The Pudgy Belly Revolution
What if we dared to exist in these bodies without apology?
Do you ever look at photos of yourself and remember exactly how you felt in your body at that moment in time? I suppose every now and then we see a photo and remember our emotional state, or maybe even the thoughts we were pondering in that moment, but do you remember how your body felt?
I often have those intense physical memories arise when I see a photo of myself. Oh yes, I can remember exactly how my body felt at that moment. That’s almost a given for me, considering the relationship I have with my body. It’s hard enough in the day-to-day moments, but when a camera comes out…oh lord. I tense up, entirely. I become afraid of what I will see in that photo.
Suddenly, I’m hyper-aware of all the ways my body isn’t beautiful the way it’s “supposed” to be.
It doesn’t matter what’s visible in the photo or not. All I can think about is my damaged skin, my fleshy stomach, my droopy ass, my gym-sock tits, my hairy legs, my stretch mark-striped hips, my cellulite-dotted thighs…
It induces panic the same way it did when I was a teenager first developing my eating disorders and compulsive behaviors around exercising.
And then there it is, all those feelings captured in a burst of perfectly organized pixels.
A souvenir forever illustrating this painful relationship I have with my body.
Though my body undoubtedly looks pretty much the same to everyone around me, I know from my own experience that there are actually lots of bodies in here.
There’s the AM Body and the PM Body. The Ovulation Body and the PMS Body. The Overdoing Body and the Overdid-It Body. The Breakup Body and the Fornicating-Mating Body.
And my absolute favorite of all, the In Love Body.
I’ve been through all of these in the past year. And in fact, the end of last year culminated in a sprint through each one.
As I sat there in the discomfort of it all, having boomeranged from one end of the spectrum to the other so goddamn quickly, I felt overwhelmed and hopeless.
Would there ever be relief from this? Would I ever be able to live in this body without always landing in such uncomfortable, painful spaces?
My friend Edward Riley began talking about reinstating the nude photo challenges he, I, and his wife have been doing since last year. Between that and the nude self-portraits I had planned to take for art projects this year, I felt a momentary surge of dread. I couldn’t imagine getting back in front of the camera again — especially without my clothes on.
But after a year of pushing boundaries and challenging my edges, on my own and with others, I realized that I should go for it. I should keep confronting the reality of this body again and again.
Not to change it — but to love it.
After the holidays, I couldn’t stop thinking about doing a nude photoshoot without waiting for a month to “get back into my routine.” (In other words, to lose the weight I’d gained over the holiday season.)
This felt incredibly important to me. Aren’t I just playing the game when I only take nude self-portraits at times that I feel good about myself? When my weight is more in the zone that makes me somewhat comfortable?
And the truth is, as I mentioned earlier, the people around me, whether they know me well or are just strangers on the internet looking at my art, likely do not notice any of the changes that seem so glaringly obvious to me.
Who is actually looking at me thinking, “Whoa, she’s gained at least seven pounds since her last set of photos”? Who is actually going to notice the subtle changes in the shape and texture of my belly between ovulation and the days right before I bleed?
No one. No one.
The truth is, I always pretty much look the same. Even if I got down to my “dream weight,” I doubt anyone would really notice a difference.
The only thing that matters is: Do I feel good in this body?
Finding a way to answer yes to that question is the only work I need to do.
I won’t lie. The photoshoot was rough.
I always experience high anxiety when I prepare for a photoshoot. Taking off my clothes and setting up the camera is extremely triggering for me.
Usually, once I get into it, I’m fine. But sometimes, the difficult feelings only build.
I continued to feel anxious, especially seeing some of the shots that came out. Interestingly, it’s not my body that tends to make me feel badly about myself — it’s my face. My damaged skin. My droopy eyelids. I see the face of a woman in her seventies, not in her forties. And it scares me.
To top it all off, during this experience, I had a lot of a trouble getting my remote shutter to work. The more it fussed, the more angry and frustrated I became. I finally broke down in tears.
It’s hard to get through the initial anxiety of stepping into a photoshoot. But to have your equipment causing issues when you’ve had to muster up such courage just to show up…that’s a difficult blow.
Despite my feelings, I persisted, trying new batteries, different lighting…anything I could think of.
And I was finally able to pull together a handful of shots that were workable.
My poochy tummy. My hairy legs. My damaged skin.
It was all out there on display.
But would I choose to display it?
I’ve lived most of my adult life believing that one day I would finally achieve the body I wanted and that once that happened, everything would be okay. I cannot emphasize enough the amount of self-worth, love, and “okayness” I have attached to my appearance.
And let me also emphasize that this is thanks to the successful brainwashing techniques of a capitalistic, misogynistic, racist culture in which only one very, very specific body can be considered beautiful and lovable.
It takes a lot to undo this damage. I’ve been working on it for decades.
I suppose the one thing that really helped was getting into my forties. Suddenly, I realized my body wasn’t going to get better. It wasn’t going to get hotter. I would never lose those last ten pounds.
So…what next? Does that mean I give up? Hide in a hut in the woods until I die so no one has to endure this horrific sight of a chubby, aging woman?
I never saw a man condemned to such a fate. Why the hell should I be?
Thankfully, my irrepressible feistiness kicked in. I don’t accept this. I don’t accept that I’m not allowed to unapologetically exist in this body exactly the way it is in any given moment.
Fuck that.
If you think about it, posting photos of our most imperfect imperfections is one of the most subversive, revolutionary things we can do in the face of our culture’s overwhelming misogyny.
It’s true that I still struggle to do so. Showing photos of my belly pooch is terrifying. Every part of my body seizes up and I hear a voice inside my head telling me no one will ever look at or read my work again. And, oh yeah, no one will love me, either.
Can you imagine this? That we live in a world that specifically asks us to believe destructive and nonsensical shit like this?
It almost makes me laugh to think that there is a part of me that truly believes people will lose respect for me as a writer just because I have an abundant belly. Or rather, because I had the poor taste to show it. After all, I’ve had this belly the whole time and have been doing just fine growing an audience.
But we’re supposed to believe that having a body that doesn’t measure up to impossible beauty standards is a failure across the board. That it indicates a lack of worth so deep that even what we do, say, and create has no value.
Now imagine doing it anyways. Showing honest depictions of our bodies — and without apology or the promise of improvement.
I’m a middle-aged, perimenopausal woman who doesn’t shave, doesn’t diet, doesn’t own a scale, and who is teaching herself to be comfortable with the body she has right now, while daring to believe that her work has value, she has something important to say, and she’s lovable as fuck.
What a total “Fuck you” to the system.
I wish I could leave this article on that note — empowering, rebellious, determined. But I think it would be wrong not to be honest about the struggle of this work.
I know for myself and for many of us, it will be the work of a lifetime. After I publish this and reveal this shot of my soft tummy, laparoscopy scar, and vicious stretch marks, I won’t suddenly experience a miraculous healing and lose all my doubts, fears, and self-consciousness.
On the contrary, I will no doubt look in the mirror at some point in the next 48 hours and find myself uncomfortable again. I will no doubt discover one of my favorite pairs of pants has gotten uncomfortably tight and I’ll hear that little voice in my head: “Will anyone find this body attractive? And if not, does that mean I don’t deserve love?”
Thankfully, as I get older, I am more and more aware of how absolutely fucked up this is. And I’m more and more willing — no, determined — to challenge it.
The presence and acknowledgement of my pudgy belly is seditious. This body is an insurgency.
And I love knowing that.
What else can it do just by existing?
I’m scared, but just curious enough to find out…
© Yael Wolfe 2022
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