Skip to main content

Feeling Sexy and Feeling Empowered: dressing for yourself and no one else

A recent outfit! 

Recently, it appears, I have undergone some strange sort of metamorphosis. Could it be that (albeit dyed) copper fibres have crowded my scalp? (Men like long hair, apparently). Or that my weight has redistributed to create rounded hips, a narrow waist and lean(ish) limbs? (Men like these proportions, apparently). It's true, my body has matured as well as my mind. 

And so, I am faced with a new dilemma: whether to embrace the 'sexiness' (I will be using this term throughout and it is not to be confused with dressing provocatively or in overly risqué outfits) that my newly womanish body now exudes or hide it away. In this post, I'll be explaining why I choose the former. It is both a feminist issue and a personal battle, and I will be basing my discourse on my experience, I cannot speak for everyone, or indeed anyone but me. 

Another recent outfit (it was hot, okay?!)

Now, for some context regarding my experience. Firstly, until now, I could never have been considered 'pretty', 'girly', 'feminine' or any such descriptors. Rather, my exceptionally-short-hair/completely-shaved-head (and that neither suited me) and penchant for baggy, boyish clothing staved off all such compliments. The rare occasions when 'pretty' was applicable were few and far between, usually when I wore Japanese lolita fashion, when it was the clothes, not me, that were dramatically beautiful and hyperfeminine. 

Secondly, I desperately fear being looked at for any reason bar 'oh that person is wearing a very bright jumper' and the very idea of being observed for my physical form and not my clothes fills me with fear. This might sound rather paradoxical, considering that 'colour is my uniform' (thank you to Jordan, a friend of mine, who came up with that line), but I have no explanation. It is extremely paradoxical. Being cat-called recently was horrifying. I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable and I just wanted to disappear in a puff of smoke, which is unfortunately impossible, though would have been convenient. The 'male gaze' (though anyone's-gaze really) is not something I care for at all. Invisibility is a super power I've always coveted. 

My legs! 

I hear you gasp: 'So Louise, how can you profess to want to embrace your 'sexiness'?' And I answer: it's all about power, control, self-respect and self-care. 

Sexiness is an incredibly powerful tool; it both yields the power we have over our bodies, how we present and use them, how we feel within ourselves, and gives us a sense of power over our surroundings and how we are viewed. Our power over our reproductive potential and our loves and lusts is an integral part of sexiness as a concept, but let's focus primarily on how sexiness can make us feel and the repercussions of that feeling. The feeling that embracing sexiness gives me can be summed up in a few words: a deep sense of respect for my physicality. It gives me a sense of control in an uncontrollable world, a sense of understanding that to be a bodily being is to be desired in some way (not just sexually or physically, of course, but also for friendship and intellect and creativity). As physical beings we are spurred on to create, and particularly as a female-bodied person, I respect and appreciate the control I have over my power to create. 

Kanken and backless loafers = an excellent combination!

Sexiness is more than a means of attracting a potential mate, it is a method of self-talk, a source of encouragement that the body too is valuable, not just the mind. With the value of the body understood (and sexiness is one of many aspects of the body's multi-faceted and inherent value), we can begin to truly engage in self-care. Embracing physicality gives me a respect for my body and the plethora of functions it manages without my knowing. Furthermore, it incites a thirst to care for this body, and a thankfulness for my health and modern medicine. I feel inspired to fuel and care for my body, as if I abuse it, it cannot function as it should. I feel powerful in knowing that my body is solely for me to care for. 

Self-care is something I am trying to focus on at the moment and I'm sure many of you may struggle at times. Sexiness, and the health sexiness entails, is a protective factor in my daily decision to choose recovery. Learning to embrace sexiness has been an empowering process for me. 

Sexiness means a power over our physical form, not wearing short skirts or low-cut tops: it's deeper than that. It gives us a respect for our potential to create, a gratefulness for the inner workings of our bodies which are beyond our control, which in turn motivates us to engage in self-care and provokes the act of self-love. It can improve self-esteem, in spite of, not because of the 'male gaze'. 

Silly pose!

I feel sexy because I am me: a valuable human being, overflowing with potential, just like all of you reading this. Do whatever makes YOU feel sexy, dressing for yourself and no one else, showing your body or not. It's a state of mind and it is wonderful. 

Right, guys, a bit of a long one! Gold star if you read to the end and I hope you enjoyed this ramble of mine. If you feel like it, follow me on instagram @jumper.dweller

Thank you so much for reading, much love, over and out! <3  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not-Dinner-Party-Appropriate: anecdotes from the mental hospital

 I feel like a time traveller. I've awoken in 2021, sleeping through a pandemic and my teenage years, now in my mid-twenties. I have no dinner-party-appropriate anecdotes. Only mental ill-health with bouts of questionable wellness. I have been in four different mental hospitals, which I predict could be four more than most people. No one talks about it, including me. Like, at all.  Whenever someone talks about mental illness, there is this most impenetrable silence, followed by: 'I knew someone who was depressed once.' Or a casual, almost nonchalant change of subject. I mean, we talk about mental health a lot - how to keep it afloat, how to do 'self-care' in a commercially-assisted sense. It's all body butters and face masks.  I don't like it when people reduce preventing mental illness down to looking after yourself or not. That is a large part of it, a whole team of people looked after me at my worst. Most things cannot be made better with a face mask.  It...
3 comments
Read more

Imposters: a story about a Capgras delusion

  It's cold. I'm always so cold. My hands quiver blue and wrists bloom purple, after days of bang, bang, banging my wrist on the arm of my chair. I don't think I'm okay, but I don't think I'm not okay either. I think, I think, I think I'm breaking. I am on the children's ward. I have not seen my real parents for months. Some strange people visit sometimes. I hide from them. They are not my parents. They are often nice and I begin to trust them, then they'll do something off-kilter and I shy away again, like a beaten dog.  I had climbed out of a window, bawled through the lane outside the house and taken solace at a friend's home up the road. Gently I was led back to my childhood home and bundled into the car, driven to the hospital and admitted in hopes of finding a way to avoid another inpatient admission. We couldn't find one.  I arrive at the unit, brittle. Last time I was in this position, I had a home, but now I'm adrift. My parents ...
2 comments
Read more

Building Bridges: breaking down the stigma that surrounds schizophrenia

Hi folks, another more serious post here (I promise there'll be a fun one very soon), as it's just come to my attention that it's mental health awareness week and that's a topic that deserves to be covered. This post might a little off-the-cuff as I've not planned or really thought it out, but here we go. Are you ready?  Schizophrenia. Most people hear that word and shudder. They might think of serial killers (admittedly, some do have the illness), violent outbursts, mental asylums, or just utterly unmanageable people. You might even be thinking (if you have no awareness of what schizophrenia is) that a person with the illness might have multiple personalities. This is not the case and I am living proof.  Without a doubt, the media's portrayal of schizophrenia, and indeed any psychotic illness, has highlighted the parts of the illness that the public most fear. Yes, sometimes unwell individuals might lash out, hurting medical specialists, family, ...
3 comments
Read more