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How do you feel about your body?

  
  

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Smoothly
08:50 / 16.08.05
When you say I think I became less body conscious the more I began to believe that as long as you look reasonably inoffensive, it doesn’t really matter that much what you look like. I think this is partly to do with covering ourself up with clothes, is it not?

Hmmm. To be honest I feel a little conflicted about this. I think in one sense we’re encouraged to think of our bodies *as* clothes – outerwear that can be styled, manipulated and changed at will according to fashion. This is appealing for a number of reason, chief amongst them that by othering our bodies, we distance ourselves from other people’s reactions to them. A disparaging remark one’s gut becomes less personal, more like someone saying they don’t like your shirt. When this is combined with the prevailing wisdom that we are judged by what we *look* like above all else we have a psychological get-out from taking failure or criticism to heart. That’s what I meant about all the hand-wringing about body-fascism is kinda disingenuous. It’s much nice to feel we are being judged predominately by our ‘clothes’ because we can dodge the conclusion that it is our *selves* that are being judged. Which is quite comforting if we feel we are underestimated or underappreciated or underachieving, which any fairground palmist will tell you is pretty much everyone.

Whether or not it’s right to see our bodies as vehicles or clobber – something separable from our selves – I’m not sure. I’m quite interested to see how the attitudes of people here stack up. So far we seem to have a mixture of those who do, and others who feel much more closely bound up with their physicality. So when Evil Scientist (for example) says he thinks of his body as a machine, I wonder what he’s contrasting that with. I’ll just have to keep reading and see if it clarifies any of my thinking. I’m also kinda hoping that ‘personal space’ comes up. There seems to me a sense in which our bodies aren’t precisely delimited by the boundary of our skin to the rest of the world. But I might be over complicating things - and that might be another thread.
 
 
modern maenad
08:52 / 16.08.05
I don't trust my body to cartwheel but I suspect that's my brain being frightened of falling. For years I was very uncoordinated and I can't do stupid things like the grapevine move in aerobics- a constant anxiety for me. So in some ways (mostly coordinated ways) I feel very betrayed by my body and the brain that controls it. I have a very wasted capacity for physical exercise.

Nina - I feel absolutely the same. I have quite a weak and uncoordinated body, in terms of muscular strength, balance etc. and have always really envied people who are strong and physically confident. Its not that I'm unfit - I'm just not 'strong'. I've tried running and weights and all sorts, but it just doens't work for me. I suppose that if I made a really dedicated long term effort I could develop muscle and poise, but I'd rather read a book......
 
 
illmatic
12:52 / 16.08.05
I think my point was something like attitudes towards bodies shift from culture to culture, and in our culture we are have a huge fashion idustry that makes us look good when we cover up. Lots of skinny boys (and I'd include you and me in this, Smoothly) look good here in say, jeans and baggy tops, but were we in a beach in Calfornia we might be getting sand kicked in our faces by the jocks (at least until I unleashed TEH MARITAL SKILZ on they asses).

I take your point about the body/cloting thing, but am not sure what I think about it yet...

I'm just going to answer my own question instead. Being tall has always been quite handy, getting things off shelves, seeing into the girls changing rooms, people not mugging you and beating you up, that sort of thing. But with that much height, it's hard to keep control of it all, perhaps the nerve impulses take longer to reach the end of my arms or something, so I've always been a bit gangly/uncordinated. Like a lot of Barbeloids, I was ball allegic when at school, as I'd rather sit in the playground and read etc. The height meant I didn't get the shit kicked out of me for this undignified behaviour, though.

As I've got a bit older, I think I've just relaxed a bit, so am less likely to break everything breakable within the room. Martial arts has helped this a lot. In terms of appearence, I'm still not a top off in the park sort of man, I think my pecs, chest and so forth could do with development if I cared enough to be bothered about that sort of thing. I'm remarkably hairless as well. Seth said I looked like a baked bean.

I did actually get a tour round a body building gym recently but that was because I was waiting for my laundry to do, and it was across the road from the laundrette. I don't have the narcissim/dedication to commit myself to this sort of thing. It would be interesting though, as a way of learning about anatomy. In the tour, I made the mistake of telling the guy I wouldn't really want to get bit... which was a red rag to a bull, I thought a vein was going to pop out of his temple. If anything, the body, it's complexity and the utter strangeness of it's workings are an endless source of fascination.
 
 
Smoothly
13:19 / 16.08.05
Lots of skinny boys (and I'd include you and me in this, Smoothly) look good here in say, jeans and baggy tops, but were we in a beach in Calfornia we might be getting sand kicked in our faces by the jocks (at least until I unleashed TEH MARITAL SKILZ on they asses).

Yeah, for sure. Although I really don't believe that any clothes I wear do anything much to disguise the fact that I have the physique of an awkward 13-year-old girl.
(I also suspect that any attempt to demonstrate your 'marital skills' on their asses would only serve to enrage the jocks further.)
 
 
Axolotl
13:57 / 16.08.05
I think there's a lot to be said about the extreme disparagement of the physical form by many net-users, I mean look at the use of phrases such as "meatspace". I know part of it is pose (probably due to the influence of Neuromancer which refers to falling into the prison of the body), but how much is a concious stance and how much is motivated by the stereotypical geeks' extremely negative body image?
I read a very interesting book "the Pearly Gates of Cyberspace" by Margaret Wertheim which touches on this, and draws obvious parallels with gnostic beliefs. Possibly this is slightly more Laboratory or Headshop territory though.
 
 
Smoothly
14:08 / 16.08.05
I don’t think that should stop you talking about it in the Conversation, where appropriate, Phyre. I think there’s a prohibition against the Revolution getting too Conversationy, but not so much the other way around.

What do you mean? In a way, this thread would seem to give the lie to that. As far as I can tell pretty much every poster in this thread has a very positive body image. Am I just not reading between the lines?
 
 
illmatic
14:23 / 16.08.05
That's actually what I've found so interesting about it. I wouldn't say that all depictions are positive, but I've enjoyed the diversity of the descriptions. Enormous amount of range, even amongst a lot of geeks...
 
 
Axolotl
14:34 / 16.08.05
O.K Smoothly, Well firstly I'm not sure I'd agree that everyone has said they have a very positive body image. Secondly I'm not sure if people on Barbelith necessarily fit the stereo type of the hardcore geek, though I'm sure there is a crossover into that grouping.
It's a stance you often see in teh 733t haxxors, where the body is merely a shell for the mind, and a shell that once the mind is online is no longer relevant. There is a similar view of the body within the Extropians and the Trans-humanist crowd. However I have little first hand experience of any of these groups and would add the proviso that I am getting this information 2nd hand or worse.
Wertheim's book discusses this much more eloquently and in more detail than I can do here at work. I may go home and refresh my memory and see if I can express myself better then.
 
 
Quantum
14:46 / 16.08.05
I like the phrase Meatspace *because* of it's ridiculous cyber connotations of transcending the body, Lawnmower-man style. When just-some-guy posted something including the phrase 'my adventures in meatspace' I had to PM hir to say how funny it sounded. Like a Borrower in a butcher's shop, or 'Meat Trek'.
Meatspace is real life, where we all live, it has primacy. Bodies are great. Especially Illmatic's (can we get a clip of your marital madskillz? Can we, huh? with sandy jocks?)
 
 
Axolotl
15:06 / 16.08.05
Don't get me wrong - I think it's a great phrase too, it's ludicrous yet visceral.
 
 
ibis the being
15:20 / 16.08.05
I could relate to what Mordant was saying about not feeling like the person your body presents... for me, it's that I have always felt like a tall person - oddly enough given that I've always been short (5'2" now) - and am frequently surprised to see myself in photos looking so small next to everyone else. Also, I was a late bloomer physically - I was a rail until I was 21 or so - and it took a few years to get accustomed to having a rounder body. I felt awkward walking around with hips and breasts after having such a boyish frame for so long... I suppose that's what most women go through several years earlier than I did.

I've never been fat, but since my late blossoming have bounced up and down between fit-but-curvy and could-lose-10-lbs. There were times the latter state bothered me a lot. But then there were also times, at my thinnest, when increased lustful leering made me just as uncomfortable. Now that I'm creeping into my late 20s, my body image - as far as looks go - is probably at its best. I also have a physically demanding job that takes care of my physical fitness pretty well.

My most negative feelings about my body, though, are about health. I'm pretty constantly afraid of it betraying me. The most fearsome and insomnia-causing diseases are the invisible, symptomless ones, of course. Also, my dad developed fibromyalgia at age 50 which was pretty terrifying to me - a disease that strikes so suddenly and goes so quickly downhill. Hearing that a distant cousin suffers from MS is enough to have me scouring webmd to check my "symptoms." I've pretty much convinced myself that there is no way I'm going to live to a reasonable age without contracting some horrific illness. But certainly that's the fault of my demented brain & not my body....
 
 
Smoothly
15:20 / 16.08.05
I thought ‘meatspace’ was a reaction to the assumed primacy of real life. A reaction, in fact, to the idea that that life is any more ‘real’ than this one. I don't think it's that ridiculous.
 
 
Quantum
16:14 / 16.08.05
I do *as a phrase*. Questioning reality and presumptions, yay huzzah, that's your prerogative but 'meatspace'? Pur-lease. Ridikkilos as Potter might say.
Although while it's mentioned, 'real life' will have primacy as long as we need to eat, excrete and sleep. Notice also that it requires a massive technological and sociological support structure to keep a tiny percentage of the world online, which the majority of humanity will never experience. Real life is low tech and available to all humans.

Back on body-image, I don't like my voice. I like how it sounds to me but not how it sounds to others, and I think this is quite common- nobody likes the recorded playback of their voice. I heard it was because your bones vibrating make your voice have a deeper timbre or something, anybody know?
 
 
HCE
16:47 / 16.08.05
Ah, the recorded self is something else again. In videos, I do these these hopelessly weird things with my mouth, I don't see how anybody can stand to look at me. How can I produce intelligible speech? It's a mystery. From the inside, it all feels very unremarkable. Also, I cringe at what sounds like thick Valley Girl accent which others claim not to hear.

I find the sense of betrayal with respect to illness or injury that a few people have mentioned to be quite interesting. Why does it feel like a betrayal, particularly, rather than a disappointment or an unpleasant inevitability? Is that you'd gotten used to having things a certain way?
 
 
ibis the being
19:05 / 16.08.05
Hm, well, 'betrayal' is a weird term because it connotes some kind of intent on the part of the body (or the disease). But I mean betrayal in the sense of deception, because of that specific fear I have of the invisible disease. That is, I look to my body to give me some outward sign that something's amiss, any indication that I should treat a problem. "Betrayal" would be - I felt fine, no different than usual, eating and living well, but for example what I thought was a freckle is a fatal skin cancer.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:29 / 16.08.05
I think in one sense we’re encouraged to think of our bodies *as* clothes – outerwear that can be styled, manipulated and changed at will according to fashion...

It’s much nice to feel we are being judged predominately by our ‘clothes’ because we can dodge the conclusion that it is our *selves* that are being judged.

I think you're on the money with this though I perceive it as the use of clothing to extend and manipulate bodies. A case of the same difference really.

There is a part of our culture that seems to regard bodies as clothes and clothes as the body. A lot of people are consistently trying to manipulate their bodies by failing to eat properly because they don't see cosmetic surgery as an option. So on one hand we have people who can be comfortable about the judgement of bodies as outerwear because it provides a dissassociation, they're prepared to really manipulate them by any means necessary. On the other hand people who are thrown into this mania about their bodies sometimes try to manipulate them within their means and it doesn't work because it's difficult to lose weight etc.
 
 
Golias
21:17 / 16.08.05
6ft4,15.5 stone.33 years
Couldn't care less about my body....I'm married, so no need to impress anyone anymore : )
(Well except my wife who is forever encouraging me to give up smoking and lose my beer belly...)
I eat/drink what I like and go to the gym once a week(as part of my job) to laugh at the beautiful people working hard to stay beautiful.
Short people want to be tall.
Fat people want to be thin.
Curly hairs want straight.(on their heads that is).
Etc.
Thats just the way it is when your are young or insecure.
My only annoyance is my feet.It would help if they were a bit smaller(13) so I could shoes to fit me more often,lol.
------------
It would be interesting to compare thse who are happy/unhappy with their bods by age/sex.
I would guess younger women would top the unhappys while older men the happys.
(Happy smoking,eating crisps and drinking chaep plonk as I type)
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:38 / 16.08.05
Thats just the way it is when your are young or insecure.

I think that's a bit of a generalisation, a lot of young people are probably quite happy with their bodies, a lot of older, secure people probably dislike parts of themselves, not because they're imperfect but because they wouldn't find them attractive on someone else. There are so many reasons to want to be different.

I would guess younger women would top the unhappys while older men the happys.

Perhaps but I think you're falling prey to a cultural stereotype. For one thing I'm certain that as many adolescent boys worry about their bodies as adolescent girls, it's just not as normal to complain about it.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:41 / 16.08.05
... and a lot of men I know are more anxious about ageing than the women around them. Isn't that related to body consciousness?
 
 
Whisky Priestess
21:48 / 16.08.05
God yes. I for one would never want to have to suffer the constant Adrian-Mole style anxiety about cock size, which (I get the impression) seems to haunt many men and boys for years.

And how difficult to be a really short bloke (no offence to any short blokes), far worse than being a tall girl - I can imagine males, especially adolescents, have all sorts of issues about not being strong/masculine/muscular/fit/ big/lean/hairy/tall enough, it's just that their anxieties are more likely to be repressed and ignored.

Add that to the unique joy of being the gender that is still, societally, meant to "chase" the opposite sex, and thus court rejection every time they are interested in a girl, and you have a potent Special Brew of fear, ignorance, anxiety, inadequacy and misery quite as heady and deadly as what girls go through, I reckon.

shiver
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:01 / 16.08.05
(This may be entirely inapproriate, but can I just mention that I rather like hairy blokes and find talk of back-waxing sad and upsetting?)
 
 
Mourne Kransky
22:05 / 16.08.05
Enough of the Melanie Griffith impersonations, please. The word is body, not bod.
 
 
Golias
22:16 / 16.08.05
True, Nina, but generalisation and cultural steroetypes is all I have to base my reasoning on : ).
I didn't say young guys DONT worry about their bodies, but your CERTAINTY that they worry equally as much as girls but don't complain is pretty stereotypical as well.But we could argue opinion and generalisation in circles all night.You know more men anxious about aging....I could say I know more women,etc.
I'm interested in your concept of Body Consciousness though.Are people who are happy with their body less or more conscious of how they look?Is it more important how you think you look or how you think others percive you?I would say intelligence plays no part in feeling happy/unhappy with how you view yourself.
Is this statement true?
'No one is completly satisfied with the way they look.Some are better at accepting the reality of the uniquness of themselves and others'.
(Buddhists who have reached enlightenment are the obvious exception...)
 
 
Triplets
22:29 / 16.08.05
Do you mean Melanie Sykes, Xoc? Melanie Griffiths looks like she might say 'bawdy', but not 'bod'.
 
 
ibis the being
22:30 / 16.08.05
Golias, you say you "couldn't care less" about your body, and I'm inferring you equate not caring with positive body image? Also -

(Happy smoking,eating crisps and drinking chaep plonk as I type)

This is part of your disregard=happiness, I assume. I'm not trying to criticize, but perhaps poking you to elaborate a little. Do you feel, as the poster way upthread stated, that your body is merely a vehicle transporting your mind around? A cumbersome vehicle, or just an inconsequential one? You've told us how you feel about your looks, but how about your body?

It's funny, as soon as I saw this thread I started wondering how much people would get stuck on the issue of looks (fatness lumped in with that). Including myself. My first thought, to be sure was - "how do I feel about my body? Well, I'm happy with my weight." And only then did I think about what it can do, how well it functions.
 
 
Golias
22:48 / 16.08.05
---'Do you feel, as the poster way upthread stated, that your body is merely a vehicle transporting your mind around? A cumbersome vehicle, or just an inconsequential one? You've told us how you feel about your looks, but how about your body?'---

To be honest ibis I have never really thought about it and can't belive I'm in the minority.I suppose I've always taken it for granted that I am a composite of my mind and body.In my present state of being one cannot exist without the other so I have wasted no time in considering such as your questions.
How I feel about my body?!I..er...guess I feel it is necessary to exist in my present state and that it is unnecessary to dwell on this necessity!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:55 / 16.08.05
It's odd, my first thought was about the actual function of my body, the way it moves rather than the way it looks. I probably couldn't accurately describe the look of my body because I experience it from the inside rather than from someone else's perspective.
 
 
Unconditional Love
00:49 / 17.08.05
I love my pot belly and hairy penis, my limbs are strong and agile from kung fu and wu ji standing meditation. my pot belly comes from a love of chocolate and good food.

I like shaving my head so i can feel the world on it, especially rain, and these days my chin as well, thou i still feel naked without a goatee, nothing to hide all those lustful thoughts behind.

I think the natural body is beautiful, i especially like hairy bodies male and female, and a natural scent as well, body smell is intresting and stimulating, thou too much is overpowering.

There is nothing better than a big arse, round and succulent, inviting.

I guess id describe myself as muscled fat, small framed, stocky, grinning buddah belly and head.

I am not sure what to make of belly buttons that are outies, i am an innie. I dont feel awkward about my body. I used to before i took up self imposed exercise. I think exercise makes all the difference, especially to coordination and balance.

I think how you dance says alot about your relationship to your body, how you use it too express yourself.
 
 
lekvar
00:58 / 17.08.05
Illmatics opener,
...changing self-perception and attitudes, or in an actual way - diet, exercise, surgery even...
...To what degree do media images and sterotypes of what's acceptable and desireable detract from, or strengthen, these feelings?
led me to think this was more about body image, but the notion of how we perceive our bodies to work is worth looking at as well.

I suspect that a number of posters have, as I have, begun to notice their families shrinking through attrition. Recent deaths in my family have put my relationship with my family into highlight, but an important related issue, my relationship with the day-to-day workings my body, has been ignored beyond eat-sleep-excrete.

I've been a vegitarian for the past 8 years but gave up the pretense recently. I just didn't feel as good as I think I should so I started eating fish a couple times a week. This small change in fuel has made the lekvar machine feel like it's running smoother somehow.

I generally catologue the creaks and groans my body makes but still have a teenager's delusion that my body will continue merrily along without much extra attention from me. I'm sure that this attitude is going to cause me grief sometime soon.
 
 
Sean the frumious Bandersnatch
03:33 / 17.08.05
There's a lot I like about my body (flexibility, my height, eyes that I've been told are very pretty) but I have the vague feeling that sleeping with me is like sharing a bed with a bag of knives.
 
 
Sean the frumious Bandersnatch
03:40 / 17.08.05
To clarify, since I realise that nobody here knows the unspeakable majesty that is my body- it's not just that I'm a bit skinny but more that my bones are very pointy and stick out of my body at odd angles. Which is great for martial arts, but not much else.
 
 
Seth
11:19 / 17.08.05
Jesus. I didn’t give you a complex with that baked bean comment, did I? Sorry dude. That’s really crap of me.

I really like my body. I’m well built, broad shouldered and have strong arms. I love doing lifting, beer barrels and bags of concrete and PA systems and stuff like that. When the band is playing I tend to do a lot more of the lugging around than the rest of the guys. Plus the joy of heaving my drum kit up ten or twelve flights of stairs to the top of my block of flats.

I have a layer of fat on my torso that I’m quite fond of, too. I like watching my belly move when I breathe because it lets me know that I’m breathing from the right place. I don’t tend to feel the cold, but conversely I sweat more than anyone else I know. I was embarrassed about it even as recently as a couple of years ago, but now I think it’s pretty cool.

That’s probably a side effect of getting off stage naked from the waist up. I play extremely physically and I’m usually soaked to the skin by the end of the first song. I have vast, vast amounts of thick black body hair and a shaved head. I’m fairly convinced that the reason I don’t pull after our shows is that most girls are afraid that my performance behind the kit is similar to my performance in bed. I’ve been told that I wear my sex face when I play, and one of my ex-girlfriends said that watching me play was like me fucking her.

And it’s all been extremely liberating! To allow my body to naturally express myself in front of such a large number of people, to sweat and smell and pull down my jeans, get in a fight with the other band members, throw myself into walls, to feel the lactic acid build up in my arms and legs and get to the stage where it’s like I’ve been circuit training… I have fewer hang-ups by the day.

There’s other cool stuff as well. I never get ill. I heal really fast. When I’m exhausted I’m usually back on form after one night of good sleep. I get hay fever for about three weeks a year but then it disappears for the rest of the summer. I’m an alright dancer, not good, but capable of dancing like a nut for hours on end. I like my eyes, and I have a very expressive face. My voice is soft sounding and gentle. I have a couple of minor glitches, but my body is clever and strong enough to be managing them very well for the most part.

It’s been very important for me to realise over the last few years that I am my body. There is no dividing line between my body and my mind, and it is meaningless to talk about them as being separate. They’re both part of the totality of me as a person.

I like your body too.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
12:44 / 17.08.05
I improved my relationship with my body just by leaving school at the appropriate time. I spent my latter teenage years furtively crossdressing and convinced I'd been born the wrong sex but in the end chalked that just up to my x-dressing giving me an outlet for my dislike of my body. Since then things have got better, though I dislike my varying degrees of uncoordination and also my flabiness. Still, I walk a fair amount and am active at work, the idea of going to a gym or something similar bores me rigid. So I'm making the minimum effort, changes to my diet (cutting out or cutting down crisps in favour of veg, no more McDonalds or Coke, cutting out all fizzy drinks except for those rare occasions at teh pub, come the autumn I'm making a renewed attempt to stop eating sweets as that rather went pear-shaped this summer), seeing what that does.
 
 
grant
13:33 / 17.08.05
After reading Nina's comments about functionality (which was what I thought of when I first added to this thread anyway) and then Seth's drumming orgy, a thought struck me: I'm happiest with my body when I'm in the pool or in the ocean. Swimming. Holding my breath under water. Moving with the current. Doing flips. Just being *aware* that I'm suspended in a fluid, that it's touching me everywhere, holding me up and shifting me subtly into different shapes. That's nice, you know. It's the most physical experience I can think of.
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:44 / 17.08.05
I love the way we move our bodies without thinking. It's one of those neat things that you don't really contemplate because you do it so much.

Take my hands (please), currently flying across a keyboard typing this out. Correcting the occasional spelling mistake, and all without me really paying much attention to what they're doing. The central nervous system is a wonderful thing.

Healing is amazing too. I'm fascinated by my body's regenerative powers.
 
  

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