I have seen several posts on social media recently about body shaming incidents:
The first: Dani Mathers, a Playboy model, secretly took a picture of a nude women showering at the gym and talked about how she couldn't un-see that. Not only was she violating this woman's privacy, but on some level she was implying that this woman, this beautiful human somehow had no right to be accidentally seen nude in a shower, and worse, that she wasn't enough.
Second: I read this one yesterday. It is about a woman who was privately messaged about her one piece bathing suit, because someone could see the shape of her nipples through the bathing suit. The message this sends, is that it is certainly not okay to get cold and have naturally occurring body functions while in a bathing suit.
Third: A little girl, going to a Bible school activity, was not permitted to join because she was wearing a spaghetti strap and her shoulders were showing. Her mother literally gave her the shirt off of her back, so that she could participate in the activity.
Over the past 10ish years or so, my body took on new meaning to me, and I realized how body shaming is something that I was/am sometimes still guilty of sometimes at the expense of people who I truly love dearly. For this I am so sorry.
I can remember going on a camping trips growing up, with one of my siblings and her going through some kind of a faith struggle. I was maybe 14 or 15. She had taken her LDS garments off and was sporting a perfectly lovely sleeveless top with a rose on the front. Some of my family told her that she was immodest. Looking for comfort, she turned to me and said "What do you think?" Even though I wore tank tops all the time, I told her that it was immodest. She seemed so hurt. Several years later, the same shirt wound up in my closet.
Additionally, several siblings/friends of mine have gained weight over the years of growing up, and I remember talking about how I felt bad for them or even telling them that I was worried about them, as if their weight was something they hadn't noticed until I pointed it out. Or worse, as if I had any right to point that out to them at all.
I remember posting on social media about how I only support modest bathing suits and friends rebutting that modest is what one feels comfortable in. I didn't understand but I think I am starting to.
Before my wedding I had gained some weight. I remember someone telling me that if I continued, I wouldn't fit into my wedding dress. After my wedding I joined Weight Watchers and lost 30 pounds. I think it made me feel entitled to be an expert on how everyone without the same body type as mine, could lose weight as easily as I did.
Fast forward 3 kids later and I am 54 pounds heavier than when I got my lifetime membership at Weight Watchers. I haven't been able to lose the weight and yet somehow I am just as happy as I was when I was thinner. Somewhere along the lines of those 54 pounds I realized that I was a body shamer. All body types are different. All bodies are good. They hold the most beautiful souls.
About a year ago when I stopped going to LDS church, I took off my garments, the same thing I shamed my sister about all of those years ago. It felt so good to buy clothes that I didn't have to worry about my garments poking out of or layering shirts underneath to cover it up. I felt beautiful buying underwear that I was excited about wearing. I felt free.
I have to say that my definitions of modesty have changed a little as I really figure out what it is I believe. Different people feel comfortable in different kinds of clothes and one thing that we don't have is the right to make each other feel bad for wearing something or that our clothes are responsible for the thoughts of others and we certainly don't have the right to think that our bodies are somehow superior to someone else's-no matter how they look.
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