(no subject)

[keryx]

hothead's swimsuit poll makes me want to cry.

I mean. How much does it SUCK that all these brilliant feminist women can't buy bathing suits? Or that it's mostly those of us who are so fat mainstream America can't stand to look at us who've finally said "fuck it" to the whole bathingsuit traumarama thing and just bought one on the internet and went out in it. Cause, you know, the only women who can stand to appear in bathingsuits are the ones who've been rendered INFUCKINGVISIBLE.

Clearly there's a need for some kind of hairy fat flat-chested tall thin too-white not-white-enough scarred scaly genderqueer angry fucking feminist beach retreat.

Comments

[kdiddy.livejournal.com]

I'd go to a nude beach if I knew that I wasn't going to burn to death.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would go to a nude beach (complete and utter sunburn aside. It's partly discomfort with nakedness (mine, not other people's - you be naked if you want!) and general and partly the idea of having all that delicate skin exposed to things that itch and irritate.

[crafting-change.livejournal.com]

hahah...
I think that is where my mind is at...I'm pasty as all get out...and after seeing family suffer from skin cancer, is bathe in the sunblock before going out.

[rackletang.livejournal.com]

Clearly there's a need for some kind of hairy fat flat-chested tall thing white scarred scaly genderqueer angry fucking feminist beach retreat.

I am so on board with that idea. I say a bunch of us get together and rent a beach house in Delaware or something.

I was ashamed to even answer that poll truthfully, but at the same time, if I don't own up to my insecurities, how will they ever be addressed?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

You want to know what's really screwy? I also felt weird answering the poll honestly. Like I'd be betraying the sisterhood and making other people feel bad by owning up that I'm not all that freaked by bathingsuitage.

This beach house idea would rock. We should seriously consider it for the first annual feminist party convention. Do you think people would actually come?

[rackletang.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but we should definitely look into it...

[belladonnalin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm totally with you. I was seriously thisclose to lying and saying "oh, no ... I totally buy them and I'm comfortable and ..." but it's total bullshit.

Plus, zorah and I have talked about this issue AT LENGTH.

It's amazing because, for the most part, I'm fine with my body now. I look at myself in the mirror most of the time and think "awww. cute!"

But this is that one area that just seems to hang around more than any other. It's amazing how true that is for so many of us.

[rackletang.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that poll was a real eye-opener for me. I'm glad I did it. Kinda. :)

[keryx.livejournal.com]

The swimsuit thing is kinda special - it's not just about body comfort but also about being exposed, and I think for a lot of us about being sexualized or genderfied in a way we can't control.

And yeah, on the "aw cute" otherwise front. I may think I'm cute in clothes most of the time, but I have confidence in a bathingsuit because I "know" I look unattractive by whoever's standard and I don't care.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I didn't make a specific comment, but I guess I am largely ambivalent about bathing suits. I don't have anywhere to swim where I feel comfortable, not for body image issues, but because I'm terrified my glasses are going to get stolen or things like that. People can effing cope with my frame as well as my pubic hair. (I think I got over the pubes thing just last year.) I remember when I was very little my mom never shaved the pubes and I thought it was gross, but I have NO IDEA where I picked that up from! I mist have seen lots of pubeless women in the media before I was 5.

[joelandrewtyson.livejournal.com]

Oh, do I get to come too since I took the poll?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Sure, I'm not feeling gender-limited here.

[joelandrewtyson.livejournal.com]

Woohoo. Can you teach me how to swim though?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Do you seriously not know how to swim? Cause if so, I'm fascinated. You have to tell me the story of how you didn't learn how to swim. Or something.

[joelandrewtyson.livejournal.com]

Nope I just never learned. In Jamaica I remember having very few trips to the beach. I'm not sure why but I'm pretty certain it has something to do with my dad being an asshole. I know he swam almost every morning in the reservoir or some shit. I left Jamaica when I was 7 and because my mom was newly single she didn't have much time to make sure I was going to the pool or any things like that really. By then I wasn't really interested and afraid anyway. My dad came to visit on one of his "once a decade" trips when I was 13 or 14. And he took me to swim lessons. If I were younger that would have been a traumatic experience. The "instructor" basically told me to just swim. I was like ... uh aren't you going to show me anything? So I just walked out. It was kind of a spectacle because there was a whole class and parents and stuff all over the place. So... yeah...

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Okay, then, if the feminist party ever does rent a beach house, I will totally teach you how to swim. Or at least the mechanics of floating, which is where I excel.

Swimming lessons are generally pretty traumatic, I think. I remember taking lessons at the base pool when I was like 5, and it was pretty much the same thing: Coachy Person: "Just SWIM!" Teeny little me: "WAAAAAAAAAH". Real effective.

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

worrrdddd

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I get teary-eyed just responding to comments. I just really had no idea how much this thing sucked for so many people.

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm surprised. Not that people have negative bathing suit associations, but at how strong they are. I've always been a "don't like the suits, but hey, I want to swim!" type of person. Never gone to a nude beach - I'm not a nude in semi-public person, though if I was at one then I'd probably join the masses. I've actually felt ok about bathing suits for about the past 5 years - that's when I had my "I want to wear the leopard print tankini and screw the pudge" revelation. Since then it's just gotten better.

[firecat]

I've always been fat and always been a swimming nut, so I've gotten used to walking around in bathing suits with the attitude, "You probably think I'm ugly; well, isn't that too bad for you." (When I was younger, I added "...because I can swim faster than you.") I don't feel attractive or "confident" in bathing suits; what I do feel is "functional."

I recently bought my first real bikini, from http://www.loveyourpeaches.com. I only wear that to fat-positive gatherings, though.

There is a fat women only swim once a week near Berkeley. It's great fun.

[strph.livejournal.com]

I would totally love that kind of beach retreat. I never realized how stressful swimming was to differently-gendered people, especially, until I dated a transgendered guy who detested swimming, in large part because of the swimsuit issue.

I've always loved swimming and have always been fat so I just sort of feel... normal in a bathing suit, albeit a bit more self-conscious than usual because I am wearing so little (which is how I responded in the survey.) I know my body jiggles, and I am rather pale, and I probably am not as hairless as society tells me to be, but dammit, I really don't care most of the time.

The most annoying part of it all for me is that I can't find cute, flattering, youthful-looking suits in my size. It was easier when I was a kid but now it seems like, unless I want to spend a million dollars on the internet, I have to buy a boring dorky suit designed for a middle-aged lady at a department store.

A few years ago I bought my most recent suit at such a place, and it is only okay (kind of a sporty style, plain with thin straps, in pretty blues, but with a silly impractical skirt that I hate), and so my most prevailing emotion when I dress to swim is, "Ugh! Why can't I find a suit that's more 'me'?"

Right now I don't even have a place to go swim (the city pools are scary, and the Y is too expensive, etc.) but I really miss it. I think if I could find better suits maybe I'd be more inclined to seek out a place to swim.

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

I checked both "fine" and "self-conscious." My only major requirements for a bathing suit is that it needs to stay on in the water and not look any worse than any other brightly-colored spandex garment designed to cling tightly and call attention to my body. Yeah, I'm self-conscious in a bathing suit. Not horribly so, but just enough to pull a pair of shorts on over the suit if I'm actually walking around on the beach (as opposed to heading straight for the ocean or just lounging on the towel).

Then again, I'm self-conscious in a dress too. My clothes are my armor. I'm self-conscious in a bathing suit, a dress or anything else out-of-the-ordinary for me not because I hate my body, but because it *feels* as though people notice me when I'm not in the standard jeans/t-shirt combo. I reserve the right to be shy and not want people looking at me.

[catchstars.livejournal.com]

I think my main qualm with bathing suits is that it makes swimming (an activity that's good for your body) into a fashion show. I've gotten over the size issue, but being judged on how stylish I am in the swimming pool or at the gym makes me uncomfortable exercising. I think it may have something to do with the fact that high school wasn't so long ago for me, and I can still remember feeling frumpy in gym class because I didn't have matching workout clothes, and even if I had wanted them, they didn't come in my size. I also hated feeling obligated to shave my legs, because shorts were part of the required gym strip for spring.

I did recently buy a bathing suit, and it's a really cute one. Not that it matters if I look stylish, because I only wear it to Aquafit classes, and the only other people in the pool are wearing utilitarian navy blue or black one-pieces. All of the other times I swim are at the nude beach.

I do feel for transgendered people, because they have such a hard time with appropriate swimming pool/beach fashion. A FTM I spoke with couldn't enjoy swimming, because they didn't know what to wear. They were uncomfortable dressing as a woman in a standard bathing suit, but didn't like to wear a binder under shorts and a t-shirt in the pool, because that much clothing made swimming cumbersome. There's a swimming pool in my area that holds nude swim nights, I wish they could do genderqueer nights as well.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Thanks for mentioning the gender issue with swimwear; I know it obviously affects transfolk, but I'm sure there are other people who identify male/female who find the gendering of swimwear frustrating (women's suits especially do trend towards barely-even-functional). What would be nice in swimwear is the swimsuit style men wore in the 20s-40s (that unisex basic one-piece top with shorts-ish bottoms). Someone should bring those back - they're basic and utilitarian and genderless.

I remember feeling frumpy in exercise gear in school, but it was so long ago that I've stopped caring. Gyms I loathe for other reasons, though. :)