Magazine Series 1. 2011. Marker on Paper.
When documentary filmmaker Ellie Land saw reports in the national press about an increasing trend in women undergoing labia surgery to neaten the appearance of their genitals, she set out to make a documentary exploring the subject.
Funded by the Wellcome Trust, and partnered with leading clinicians Sarah Creighton and Lih-Mei Liao from University College Hospitals London, Centrefold is an award-winning animated documentary presenting the personal accounts of three women who have had a labiaplasty.
Is labiaplasty anti- pornification or an empowering choice? Tell us what you think….
thecentrefoldproject.org
on weight and health
i am really sick of seeing vintage ads or comparisons of past and present ideals of beauty as a way to argue that the present standard ideal of skinny being beautiful is wrong. who the fuck cares what the standard ideal of beauty is, and for that, why should we be dwelling on what used to be considered beautiful? as far as i’m concerned, claiming that being “skinny” is not beautiful and that being “well rounded” or “fat” is, is the same thing as saying that being fat is unattractive and that only skinny is beautiful. fuck all of this. why do we have to care how big or small a person is and who is to say which is right or wrong? neither is wrong. healthy is right, whether that is being big or small. it varies from person to person. to think that there is one standard size that is right is incredibly stupid.
end rant.
[Trigger warning: sizism, inappropriate use of ED, overall douche-baggery]
In one of the bathroom stalls at the university I attend there was this huge message, it started with “It’s true, everyone is born and built differently, but being big-boned or big-hipped is no excuse for being fat.” It continued, but was very hard to read, as was the rebuttal. The original writer, self-proclaimed “sexy biatch”, then wrote how “not all men want a girl that’s skinny or anorexic looking but being fat shows your lack of control and your unwillingness to care for yourself” and here’s the kicker, “If you don’t care for yourself you can’t expect someone else to” - because we’re all just waiting to be cared for, right?
I yanked out my pen, popped of the lid and with rebellious exhilaration fuelling me, I wrote:
“Change the society that perpetuates this ignorance, not your body.”
the fact that “love your body” rhetoric shifts the responsibility for body acceptance over to the individual, and away from communities, institutions, and power, is also problematic. individuals who do not love their bodies, who find their bodies difficult to love, are seen as being part of the problem. the underlying assumption is that if we all loved our bodies just as they are, our fat-shaming, beauty-policing culture would be different. if we don’t love our bodies, we are, in effect, perpetuating normative (read: impossible) beauty standards. if we don’t love our individual bodies, we are at fault for collectively continuing the oppressive and misogynistic culture. if you don’t love your body, you’re not trying hard enough to love it. in this framework, your body is still the paramount focus, and one way or another, you’re failing. it’s too close to the usual body-shaming, self-policing crap, albeit with a few quasi-feminist twists, for comfort.
The Girl WIth The Red Hair Really Needs To Shave Her Fucking Armpits (by BlackCoffeePoet)
Called out by a performer at a concert, humiliated, then dragged off and assaulted by a gang of men—
…just for having unshaven armpits and daring to show them.
Trigger warning: Assault
