A Liz Taylor Body in a Cheryl Tiegs World

By the time I hit puberty in 1978, Elizabeth Taylor was legend, but was no longer considered the ideal womanly form that she had been during my mother’s adolescence.  Cheryl Tiegs and Farrah Fawcett had redefined beauty for my generation to mean blonde, leggy, tan, and vaguely Californian, with 5 more inches in height and half the curves that Taylor possessed.  By age 16, I was 5’1⅔”, 108 lbs. with a naturally waspy waist and an ass that was one full size larger than my bust.  I didn’t conform.

I never would conform, but it took me until age 28 to stop wanting to.  From what I read, I got out of the head game early.  Some women hate their bodies for life, thanks to a pervasive media influence that runs through more than $160 billion in marketing money every year to tell women how they should look.

This is quick and dirty research.  The $160 billion/year statistic comes from a May 2003 article in The Economist analyzing advertising trends in the beauty business. Would you believe it was the only free, publicly available source I could find willing to put a hard, aggregate number on it?  Don’t be surprised: The amount spent today, 10 years later, is indubitably higher, and the related industries that make up the beauty business have a vested interest in women not understanding to what extent they are being brainwashed every day. The Economist total includes make-up, hair and skin products, perfumes, cosmetic treatments (botox, boob jobs, etc.), and health and diet ads.  It does not include the fashion industry, which, if quantified, would substantially increase the total, considering that the womenswear market itself is projected to hit $621 billion in 2014. (The $621 billion factoid comes from a MarketLine industry report.)

But this post is not about brainwashing, or even the impossible physical standards we impose upon women.  It’s about loving yourself when you are a woman, because summer is the season when we all love to hate ourselves as women.  As the clothes come off to accommodate the hotter temperatures, the TV, Internet, and print ads increasingly push diet and fitness on us, desperately sure that each and every female on the planet wants to lose 5, 20, or 40 lbs. before we hit the beach on vacation.  And many of us respond with equal desperation.

It’s all about the bikini bodies…

Do you have a bikini body?  I do.  A bikini body is a body in a bikini, that’s all.  I don’t even care that a quarter of my FB friends will be appalled that I wear one when I go swimming.  I’m not wearing a tankini, and don’t get me started on the “swimdress,” a garment so poorly designed for actual swimming that even Michael Phelps would fail a qualifying meet if he wore one.  I could have gone maillot, but all the maillots “designed” for women of my age/size were predominantly black with bling around the bust.  Bling is an idiotic, impractical addition if you are wearing a suit to swim, and I’m not trying to pretend I’m 1” thinner.  If you are still wearing a Miraclesuit hoping to hide your “flaws,” trust me, in a swimsuit, everyone knows you aren’t actually 1” thinner, no matter what color the suit is.

Screw the advertising monsters.  Summer is the perfect season to get outside and enjoy what your body can do.  The only person who has to live and move in your body is you.

So here’s my rule of thumb for all women during swim season:  If the suit makes you feel supported when you move in it, buy it.  If the suit makes it easier for you to move in the water, buy it.  If the suit makes you feel more confident about going into the water, or enhances your experience of being in the water, buy it.  But if you are buying a suit strictly to camouflage some self-perceived bodily deficiency, Don’t Buy It.  Pick the “less appropriate” swimsuit instead, and enjoy what you are doing instead of worrying about what you are showing.

I’m proud of my bikini.  It’s the first one I’ve bought in 13 years, and there’s barely a speck of black in my entire suit:  It’s bright lime green with color-blocking.  I am a short, milky-skinned, overweight 46-year-old and I’m sure that someone out there is tsk-ing as s/he reads this.  If you are tsk-ing, ask yourself if you shouldn’t be working your mind as often as you work your body.  You are as much a victim of marketing-induced prejudice as I was.  Bodies are amazing systems designed to be used and enjoyed in all shapes and sizes.