body projects

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“I’m Having Their Baby”

The Oxygen Network will be presenting a show entitled “I’m Having Their Baby” on July 23rd, 2012. The show highlights women who will be giving their children up for adoption. The adoptive parents include gay couples, infertile couples, etc. The interesting part is that we see the story from both sides. Oxygen shows us what the birth mother experiences along with the adoptive parents. I believe that it will be interesting to see how the families of both sides feel regarding the adoptions.

I believe that this is a show unlike any other on television at this time. Adoption is rarely discussed, especially from both points of view. Since abortion is such a charged topic, adoption seems to follow. Women who chose to give up their children are looked down upon at times, depending on their situations. Sometimes, society feels better about a woman choosing to give their child up for adoption that abort the pregnancy, but sometimes the situation is reversed. It is even more interesting that adopting a child is seen as a noble cause or creating a family, but giving a child up is looked down upon. Isn’t what a woman does with what is inside her body up to her?

I definitely see birthing a baby to give to someone else as an interesting body project. Anyway, I’m looking forward to this show! Will anyone else watch with me?

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“Boobs Don’t Work That Way”…No really, they don’t!!!

Images such as these pervade comic book character art. Women are normally in sexy, revealing outfits; and, their bodies are often doing some pretty impossible things. A blog called Boobs Don’t Work That Way brings awareness to how ridiculously women are portrayed in comic books. The picture of Wonder Woman displayed here is not unique. Attempting to make her sexier, she is drawn into this impossible pose where her breasts and behind are shown at the same time. Also, her breasts are extremely large, and there is no way that her costume could logically support them. The commentary on the blog regarding this picture is as follows:

“It always freaks me out when boobs are drawn as almost a separate entity. This one looks like it’s about to pop off and and start a solo career.”

Other interesting points the blogger makes include the way fabric unrealistically stretches over breasts in some costumes, suctioning itself to each breast individually, the fact that nipples rarely have areolas in comics, and that breasts are not always perky and perfectly spherical.

I find it interesting that beauty for women in comic books is literally impossible for us as humans. The beauty standard is completely unrealistic. Do comic book artists feel that women will not be sexy without their impossible breasts? Or do they enjoy creating a fantasy woman? I’m not personally sure which reason correctly demonstrate how artists feel, or if there are other reasons. The blog is not being updated, but the pictures and commentary are excellent. Check it out!

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Fed Up With Facebook

“Does she seriously think that she looks good???? Yuck”

“It’s like those ladies at the beach or pool who wear bikini’s and their fat it bulging out and yet they think they look good! Good enough to appear day after day like that! Ladies, think of how many eyes you are hurting!!! Lol.”

“She looks so ridiculous…cowhide, leather, beef jerkey, lost at sea…exactly. Attractive…NOT!!! She truly looks like she is in her sixties. Whether she actually brought the child into the tanning bed or not, she is a terrible role model. She needs some psychiatric help to get over that obsession with tanning.”

Although I am not the biggest fan of perpetuating harmful ideas in order to make a point, I am just about to do that. Even though I find the above comments repulsive and upsetting, I think it is important to pull them away from the Facebook context and to put them on here so that our blog readers can consider what they have been seeing on Facebook.

The above comments are in regards to the recent story about the mother who had her young daughter use a tanning bed even though it is against the law. I will be honest, I do not know a lot about this story, perhaps I would have read more about it if I hadn’t seen these comments on Facebook bashing her. I am not defending her actions, but I also want nothing to do with condemning her either, I don’t know her.

However….

If I were to take the route of acting like I know something about this woman, I would say that it does appear that she has some sort of disorder, maybe an addiction. If we look at the story through this perspective I wonder if these people who made the above comments would be saying the same kind of things. Let’s replace the addiction of tanning with alcohol. Would this public speculation even make sense anymore? Because of the physical marker of this disorder, people feel that they are able to openly comment of the “unsightly” nature of it. Then again, maybe these same people think alcoholics are disgusting too. The physical aspect of this disorder mixed with the chance to criticism a woman in her role of being a mother has created a Facebook freak show frenzy. How about we all do ourselves a favor and think before we post?

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Do These Pants Make My Ass Look Bisexual?

Why does what I’m wearing define my sexual orientation? I’m a 22-year old female, and I often change the way I dress, even on a day-to-day basis. I may feel like wearing a tight skirt, heels, make-up, and jewelry and shaving my legs on Monday. On Tuesday I might wear sweatpants and a T-shirt and throw my hair in a messy bun, and on Wednesday I may wear a baggy pair of guy’s jeans with paint stains on them, a tank top, and skater shoes but do my hair in a cute way. I enjoy dressing in any way that makes me feel comfortable, and I usually do.

But recently, I got a girlfriend, and even though I dress the same way I’ve always dressed, with my same unique style I’ve always had, I’ve heard some interesting comments, even from people that I know care about me and aren’t trying to be offensive. But if I’m dressed up (and meet society’s beauty standards) I’ll hear people say things like “Are you really a lesbian?” or “I don’t understand how you’re gay” and when I dress down, or “more like a guy” I hear “You’re such a lesbian.”

And I’m not even a lesbian! I’m bisexual!

I feel as though society often judges people as being gay or straight based on what they’re wearing. A recent conversation with my (straight, male) roommates went like this:

Roommate 1: “What are you wearing?”
Me: “Jeans.”
Roommate 2: “She has a girlfriend, she can wear what she wants.”
Roommate 1: “She’s only half-gay.”
Me: “What does that have to do with it?”
Roommate 1: “Well sometimes you dress like the straight half.”

First off, I consider myself a hundred percent gay and a hundred percent straight, and I hate it when people call me “half gay.” It’s not like I find women attractive half the time; I find attractive PEOPLE attractive ALL the time. Second, how come I can only wear “whatever I want” because I have a girlfriend? It’s not like my girlfriend dresses me. Could I wear girls’ jeans if I was a lesbian? Could I wear guys’ jeans if I was straight? Why are my roommates only saying things now? Don’t the same rules apply now as when I was single? Or am I “more gay” when I have a girlfriend?

It’s also weird to me that clothes can make you look gay (“He’s totally gay, look at his pants.”  “I can’t tell if he’s gay or if he just dresses really well…”  “She looks like a dyke in those pants.”) or even make you look straight (“Can you believe he’s gay? He dresses so straight!”) but I have never heard of clothes making you look bisexual. If bisexuality, homosexuality, and heterosexuality are all valid sexual orientations, why don’t our clothes make us look bisexual? Where can I buy pants that make me look like I date boys and girls?

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The Adipositivity Project

I’ve been aware of The Adipositivity Project for a number of years.  Most people who float around Fat Acceptance circles online are aware of it, but when I’ve shown it to friends who aren’t aware of FA, it’s always surprised them.  I thought, given the reading for our next class, this was at least visually on topic.  I’m also always a fan of activism through art and you can’t say Substantia Jones’ photographs aren’t beautiful or radical.   Many of the photographs are nudes, so beware if you decide to click through.  I’ve pulled some of the more modest ones to show the intent of the images.

Adipose: Of or relating to fat.

Positivity: Characterized by or displaying acceptance or affirmation.


MISSION: The Adipositivity Project aims to promote size acceptance, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather, through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that’s normally unseen.

The hope is to widen definitions of physical beauty. Literally.

The photographs here are close details of the fat female form, without the inclusion of faces. One reason for this is to coax observers into imagining they’re looking at the fat women in their own lives, ideally then accepting them as having aesthetic appeal which, for better or worse, often translates into more complete forms of acceptance.

The women you see in these images are educators, executives, mothers, musicians, professionals, performers, artists, activists, clerks, and writers. They are perhaps even the women you’ve clucked at on the subway, rolled your eyes at in the market, or joked about with your friends.

This is what they look like with their clothes off.

Some are showing you their bodies proudly. Others timidly. And some quite reluctantly. But they all share a determination in altering commonly accepted notions of a narrow and specific beauty ideal.


 I love this project, especially considering the attempts by the media to include “real” bodies through the use of marketing like the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and “plus size” (really a size 6-12) models, and how different these fat people look from those culturally approved fat bodies.  These aren’t the media portrayed idea of what is “real” (and how problematic is that word in regards to any person?).  These (mostly) women, according to the BMI (another problematic method of judgment!), are obese, or more likely morbidly obese (sometimes called Death Fat in the FA community).  Most of them probably weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 or 300 or even 400 pounds – yet I don’t think they look like the stereotypical bed-ridden mordibly obese person most non-fats think of when they hear those numbers. Or maybe they do look like those ZOMG FAT people to you.

However you see them, these people are fat, but they have accepted the bodies they have and are living their lives in them.

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The Great Wall of Vagina

Artist Jamie McCartney is trying to start a sexual revolution… but not the kind we usually think of.

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He is attempting through art to change female body perceptions and show us that every woman’s vulvas are normal.  McCartney is a life cast artist; he spent five years collecting casts of volunteers’ vulva mounds and has turned the result into The Great Wall of Vagina.

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The work includes 400 casts, as accurate as photographs, displayed in ten wall panels. They range in age from 18 to 76 and include mothers and daughters, identical twins, transgendered men and women, women pre and post natal, and another one pre and post labiaplasty. It is impressive and at times overwhelming, but by reducing the body part to a simple white plaster cast, he removes the sexualization we would typically attach to such a display.  His use of spectacle shows us how absolutely diverse each and every woman’s vulva is – on the website it mentions how each one is as unique as a face.  And they are!

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“For many women their genital appearance is a source of anxiety and I was in a unique position to do something about that.” - Jamie McCartney

There are several things I find interesting about this art project.  First, by bombarding us with 400 vulvas in a small space, he reduces the body to a single part, from a view many of us have never seen. And while we ARE viewing the diversity and differences in vulvas, it also manages to emphasize the similarities.  We see the similarities in our differences.

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And second, if women are shocked and surprised at the diversity shown here – why is that?  Is it simply because most heterosexual women haven’t seen other women’s open vulvas?  Or is it the “pornification” of our modern culture?  If labiaplasties are on the rise, do you think an exhibit like this would help stop that trend? Do you think hetereosexual men and lesbians are surprised by this diversity?

So, would you go see the show?  And if you are the owner of a vulva, are you looking for one that looks like yours?

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“It’s time our society grew up around these issues and I’m certain that art has a role to play.” - Jamie McCartney

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Get Naked to Fight Negative Body Image!

My sister, Lisa, goes to Northwestern University and put the poster to the right on her facebook page. I glanced at it, and immediately loved the idea. A student organization “Active Minds” is asking average students at the University to submit pictures of themselves with their clothing off (without showing anything inappropriate) and without showing their faces to put a cute slogan on a whiteboard or paper and say something positive about that part of their body. I asked her if there were more pictures like the one in this poster. She said yes, go HERE. So I did.

The pictures on this blog are the ones I found on that website. I loved the clever ways people wrote about their bodies and that everyone seems comfortable in their own skin. In a way, it reminds me of the POST SECRET website where people anonymously send in secrets about themselves they’ve never told anyone, and they are viewable publicly on the internet. But unlike PostSecret, this community is just college kids and they’re saying that instead of giving in to the public perception of how bodies “should” be, this is simply the way they are and they’re proud of that and they’re willing to put it in a public place.

I can’t wait to see the kinds of pictures people post, and am also curious to see if anyone will send in a picture of a scar they’re proud of, or if people will send in pictures of their tattoos or piercings like what we’ve discussed in class. I am going to continue to follow this project even after I post this blog and I encourage you to do the same.

The goal of this project by Northwestern University’s “Active Minds” is that they will have lots of pictures of average people who like their bodies the way they are and they will be displayed at the university for National Eating Disorder Awareness Week at the end of March. I couldn’t be happier with this idea.

As a child, I was a ballet dancer, and I was severely underweight. But I thought I looked great because the standard in that environment was, and is, that you are not supposed to have excessive body weight, even in areas like your hips and breasts where you should be gaining weight at puberty. I was exposed to eating disorders at a very young age and know several people who have suffered and nearly died from them.I really like the idea that they’re promoting eating disorder awareness and simultaneously promoting a positive body image. In fact, I like the idea so much I want to start something like this at UMBC. So my question is, if I did, would you join me, and do you think other people would join in?

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The Rebellyon

Amanda Palmer (probably my favorite musician, artists, what have you) has a disagreement with the managers of Roadrunner Records, her then point of contact for making music. The short version of  a long story is that for her solo album entitled Who Killed Amanda Palmer? the manager of Roadrunner Records (who also has bands such as Kiss, Korn, Theory of a Deadman, and Nickleback) told her that the video for “Leeds United” would need to be altered because her stomach looked fat. He said according to Palmer, “i’m a guy, amanda. i understand what people like.” The longer version of these events was posted on her blog which is linked here. Amazingly enough, I do believe this is the body he said people would not like:

She proclaimed a return to love the belly, although in her own vanity she was frequently self-conscious of it. After posting a photograph of her belly, many of her fans felt inclined to follow in her actions. At one point there was a website devoted to those pictures (which I can’t happen to find now), but they have been collectively amassed and put on various sites. There have been discussions about how the body should be loved as it is. An interesting take of the Rebellyon is discussed here.

I am actually really saddened by the fact that this occurred because by one man’s standards, the body was judged as if by societal judgement. The amazing thing is that her fan base provided the grounds for substantial protest against the record company (which she was finally able to drop after harsh criticisms). Her body has been put on display by the mediums she works in and it is evident there is a place for politics in this space, but was it fair for the manager to assert the ideal body that her audience would like?

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Hollywood’s Thin, New Jennifer Hudson

After reading this article in Huffington Post and seeing many, many commercials with a svelte, toned Jennifer Hudson, I wondered how she managed to lose so much weight. Weight Watchers and exercise helped Hudson loose a huge eighty pounds in a healthy manner. The  formerly “larger than life” singer and actress is now a glowing size zero. Hollywood could not be happier.

Plus sized women in Hollywood are not easy to come by, especially when these women are black. Hollywood’s black female superstars are sexy like Halle Berry or extremely curvaceous like Beyonce. Where does a plus sized black woman like Jennifer Hudson fit in? Does out singing Beyonce in Dreamgirls mean nothing?

In my opinion, Jennifer Hudson had not been portrayed as other black women before she dropped eighty pounds. Yes, she was talented and award winning, but not beautiful. Her beauty has only come from her weight loss. Now, we can marvel over her thin waist and curvy hips along with her amazing singing voice.

But, which is better? Should a black female celebrity have to choose between being famous for her talent or her body? Of course, some celebrities like Beyonce have both covered while others like Nicki Minaj are lacking. What does this mean for little black girls? Can they feel comfortable in their bodies and accept not being beautiful but talented instead? Or do their bodies have to be the cause of their beauty? Should they  have to choose? I do not know the answers to these questions, although I have some ideas. The good news is that Jennifer Hudson’s voice is still big and beautiful!