my laugh lines have been getting deeper since I’ve been around you. I no longer want to get rid of my wrinkles.” I pride myself on this newfound ability to skip steps in my skincare routine when they no longer feel luxurious. I reached positivity through gestures of living, I loved the way life began to show on me after years of obsessively preventing its showcase.
Body positivity often made me look at myself and wonder why I couldn’t love all. But now, when I come home after receiving awards or having the best Tuesdays, I notice love on my figure all the time. Like, how my foundation has been evicted from my laugh lines. I look in the mirror giggling and saying “I look so old!” and I don’t feel particularly joyous or unsettled. Between laughs, I just feel alive. That is all I could ever ask from this body. That is what I base my relationship with it on. When it comes to one's relationship with the body. Different schools of thought arise. To me, body neutrality doesn’t oppose body positivity, but says altogether that external opinion shouldn’t hold much value. It allows for a foundation where I personally can excavate a more genuine form of body positivity.
But ultimately, what is the difference between body neutrality and body positivity? why make that distinction? Body neutrality de-objectifies the idealised body as a ranking of worth.
Body neutrality says: “This human body represents a life well-lived, transformation, and the wonders of existence.”
Body positivity is a way of considering all traits beautiful. Body positivity says: “Every trait your body holds is visually pleasing.”
But why must the body be visually pleasing? This is an increasingly discussed flaw in the sermons of body positivity, often referred to as toxic positivity. I know, an oxymoronic title. It just encapsulates the idea that the need to love your appearance shouldn’t be a requirement. This is not to say you shouldn’t find yourself beautiful but to separate one's worth from appearance. Print 36/40 in Maria Rosati’s “Weigh In” describes how “FUPA (Fat Upper Pussy Area) is the fat in a woman’s lower stomach area protecting her uterus.” Maria keenly notes that "Body positivity movements have reminded women not to be worried... they aren’t actually fat, they just have a FUPA.”
Print 36/40 of “Weigh In” by Maria Rosati, view full series on pages 32-33 of Petal Projections Spring 2023
36: "FUPA (Fat Upper Pussy Area) is the fat in a woman’s lower stomach area protecting her uterus. Body positivity movements have reminded women not to be worried... they aren’t actually fat, they just have a FUPA."
Toxic positivity perpetuates the idea that you must love every part of your body, otherwise, you are dishonouring the body and by proxy, yourself.
Differentiating body neutrality and body positivity takes time. I find body positivity to be a stepping stone towards body neutrality. But how can they be identified? This taxonomy takes practice.
Ask yourself: who narrates the thoughts that arise with acne or stretch marks? And a more intermediate discovery: How have the people around me talked about themselves? What does my older sister say to herself in the mirror? What was the one nasty thing my best friend said many years ago about another woman in passing? How has it affected me? How will I rewrite these narrations? Maria Rosati’s feature Weigh In (pg.30-33 in Petal Projections Spring 2023) reflects the answers to these self-guided inquiries. Maria’s ability to reflect on a topic so uncommonly spoken invokes the viewer to address their own relationship with the body. The narrations provided by Rosati in each layer are resoundingly interrogative to the often avoided thoughts that disconnect one from their own body.
For myself, body positivity served in aiding a rewrite of these narrations, a second, but non-final draft. I’ve drowned out heavy paranoid thoughts with chants of my beauty. But what if I could achieve silence?
What if one day my child kneads my tummy like dough and instead of a lecture on politeness, I can grin at my spouse with deep laugh lines? What if I have a daughter who never even equates fat with bad? I want all of this desperately. I want the girls my daughter goes to school with to never say a thing to make her question her self image. When I pluck my eyebrows and she watches curiously I’ll tell her it’s because I like it that way. Not that she will one day have to do the same. If she has hair like mine she’ll know how to take care of it. What if one day, I am beautiful because I am encrusted with love? What if one day I am a reflection of the muddy luxurious self-care practices I do in joy/health/fun and not in desperation for an alternate image? What if body neutrality can help me become the caretaker I want to be, for myself, my future daughter, my mother, my friends, for every person who lives with even a bit of my love?
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