Like many other female bodied/AFAB (remember – I identify as GQ) people I was taught to hate my body at a young age.  My body was the enemy, to be reduced, enhanced, made to look slim and perky, made to conform.  My mother was always trying to diet away the weight she gained after carrying my sister and I.  Never taught to appreciate what genetics gave me in the way of planes and curves.  The ones that were passed down from my mother, her mother, my dad’s mother, and all their mothers before then, many years back.  What a waste of love.  What a waste of words.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned it was possible to love your body.  Even if I want to lose weight.  Even if I have insecurities about bits that stick out.  I saw women who were bigger than me, smaller than me completely naked like it was the most normal thing in the world.  And it is.

When I started fucking women I began to see and love in them the things I had learned to hate in myself.  Then I realized how silly that was.  Why was that scar, that curve of the hip, that rounded stomach so attractive on her, but I couldn’t see it on me?  The light bulb starts to blink on.

When I got my first tattoo, I had been designing it for years.  I saw how pretty it was, how much it enhanced my look.  Then I got two more on my wrists, little ones.  Then my lower back piece – so simple and colorful, a memorial piece.  One that reminds me of Minx and her delightful curved hips (rounded out from bearing and giving life to two children, which I always admired), long curved abdominal scar (from a tummy tuck after weight loss), sensitive breasts, and a cunt so full of life.  This one reminds me that love of all is not out of reach.

My partners, past and present, male, female, and everywhere in between have given me a wonderful gift in this regard.  They remind me of all the great pleasure my body can give to another, through sight, sound, smell, and touch.  Their imaginations bring me to life and lust in ways that I could have never thought.  They show me, through their enthusiasm for what my body looks like and what it can do and what it can take, how fantastic it is.

I am not still completely in love with my body.  But I have come to appreciate the curve and solidness of my thighs, the ones that help carry me to the tops of mountains, and wrap so sensually around the hips or waist or head of my lover.  The extra pudge on the outside of them that won’t go away – my mom and sister both have that, and it ties me to them.  And my breasts still get in the way in clothing, but are a source of great joy to me, and to others.  My waist, more trim now than before because I weight lifted and made it that way, is still my great source of bodily anxiety.

But all said, my body is what carries me through this life and gives form to my thoughts and ambitions.  For that I am thankful.