Thank You, Lady Gaga

First, a warning. I'm departing a lot from my usual gaming and related posts. Instead, today, I want to talk about something very personal. You know how the media's been all abuzz about Lady Gaga's recent weight gain? You know how she responded with a new section of her social media site that included photos of herself and the confession "Bulimia and Anorexia Since I Was 15"? Yeah, we're talking about body image issues and what that entails. You've been warned.


So, this post started with a response to a thread on reddit. For completeness, here is that response:

As a bigger woman whose personal body image was wrecked by years of verbal abuse, I want to say the following:

Fuck the media. Gaga is perfect as she is, and so am I. So are the plus-sized burlesque performers a friend of mine introduced me to. So is my waif-like friend, and my tall, thin husband who thinks he has a belly. So are both of my best friends, one's a woman who is on her way from a size 22/24 down (last I talked to her, she was a 12/14), and the other is a guy who most people would call a little bigger than average and only wants to shrink for health reasons. 

I've spent my whole life being told how fat and ugly I am. How, according to my mother, no man would find my boobs attractive for any reason other than size. They're too acne-scarred (every shark week in high school, my boobs broke out). I was told how I'm never going to be sexy because I have "birthing hips" but no butt. How my best feature is my hair...when I dyed it. How my eyes are shit brown and I have a unibrow. How I need to lose weight because, when I wave, my arms wave back. How the cleft in my chin is unattractive on a woman, but sexy on a man. How, if I'd just lose weight and stop my back from breaking out, I'd make a great plus size model. How I'm too short to be that model. How my nose is too wide. How my pores are too big. How I have no shape to my legs. How I shouldn't wear this or that because it shows off the wrong part or makes me looks pregnant. How I shouldn't eat that cookie, or even more salad. I've spent my life hearing all of this from so-called friends. From family. From my parents and sister. From boyfriends and girlfriends. 

Enough is enough. I'm done. I'm perfectly fine as I am. I am sexy. I am pretty, and my husband tells me that every day. Today, I start believing him. Today, I tell the world to fuck off. Today, I go out without makeup still feeling pretty. Today, it doesn't matter what the "standard" is, I'm gorgeous. 

Most importantly: Today, it doesn't matter how pretty I am or anyone else is. We're all fucking perfect.

So, yeah. That's that. But, what does that mean for the long haul for me? I have no idea, but I want this change to stick.

I'm going to write a lot of the above in a letter to myself, which I will be taping to the bathroom mirror. I'm going to take down the photos next to the mirror of women I wish I looked like.

I'm also taking a pledge. I'm going to stop my own running commentary on how attractive I find people. Mostly, I do it with celebrities (here's looking at you, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston), but I've done it with real people, too. That stops now. It's not about their looks anymore. For example, Hiddleston is Cambridge-educated. I had no idea until I looked at his Wikipedia entry. It's about time I look at the amount of talent this guy has more than I look at his appearance.

From here on out, I'm trying to make the world a better place by focusing on people's merits rather than their appearances, myself included. Will you join me?