Body Appreciation Sunday: Dat Ass, redux

I found this post from Feministe really interesting and cool. I dig where the author and her husband are coming from; once I was putting on a favorite pair of underwear and lamented that they no longer fit the way I liked. My manfriend said, Guess your ass is too big! and then walked over, crouched down, and literally kissed my butt. He meant it for a compliment and that was how I took it. He loves booties: the bigger, the better. He's Sir Mix-A-Lotish that way.

Much as I like to rely on my own self-esteem and my own approval of the way I look, the way I dress, my health, and so forth, it is always going to help that he's attracted to me. I think this is ok; some things we just can't do by ourselves. The support and love of our friends is important. I'm not "fat" even by nutbar US beauty standards, but the important thing is to accept and love yourself at WHATEVER size you are, because chances are, someone wants you to hate yourself instead--to think yourself ugly--to think yourself too skinny or too fat or too flat-chested or too wide-hipped. The fat acceptance movement is largely (heh) really amazing and I'm glad to see it spreading through the Internet and daily life. The personal is still political. If the regressive assholes who run our culture want to play out their wars on women's bodies, let's take the fight to them! My body, its wide shoulders and relative lack of waist, its hips and ass, its skinny legs and long arms, its short hair: if you insist on weaponizing it, I'll use it against you however I can.