Who decides what’s beautiful?

I read an article this morning and ever since that time, I have been burning up.

It was about a beauty pageant evaluating vaginas to come up with the ‘world’s most beautiful vagina’.

And guess what…they were all white…and hairless.

I’m sorry…but since when does that include ‘the world’? Did I miss the memo of the spectrum of skin color being white? Don’t we naturally have hair?

Or more importantly, and more poignantly, why is this even being conducted???!!!!

WHY do we need to continuously create beauty standards that leave the majority of the human population body shamed and insecure?

AND WHY the F%^$K are men still evaluating what is beautiful about women for the public to see???

When will this stop? What do we need to do to shout out that this doesn’t help people feel good about themselves?

I really think we need to get to a place where beauty lies in the one who is looking at herself/himself in the mirror. The beholder is YOU about you. Not in the other. Beauty lies in the beholder has it all wrong.

That is the whole problem.

We have created a society for hundreds of years, dressed to impress. We ask others how we look.

Instead of looking at ourselves and saying what a gorgeous pieces of ass we are…that we are a tasty piece of chocolate (white, milk, dark or covered with sprinkles).

I am working really hard on learning how to love all parts of myself.

At 47, I have accumulated handles I never thought I’d have. My flat abs of my 20’s and even early 30’s are totally gone. Cellulite adorns me.

Yet, I feel beautiful. Well, not all the time. That’s why I do the boudoir photo shoots. This has not been an easy lesson for me to learn.

I wanted to start loving these additions that were not welcome, but had become me. Negating myself is not self love.

I remember seeing the first collection and shirking away from the image of my body. I couldn’t see them.

Then I went back. After a few times, I eventually saw my beauty.

But lessons aren’t learned that quickly. Those negative thoughts kept creeping up.

That I am not as skinny as I want to be. For several reasons, I want to lose weight. First is health, of course and then the practical of wanting to fit in the clothes I have at home! But the real honest truth is I want to see myself in the mirror and love what I see.

That last reason is not something that should wait.

So, my shoots continued.

My most recent one was the hardest to see. It took me one week to really love what I saw.

And now I do

I want this for everyone. Pure self love and adoration of yourself.

When we have beauty competitions like this one, we make it really difficult for others to see themselves in an empowered way.

I’m not knocking someone who needed the prize but can’t we find other ways to do that which don’t feed into the habitual system of patriarchy and misogyny?

I imagine a world where men’s gorgeous cocks and women’s fabulous vulvas are celebrated with all their colors, sizes, hairi-ness or hairlessness, flaccidity and erectness without shame. That would be a world where peace could happen. Seriously, peace comes from acceptance. Let’s start with ourselves. Accept and love all of you. If you haven’t yet seen yourself closely in a mirror, I earnestly ask you to do so. Whatever genitalia you have-adore it-because it is a part of you.

4 Replies to “Beauty-who decides?”

  1. OMG- that pageant is …what can I say….WTF???!!! Stupidity exists in human nature but that is just insane. Male control. and race of course. WE WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL. That’s it. No explaining. No validation.

  2. It boggles my mind what unrealistic and racist standards our society tries to push on us. No wonder we’re a nation full of depressed and unsatisfied people.

    1. Yes that is the truth. Thank you for this reflection here Susan. We need to speak up to help ourselves!

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