"I wanna perfect body, I wanna perfect soul." -Radiohead
If you’re a woman, the word “ideal” is a bitter concept that’s followed you around like the sickest and most deadly kind of stalker since you were old enough to know you were a woman. You can’t run or hide. It’ll find you in any store, church or public avenue sure, but worst, it can find you in your shower, in your husband’s arms, your roommate’s closet, or your quiet moments before you drift off to sleep at night. It’s an infectious zombie-like disease that has multiplied and wreaked havoc on women since thousands of years ago when Eve bit into an apple, looked down, realized she was naked and let’s face it… probably didn’t like what she saw.
Every woman has a “body image” history. Similar, perhaps to the fact that any Christian man could probably recount to you his history of battling with lust. What’s particularly sad however, is most women’s story doesn’t end with a happy “but now I know better” ending. Most often, women live in a constant state of dissatisfaction and despair over the way their bodies look and their attitudes toward their bodies. My story is by no means the saddest, but I’d like to share my experience as a testimony to God’s grace and submit myself to his service in the war that wages against women’s bodies and thus, their worth. To me, this means
sharing with you the truth that discovered me in my sad but not so lonely state.
Like I said, my story is not unique. I grew up catching glimpses of pretty women on television or even at the grocery store and dreaming of the day when my beauty might turn heads. When I was young, my dad would often take me on dates to the ballet or to look around in wedding dress stores while trying to plant the seed that one day I would make that dress beautiful, and not the other way around. But eventually when I reached middle school I began to notice differences between women. That one’s taller, that one’s heavier, that one has pretty legs but a huge tummy etc… and had no idea what to make of those differences. One night in 7th grade when my middle school “boyfriend” went to the corn maze with a group of people from his private Christian school he ended up kissing one of the girls. My first reaction to hearing the news was a mental head to toe comparison between my looks and the “other” girl. Is she prettier than me? Does she have more expensive/attractive clothing? Is she skinnier? Given that she was a very petite girl this last question rang an instant alarm through my head and from then on it was strict dieting to perfect my body. I had always been a perfectionist and it was not long before I was given to strategic bouts of anorexia to try and “fix” the problem. This lifestyle didn’t last long though because I was heavily surrounded by the body of Christ and eventually I was forced to have an awkward confrontation with my youth group leader and parents regarding my eating habits, or lack thereof. My problem of “ideal” wasn’t really addressed though, and after that I swung hard in the opposite direction. I became depressed that I couldn’t be in control of my looks and turned to food to feel better. High intensity sports produced a slow weight gain that I barely noticed until senior year of high school when I was nearly 50lbs overweight. The number is less important than the feeling. At that weight, I was severely depressed and reclusive. I rarely went out and I never wanted to meet new people because I didn’t want them to see me and, without knowing my past, decide I was a fat girl. That year is to this day one of the darkest years of my life where I spent little time in community and …hid. All the time. I mean physically hid in the sense that I spent more time in my room but I also mean that I hid my body. Looking in the mirror became a great and terrible game of how to best hide and deceive others about my body with clothes. There should be a negative word for modest, that is what I was.
I felt called to missions and had been planning on taking some time off to serve overseas after high school but my mom said she was worried about my health and wanted me to commit to living a healthier lifestyle first. So I lost forty pounds in 4 months through a diet center and a great support system of friends and family. And then, dieting up until my last week in the states, I moved to the Dominican Republic for six months. Every single day I woke up I felt like a new person. At least for a few months. While I did enjoy a short period of contentment with my body, my fear of lack of control eventually fired up again and came back with a vengeance manifesting itself as the 40lbs I was sure I would gain back. That is the best description I can give of my first few months at UW, constant fear. I was terrified I would become “unattractive” again, and also convinced I had more work to do to get to ideal so I continued to play the game of how to best hide those “trouble” areas. I swung like a yo-yo with my eating habits until winter quarter of 2009 when my story finally got interesting because my thought life, my lies, were actually challenged. I met an honest and verbal man.
I met my current boyfriend, we’ll call him John, at a time where I no longer considered myself sick. And for the first month or so, it seemed that I could avoid this treacherous topic altogether. I was in a new city and still determined to be a new person. I could be one of those girls who didn’t struggle with weight, right? Yeah, that’s who I was. Then one day while waiting for our coffee he asked me if I’d lost weight recently. (Did he think I was fat before?) I wasn’t sure how to respond and eventually very awkwardly said something to the effect of, “uh.. eh.. well… I didn’t… I mean maybe. That’s a weird question to ask… I didn’t know that you noticed my body…” His eyebrows shot up and he said (perhaps before he thought better of it), “Of course I notice your body Shannon,” and he jumped up to grab my coffee that was being called out. I changed the subject quickly when he came back but his words sent my entire being into a panic. He notices my body? What do I do? He notices x, y, and z that I haven’t fixed yet? I thought I was hiding them so well…I need to go the gym more…What do I do?? After a noticeable change in my demeanor he eventually drug out of me that I was uncomfortable with his comment earlier. He apologized profusely and ended the conversation by saying, “Shannon, I notice your body, and I like it.” Huh? This was the spark that set me off.
What do boys really like then?
I was well prepped for this journey. God had recently led me to attend Mars Hill Ballard and they were just starting a series called “The Peasant Princess” which delves deeply and honestly into real beauty. Though I should clarify that this quest was not necessarily noble. I became obsessed with the investigation, asking John and many other men what ideal was for them and stooping so low that I would force John to play a game with me walking down the street where I would ask him out of the two women walking in front of us, which one was more attractive. (He rarely gave into playing this game but I will tell you that whenever I was able to get an answer from him it was the opposite of my own opinion. Every single time.) I tried desperately to prove that my view of beauty was right. I asked about clothing styles, different celebrities, rap music messages, pornography, and anything else out there telling me something different. But here is the crazy truth I discovered: none of those men could give me an answer!! None of them. Not a single one could tell me what was “most attractive” to all men. Women of all shapes and sizes, God has made you different than man, and God and man have found it good. Period.
“I've got a perfect body, but sometimes I forget
I've got a perfect body, 'cause my eyelashes catch my sweat
yes they do.” –Regina Spektor
It’s important, especially for men who might be reading this, to explain how women have been educated by society on this topic. Beauty is logical. It’s the sum of many parts that equal beauty. Those parts are/tend to be certain skin textures and tones, certain fat to muscle ratios, certain hair colors, lengths, styles, certain facial structures, certain body frames etc… That means that each woman’s beauty is the sum of however many of those particular parts, she happens to have. A woman starts at zero and moves plus or negative depending on her parts. Oh, and if a part isn’t positive, it’s negative. So that means that while my struggle was particular with weight, all women hear in different ways that they, well, don’t add up. Here’s what God (through John) showed me about the way men (particularly Christian men) tend to think of women: women start at 100, IF a man happens to notice something that he doesn’t like, it is simply not factored in at all and most often he only notices what he likes. Here’s something that most women don’t know because most don’t look at porn: curvy women are attractive too. That means that when I open up my inbox and see the victoria’s secret coupon for underwear that’s showcasing a very petite girl and her ribcage, that advertisement is 1.For men, in the sense that men find EVERYTHING attractive, and tempting, 2. To communicate to me that I am not ideal, and 3.This new pair of underwear (and probably a few trips to the gym) will make me sexy like this model.
“I was just thinking about girls the other day and wondering, you know, why some girls just get ignored and others get worshipped, and I really got this feeling in my chest like all of that wasn’t true. Can’t be true. Doesn’t make sense. Like maybe if you can’t love a girl who isn’t all perfect, then you can’t really love a girl who is. Not for real. Not unconditionally.” Paul, Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller
So here is the big secret we never knew: beauty is not logical. Think about a time you were blown away by God’s beauty in nature. Was it because everything made sense and fit a standard of beauty you had already conjured up? Is a snowcapped mountain any more beautiful than an open field of flowers? Men are not attracted to you because you look like one particular kind of woman, they are attracted to you because you are a woman and that is beautiful. Women are beautiful. Women’s bodies are beautiful because they are feminine. A truth almost every man knows but every woman can’t believe. Any man or woman, any media outlet that tells you differently is lying. We know this is true because it’s true about God. He is not beautiful because we find him so; we find Him so because He is.
I think there’s a very good reason God didn’t give us a detailed description of what Eve looked like, he knew what we’d do with it! There is no ideal woman, each woman is made to be her man’s ideal.
“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” -Genesis 2
The secret’s out: if you’re a woman, men will find you attractive, whether you agree with them or not.
