{"id":1826,"date":"2016-05-10T12:15:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T16:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/blog\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2016-10-29T17:29:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-29T21:29:39","slug":"you-dont-have-to-be-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/10\/you-dont-have-to-be-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"You Don&#8217;t Have to be Beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m tired of the \u201cAll Bodies are Beautiful\u201d rhetoric.<\/p>\n<p>Why?\u00a0 There\u2019s still the goddamned pressure to think of yourself as beautiful above anything else.<\/p>\n<p>Am I beautiful?\u00a0 As in photogenic?<\/p>\n<p>Hell no.<\/p>\n<p>Does that mean I feel badly about my looks?<\/p>\n<p>Not unless I have to deal with some asshole deciding to be mean to me because I\u2019m not beautiful, and therefore need to be punished for it in his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s exactly the point.\u00a0 If we do the \u201call bodies are beautiful\u201d thing, what we\u2019re really saying is that beauty is the most important value to have, and trying to make people who aren\u2019t physically beautiful focus on that as the important value.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not beautiful.\u00a0 And you know what?\u00a0 That\u2019s okay.\u00a0 It\u2019s cool for people who are, and goodness knows they should enjoy it.\u00a0 I enjoy being smart.\u00a0 I enjoy being determined.\u00a0 I enjoy that partners find me attractive.\u00a0 (Beauty and charisma are two <em>very<\/em> different things. Charisma is a <em>skill<\/em>, and yes, I can turn that on if I want to).\u00a0 I am blessed with a strong, agile body and I love that.<\/p>\n<p>Do I like my body?<\/p>\n<p>Good heavens, YES!\u00a0 I am an extremely physical person and yes, I like my body.\u00a0 I love the way it feels when I pull through the water during a swim.\u00a0 I love the agility of my fingers as I knit.\u00a0 I love dancing and letting my body and mind merge with music.\u00a0 I love the way I can use facial expressions to communicate volumes without saying a word.\u00a0 I love the feel of well-tailored fabric and admire the way good clothes move with my body.<\/p>\n<p>I love these things independent of any aesthetic view of my body, and it takes the pressure off to be goddamned \u201cbeautiful\u201d all the time.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Cause, come<strong> on<\/strong>, I\u2019ve got stuff to <strong>do!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/10\/you-dont-have-to-be-beautiful\/springscream\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2052\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2052\" src=\"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/SpringScream-300x178.jpg\" alt=\"springscream\" width=\"300\" height=\"178\" srcset=\"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/SpringScream-300x178.jpg 300w, https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/SpringScream-768x457.jpg 768w, https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/SpringScream-1024x609.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/SpringScream-1200x713.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/SpringScream.jpg 1430w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m tired of the \u201cAll Bodies are Beautiful\u201d rhetoric. Why?\u00a0 There\u2019s still the goddamned pressure to think of yourself as beautiful above anything else. Am I beautiful?\u00a0 As in photogenic? Hell no. Does that mean I feel badly about my looks? Not unless I have to deal with some asshole deciding to be mean to &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/10\/you-dont-have-to-be-beautiful\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;You Don&#8217;t Have to be Beautiful&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health","category-rant"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2053,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions\/2053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}