Why I hate the term ‘body positivity’

“I don’t want to feel like I have to love my body all the time to have a healthy relationship with it, but I can’t imagine a reality in which I might feel neutrally about it.”

There’s an episode of Shrill where Annie, played by the delightful Aidy Bryant, finds herself writing about a very corporate, feminism-adjacent conference called WAHAM (short for Women Are Having A Moment).

The whole space is completely pink, the bathrooms are marked ‘Boss Bitch’ or ‘Werk Kunt’, and I dare say the attendees would call themselves She-EOs. Basically, it’s the nexus of capitalism and whitewashed feminism where you, too, can hide the hideous skin on your legs using special body makeup (for a hefty fee, of course).

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I often find myself thinking about Annie’s exchange with the head of WAHAM, Justine (SNL’s Vanessa Bayer), where the latter compliments Annie’s blouse. Having found it online, Annie explains that it’s always “such a hunt finding cool clothes for fat women”.

Justine is shocked by the word fat, and I’m reminded of instances where I might have called myself fat so the other person might jump in and placate me with a “No, you’re beautiful!” – as if those two concepts were in opposition with each other. Instead, Annie says “I don’t mind saying it, I am fat. It’s just true, you know. I’m not afraid of it, it’s just a descriptor.”

What Annie says isn’t groundbreaking but there’s a reason that scene has stuck with me. I feel like there are only two modalities for the fat woman: immense self-hatred or euphoric body positivity. When I last wrote about body acceptance (note: not body positivity), I received a number of messages from women who felt like they were failing because they weren’t besotted by their bodies.

I feel like I need to clarify that when I say I’ve made a conscious choice not to hate my body, that doesn’t mean I’ve started loving it either – and I have days where I’m incredibly mean to myself. Last week, I was in a photoshoot where I wore only my bathers, and I had nowhere to hide. In the moment, I felt great.

It was a safe, supportive environment, and it didn’t hurt that the photographer showered me with compliments. However, when I got home and looked at the photos, I got a knot in my stomach as I wondered “Is that what I really look like?”. I conjured images of the CGI caterpillar in A Bug’s Life, as each roll and fold of my stomach became glaringly visible.

I googled ‘giant thighs’ and messaged my friend to tell her that I looked so big that I appeared to be horribly disfigured. I was spiralling. Here I was, a supposed champion of the ‘bigger girl’, and I still talked to myself like I was a piece of shit. While I managed to dig myself out of that bad-thought hole, it did take me a few hours.

I thought ‘You look disgusting’, then ‘You shouldn’t think you’re disgusting, you’re supposed to think you’re hot’, then ‘You’re a fucking failure, why is it so impossible for you to love yourself?’. I became exhausted, and I knew I either had to accept that I was feeling ashamed about the way I looked or fall further into a pit of despair. I didn’t realise it until now, but that seems to be a choice I have to make every day.

Every morning when I get out of the shower I catch a glimpse of my bare tummy in the mirror and lament my angry red stretch-marks, feeling embarrassed about the state of my body. As I dry myself off, I have to decide if I’m going to indulge that mean voice in my head or stand up for myself.

Most days, I choose the latter and I’ll fill my palms with Vitamin E oil, slowly massaging the skin on my hips, bum and belly. Instead of flinching when I see my reflection, I believe I’m acknowledging that my body is there and it’s not going anywhere.

When posting on Instagram about her new i-D Magazine cover (wearing that Miu Miu miniskirt) model Paloma Elsesser expressed that she is “increasingly tired of [her] body being the centrepiece of the conversation”. I understand her tiredness, and I imagine she just wants to be seen as a person. I assume that’s what she’s thinking because that’s how I feel.

My body is something I think about every day, whether unconsciously or not, and I wish that wasn’t the case. I don’t want to feel like I have to love my body all the time to have a healthy relationship with it, but I can’t imagine a reality in which I might feel neutrally about it.

By thinking that we have to love our bodies under the guise of body positivity, I believe we’re setting ourselves up for failure. You feel bad about your body. Then you feel bad about feeling bad, then you feel bad about feeling bad that you feel bad – it’s a headache-inducing, never-ending cycle. That’s not to say that it’s bad if you feel positive about your body all the time.

In fact, more power to you if that’s the case. I envy you! The reason I believe in body acceptance is because I know it’s something attainable that I can work towards. Maybe that might change someday, but for now, this is where I stand: not hating or loving, but just being.

For more on body positivity, body acceptance and body neutrality, try this.