playing. dress up.

[This was written as a comment on one of devastatingyet's posts, but I want to put it here too, because it's something I have strong feelings about but haven't actually posted yet.]

I feel totally awkward when I try to dress up for bdsm, especially playing at home. I’ve been trying to explain to my play partner how all the “sexy dominatrix” paraphernalia makes me feel but he doesn’t seem to get it. I’ll have to show him this blog post.

The most sterotypically femininely sexy thing I’ve felt comfortable sceneing in was a red cotton skirt with a black tank top. And bare feet. (It is so much more physically and mentally comfortable to scene in bare feet.)

I am all about the cargo shorts and tank tops in the summer.

I think it comes down to power. I want to feel powerful when I scene, in fact that’s why I do this stuff. Wearing uncomfortable, expensive, restrictive clothes that are so blatantly made to conform to beauty standards that piss me off… yeah, no feeling of power in that. Wearing clothes I’m comfortable in, that I can move in, that reflect *my* ideas of attractiveness, clothes that I can forget about while I’m doing all the stuff that *does* make me feel powerful… that feels good.

 

size matters

I’ve been a fat woman my whole life, and I have a hell of a lot to say about it. About the way the world sees and treats fat people… not only for myself but the millions of other people who are affected by culture’s negative stereotyping and insistence on conformity, on impossible and rigid standards of beauty, on the pervasive insistence that that so-called beauty is the mark of a woman’s worth. So much crap and so many beautiful people feeling ugly and unworthy. So many ridiculous little boxes society tries to stuff people into…

I’m a 27 year old, omnisexual, polyamorous, kinky artist. I weigh 315 lbs. And I’m tired of being invisible.

 

a comment about beauty and power

“Indigo’s Violent” left this in part of a comment on Bitchy Jones’ blog:

“It was clear growing up that only pretty girls had power over boys, even the kind they got from being pretty helpless little things (Ew, gross, a bug!) when I was a tomboy (Check out my millenium falcon! Check out my hotwheels!) and I wanted that power but I wasn’t pretty and I didn’t like the namby-pamby shit girls pulled about being delicate and clean and fancy all the time. “

 

you’re not allowed to find me desirable.

(I think this is from the SM Feminists blog…)

“women such as ourselves are consistently discouraged from the true expression of our sexuality by populist messages saying we are undesirable, unworthy, unattractive, unacceptable, and just plain wrong, just as males are discouraged from desiring such as us, by being presented with what TPTB want them to want.”

I loved that point at the end - that men are discouraged from being attracted to women that don’t fit into the stereotypical ideal. It’s not just that we women are told we’re undesirable, the men are told we’re unworthy too. And that’s something that I think a lot of people miss when they’re talking about these things. It’s not just that we’re made to feel horribly, ashamedly, irrationally ugly. It’s that there’s just as active a campaign telling men they’re not allowed to entertain the possiblity that we’re sexy.