Californication Features Boring Bodies-Give Me Self-Love Instead

February 3, 2015

Our sexuality is who we are as thinking, feeling, and caring human beings. It is our ability to love and nurture. To express warmth and compassion. It is not only our gonads. (Monica A. Coleman, Making a Way Out of No Way, 156)

If you know me, then you know that I am a devoted fan of the X-Files. I still read the comics and when it was announced that there may be a new X-Files mini-series soon, at least three of my friends posted an article about it on my facebook page.

(Mulder & Scully-a picture from The X-Files Classics Comics Vol. 1)
As a devoted fan, I like to keep up with what my favorite actors are doing and so I decided to try Duchovny's series, Californication, again.  I watched two episodes and I am sad to say that that was all I could take.  The series is one big sex-fest, but that is not my problem!  My problem is that all of the women in the show look exactly the same-"perfectly" slender, the Hollywood ideal.  Duchovny's character, Hank, has sex with many women in each episode, so we get to see a lot of female nudity and they all look like carbon copies of each other!  In my world, there are some women who are slender, some who are inbetween and some that are fat.  There are some people of every shade of color and there are some young and old, rich and poor, able-bodied and disabled, but in Californication's world, there is only young, insecure, rich and skinny.  I get bored seeing the same old naked bodies.  I suppose some people get turned on by seeing "perfect" naked body after "perfect" body, but I get bored and irritated.  What was even worse to me than seeing all these women that looked the same is that many of them would ask Hank if they were pretty enough, if their body needed any more alteration, but what they are saying is that women are never enough and it's true.  In this society, women must always be insecure because we can never be perfect enough.  One of the women in the show even asked Hank if she should get her vaginal lips rejuvenated!  The question is absurd and yet it is our reality. 
Unless...
Unless you step out of society's reality and create your own.  Start working on learning how to love your body.  Dress for yourself and to your own desires.  Only shave when you want to, even if wearing shorts or a bathing suit.  I promise people will not run away screaming.  I promise you'll still go on dates and even have sex.  Life is so much more interesting and exciting when we all take ownership of our bodies and start to love them, no matter what size, color, class, orientation, gender, age or ability.
One way I create my own beautiful reality is by praising myself when I feel good.  As I have written about before, I take pictures of myself when I feel good or to remember an important occasion, so here are some pictures of me when I tried something fancy and new - having high tea at Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party in Atlanta with a friend.
High tea is something special for me, so, of course, I had to dress up!  I looked cute in this outfit:
(Yellow shirt, SteinMart L; white sweater, Delia's XL; pear skirt, Goodwill, 14; white leggings, Sam's Club, XL; tan boot socks, ?; gray boots, ?; wooden necklace, gift from aunt)
I delight in being thrifty-I got the earrings for $1!
Oh my goodness, high tea was so much fun!  I felt like I was nurturing my inner little girl.  I felt like a posh person on Downton Abbey!
First, we ordered our tea from a long list.
We ordered chai tea.
Then we talked for hours while munching on scones with clotted cream, brownies, cupcakes, and little sandwiches.  
 While it was delightful to eat these scrumptious snacks, it was even more delightful to get to know my friend more.  It was the second time that week that I had gotten together with a church friend and I am glad - when I left the previous church, I made a vow to myself that I would not wait so long to get to know new church friends, for I had been at that church for eight whole years and waited until I needed to leave to finally decide to see my church friends one-on-one.  Not this time!
I may not be slender or be obsessed with only eating healthy food, but I am, for the most part, happy and confident and those two things are much sexier qualities to me than simply looking a standard way.  Self-love rejuvenates me more than any pricey surgery could!
Link Love:
NYTimes.com – Laura Hudson
“All of the tools that have been honed to make video games are essentially centered around violence and systems of violence,” she says, rather than working to develop what she calls “mechanics of intimacy,” ways that games might express emotional experiences and relationships.

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