When Stripping Feels Like Your Only Option

“Kim” wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian, I work at the US Senate. I shouldn't have to dance at strip clubs to feed my son.

This is a powerful story that highlights how and why some women who wouldn’t normally strip find themselves in situations where stripping becomes the best option they see available.

Kim details her very rough childhood and her amazing struggle to stand on her own two feet as a young woman. Being a single mother, she cannot afford to pay her bills every month unless she strips.

I’m a single mother and I struggle to support my son on the $10.33 an hour I make at one of the most exclusive clubs in America – the US Senate. I’m a cashier employed by the British-owned contractor that runs the cafeterias in the Senate office buildings. But even though I serve some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, I can’t afford to buy my son school supplies or clothes…

When I realized that I couldn’t survive on what I was making at the Senate, I made a difficult decision. Faced with eviction notices and unpaid bills, I decided to dance at a strip club a few nights a week to earn extra money. It was the only job I could find that let me work a flexible schedule and earn a living wage.

I was not in such a desperate situation when I began stripping at 18, but in my naïve mind at the time, I felt a sense of there being no other avenues for me to turn to.

Obviously, that wasn’t true for me, but I believed it and so it became my reality for awhile..

Kim sounds as though stripping really is one of her only viable options to make the money she needs, working the hours she needs.

I don’t want to be a stripper: it can be demeaning to dance for men who show no respect for women. I only do it out of necessity, because I have to support my son…when [the senators] sit down with the primary voters and listen to their problems, I hope they’ll be thinking about my story too – and the tough decisions the workers who serve them every day have to make for the people they love.

I wish I had an answer for Kim and other women like her who feel stripping is their only saving grace.

Right now, all I have to offer are words of encouragement and support that it does get better and will get better.

You are doing what you need to for yourself and your family. Hold your head high and know that you are valuable and valued.

Thank you for sharing your story, Kim.

Photography Projects Embrace Diverse Bodies and Truths

Bodies have always been seen as artful and beautiful. They have also been seen as canvasses for the stories we have to tell. And now, with such amazing technology available to many, we are seeing and hearing stories that we didn’t hear before.

For example, I am loving the abundance of photographers taking photographs of mothers pre and post baby.

There will never be too many.

Let these photos of moms celebrating their bodies become as commonplace as models in bikinis on magazine covers in supermarkets.

The latest project I learned about is Divine Mothering by photographer Liliana Taboas Cruz.

Cruz’s photos of mothers on her blog also include interviews with her models, which allow the viewer to put a personality and story to the images.

Two other photographers, Paula Akpan and Harriet Evans, use models of differing body types, genders and race to express the different ideas and stereotypes that people are tired of hearing in the "I'm Tired" project.

The mission of this project is “to highlight the significance and lasting impact of everyday micro-aggressions and stereotypes.”

Art is all around us now. Images and stories flood our virtual lives.

Artists are taking advantage of the possibilities to address social issues and reach audiences all over the world.

Each project spawns the artist in others. Each celebration of diversity allows the next generation to feel more vocal and capable of telling their own truths and stories.

We are moms and these are our bodies

Mum Photographs Women's Bodies Pre- And Post-Birth To Paint An 'Honest Picture Of Motherhood' on The Huffington Post UK by Amy Packham introduces readers to photographer Natalie McCain.

She captures mothers in all their body glory in The Honest Body Project. These women radiate out true beauty and power.

"I want to help other mums come to this realisation and change their inner voice to self love. When you change your inner voice, your entire world changes."

How wonderful to be able to help other women celebrate and appreciate their bodies just as they are.

Fat is just a word

I guess I have more work to do.

My six-year-old son just walked up behind me writing this post and when he saw these photos he said, “Oh my gosh! That woman is so fat, her fat is coming out of her shirt.”

“That’s not nice to say, that someone is so fat,” I said.

And he looked at me quizzically.

I’m sitting here wondering what is correct.

I don’t want my children to just be politically correct and feel like they can’t speak of what they see and use words that they know.

Fat isn’t inherently a bad word.

And that seems to be partly what Brazilian photographer Miarana Godoy is saying with her photos of large-sized women in lingerie.

Women reclaim the word 'fat' in Empowering Me body positive photo series details Godoy’s project: “The photographer went on to explain that she wanted to highlight that being fat doesn't mean a person is unhealthy, and pointed out that thinner people also experience health problems.”

You can't tell if someone is healthy by looking at them. Regardless of whether they are fat or thin. You cannot tell just by looking at them.

Photos can tell any story. The real story lies behind the images. In our lives. And whether we are healthy or not should not become some new standard to self-acceptance either.

We don't want to lose one way to judge ourselves simply to be replaced by another.

We need to love ourselves no matter what. Fat. Skinny. Healthy. Unhealthy.

And while I know my son would never say something to someone’s face about being “fat,” I want to make sure he knows that a person’s size has nothing to do with his or her worth.

Team Flappy Arm

Thank you, Jezebel, for Women Are Still Wondering If It’s OK to Show Arm Flab in the Summer by Tracy Moore.

#TeamFlappyArm

A photo posted by Sheila Hageman (@sheilamhageman) on Aug 5, 2015 at 5:37am PDT

I wish I could say I read her essay and shook my head and said to myself, Oh no! Don’t women know they don’t need to worry about these thing anymore!

But instead I read with that distinctive sensation of knowing I could have written those same words.

In fact, when I read:

And this, I think, it was bugs me more about advice to women to control their bodies and image for others pleasure or approval. The way women are burdened not only with looking good, with eradicating all signs of wear and tear, but also the burden of not making the world unpleasant for others by looking bad. Who suffers when a jiggly arm waves goodbye? Who suffers at the sight of a varicose vein or an untoned thigh? Who really suffers?

I actually raised my arm and waved to see if I could feel that flabby swing.

I quickly lowered my arm as I imagined a stupid social media beauty challenge beginning—a video of yourself waving that proves your arm doesn’t flap: #ArmNoFlappy. I would be #TeamFlappyArm.

And I also know that feeling, though I hate to admit it, of wanting to protect others from me. I know that feeling of not wanting to gross out others by my “unfeminine” qualities.

Like—I better cover up my butt and belly with a towel as soon as I step out of the pool, so as to not make anyone feel uncomfortable with my less than model-perfect abs and ass.

How sad for me that I cannot completely break free of the need to either look a certain way or at least hide myself if I don’t measure up to the standard.

It’s so ingrained. No need for anyone else to body shame me.

I body shame myself.

Knocking Out Body-Shaming

Ronda Rousey, the undefeated UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, makes a stand against body-shamers. People Magazine reports UFC Champ Ronda Rousey Is Putting the Body-Shamers to Shame –Again.

Some online commentators feel the need to point out that they find Rousey too masculine-looking. We’ve got echoes of the body shaming Serena Williams went through this month. Williams hit back with a bikini shot where she looked anything but masculine.

Rousey explains her attitude her body in an interview:

I grew up thinking that because my body type was common [i.e., athletic], it was a bad thing…Now that I'm older, I've really begun to realize that my body has developed for a purpose and not just to be looked at.

Perhaps if we instill this sense of what our bodies can do rather than what they can look like into young girls, we’ll have a new breed of young women rising up.

Celebrating Diversity! (But are we still seeing the same traditional beauty underneath it all?)

Elizaveta Bulokhova shows us again that no matter what our disabilities or scars are, we can still celebrate ourselves in Model poses in front of the camera for the first time since losing 95% of her jaw to cancer - along with the baby son she was told to terminate before undergoing chemo.

After learning that she had osteosarcoma in her jawbone when she was 24 and pregnant, the model went through with the pregnancy that she was advised against. She had 95% of her jaw removed, gave birth to a healthy baby and has now posed for the first time since the surgery in a collection of stunning imagery, which does not try to hide her scars, but instead—embraces them.

We keep seeing more and more of these body positive messages—love ourselves as we are. And this is truly empowering.

I would add one hesitation at pure feelings of joy: in almost all of these celebrations of diversity, whether it be disability or size or gender-identification, the one steadfast similarity amongst many of these celebratory photo shoots is that the women photographed somehow still fall into a traditional definition of beauty in some way.

Oftentimes the women are models or former models and have either a classically beautiful face or all their curves in just the right places and amount.

Where are the photo shoots of non-traditionally beautiful women in the modern media? Women who maybe didn’t start out drop-dead gorgeous, but still have a right to celebrate…

Who are you calling fat?

Do you feel angry when a thin woman whines, “I’m so fat!”?

Probably, if you think she’s just looking for some praise about how great she really looks.

If you thought that woman might have an eating disorder or body dysmorphic disorder, you’d probably feel compelled to reassure her that she looked good.

Now, how about if someone called you fat?

How would that make you feel? What would be your reaction?

Comedian Chelsea Handler opened up about her experience in: 'He told me I was fat': Chelsea Handler proudly poses in a mismatched bikini as she reveals ex criticized her figure.

I love Handler’s response: "You know, I had a boyfriend who told me my boobs were too big and that I was fat. And then, I looked in the mirror."

She’s become well-known for her love of posting topless shots on Instagram and other social media.

What was most interesting at Daily Mail were the responses to the Handler article. A long series of misogynistic, body-shaming crap…

Not a bad bod but whenever she opens her mouth she ruins it.

Fishing for compliments on social media again I see.

and your ex was right, you still look chubby

Not interested in her at all!

I think she is generally un appealing due to her personality and face. Her body is very average.

She appears to be a healthy weight to me. But this is really about her needing public affirmation so she can feel good about herself.

It is astonishing how the Internet makes people feel so bold as to say the most ignorant comments. I would love to see those same commentators say any of those things to Handler’s face.

I’m sure she’d have a witty response at the ready.

How have you reacted when someone called you fat? Please share!

@MailOnline @chelseahandler #BodyPositive #Fat

What Makes Us Different, Makes Us Beautiful

Rachelle Friedman Chapman, 29, who was paralyzed at her bridal shower when she was playfully pushed into a pool, has stripped down for the cameras: Bride who was paralyzed at her bachelorette party strips down to just her lingerie and her catheter for powerful photoshoot she hopes will 'put a different face to disability.' 

What makes this photoshoot even more powerful besides the fact that she stripped down to lingerie is that she also showed her catheter.

I'm hoping it will inspire others to just focus on the things they love about themselves and not be so critical. I'm encouraging everyone to get on social media and mention something they love about themselves with the hashtag #WhatMakesMeSexy.

We all have something we want to hide or have just accepted as what we need to hide in order to appear “normal” in our society.

We all really want to be accepted and loved just as we are. It is totally human nature to want to receive that validation from others.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to accept what we see as our flaws, but we just need to keep working at it. 

I want to put a different face to disability. We all have flaws [and] we all have things going for us, and for the first time I'm not hiding my catheter. I'm not hiding anymore.

 To not have to hide ever again—what a blessing that would be.

Healthy (and Unhealthy) Bodies Come in All Sizes

Lena Dunham is receiving kudos for sharing a paparazzi photo of her running for an episode of Girls on Instagram. 

She’s makeup free and proudly running. She said:

Not usually one to post a paparazzi shot but this fills me with pride. Basically my whole life I have hated running and run like a wounded baby Pterodactyl. It was embarrassing and honestly I did not trust myself to escape a burning building or even move briskly towards a buffet. @jennikonner is directing the season finale of Girls and decided that as Hannah evolved so would her run, so she got me a training session with Matt Wilpers from Mile High Run Club. Within an hour I had a different relationship to this formerly torturous activity. I felt strong, swift and proud. I'm not about to embrace that triathlon life but it's a true joy to continue getting more connected to my body and its powers. (Extra motivation provided by @manrepeller for @outdoorvoices.) #moveforyourmind

The reason people are praising the shot is because she’s not a waif, but is happily jogging along in exercise wear that proudly displays her body.

Much like the image of plus-size model Erica Schenk that appeared on the August cover of Women’s Running and has been touted for showing that a heavier-set woman can still be fit.

Proudly displaying women of all sizes exercising can go a long way in allowing women who have a myriad of body types feel more comfortable and “allowed” to put on their exercise duds and get out there and moving.

It also goes to show that just because someone is heavier, it doesn’t mean they aren’t healthy.

Of course, the opposite is true. Just because someone is thin, it sure as heck doesn’t mean they could even run for the bus. Take me for instance, I’m relatively thin right now, but seriously out-of-shape.

Perhaps I should post a photo of me in exercise gear huffing and puffing?

3 Body Positive Tips for Talking to Your Kids

Actress Kate Winslet is a body-positive advocate. In Us Weekly’s Kate Winslet: No Women in My Life Were Positive About Body Image, It Was "Very Damaging," readers learn that she felt she never received positive messages as a child.

When I grew up, I never heard positive reinforcement about body image from any female in my life…I only heard negatives. That’s very damaging, because then you’re programmed as a young woman to immediately scrutinize yourself and how you look.

Winslet is being careful to only pass on positive body image messages to her children, which is what I try to do.

USWeekly.com

Here are a few tips on how to speak to your kids about body image from the very start:

1. Don’t be afraid to let your kids see your body naked. If the media keeps showing highly-polished versions of humans for the public’s consumption, we need to make sure kids see what un-photoshopped bodies look like, too, so they grow up with healthy expectations of what different bodies look like.

2. Don’t focus on what your kids look like. Especially with my daughter, I was hyper-vigilant that other people and I didn’t focus on her looks when we complimented her. I still do the same thing, for my boys also. I focus most often on my kids’ personal achievements and positive attributes like intelligence, being a kind person and doing good in the world.

3. Don’t ignore body image issues as they arise. I’m always looking for teachable moments: when my daughter was young and commented on her Wonder Woman figurine’s overly-ample-sized bosom, I talked about how not all women look like that. We talked about how it made her feel and that we need to be aware that what is presented to us as a body “ideal” is not always realistic or attainable.

Always trust your gut when speaking to your kids and try to be as honest as possible while encouraging positive body imagery for your kids.

Naked Parenting

My husband and I have always felt comfortable with our naked bodies in front of our children—one daughter and two sons.

Being nude around them was never a planned, fleshed-out idea, but just more of what felt right and natural as a family.

Just doing a normal naked thing

We have never shied away from our kids seeing us naked because we want them to grow up with a healthy idea of bodies in all forms.

Jess Spiring writing for the Daily Mail explains Why I let my daughters see me (and my family and friends) stark naked: Bonkers? No, Jess says it's the best way to stop them growing up hating their own bodies.

via Daily Mail Online

I couldn’t agree more.

Of course, coming from an ex-stripper, it probably isn’t such a surprise that I believe nudity is OK.

We let them take the lead in what feels comfortable to them. And even though we never try to hide our nakedness, all the kids seem pretty healthy so far. They don’t run out in public and strip off their clothes.

And now that my daughter is reaching puberty, she’s setting her own limits of who can see her naked.

I also always make a point about respecting other people’s bodies and their wishes. If my youngest son wants to poke me in the belly button and it’s bugging me, it’s a great opportunity to teach him respect about other’s wishes when it comes to their bodies.

“That’s bothering me. Please stop,” I say to him when his exploration of my belly button feels intrusive. “Always stop touching someone’s body when they say to.”

It’s never too early to instill in children a sense of naked bodies being normal and natural in private. And to have respect for ourselves and others and to learn about boundaries, about ways that are okay to touch and see and how to love our bodies and others’ with respect and safety.

Body Image Talk is Great, But How Much Better When We (Hopefully) Don’t Need to Do It Anymore

I am all for positive body image and helping others feel good about themselves no matter how they look.

On a good day, I can totally rock that feeling myself.

But on bad days, I curse my wrinkly belly and flabby butt. Like Eva Longoria, I want my twenty-year-old body back.

Photo of Eva Longoria via mysanantonio.com

Not my twenty-year-old life—just the body.

Then I feel guilty for not just loving myself as is, then the guilt multiplies and becomes anger.

I’m happy to see so many actresses and other celebrity people being honest in the news.

File under “Women who get it”: Patricia Arquette: There's more to women than looks in the Belfast Telegraph.

Photo of Patricia Arquette via belfasttelegraph.co.uk/

Arquette articulates this issue well:

I don't want to do anything to my face. But I also reserve the right to do that if I choose to, you know? And without apologising to a million strangers, because even having a conversation about, 'You don't look natural, you did something weird to your face,' we are making it about the way women look…It's none of your f**king business what they look like.

I love that she speaks so honestly about not knowing if one day she might want to change how she looks surgically, but how that is totally up to her.

As long as we put so much emphasis on a woman’s looks, we are only going to move women’s right forward so much.

It’s great that we’re in the cultural phase of openly speaking about all aspects of body image, but I do look forward to (hopefully in my lifetime) the time when we won’t need to talk about it anymore…

Target's Trophy Shirt is Not the Problem

Have you heard about the Target shirt that says “Trophy” in bold white letters across a black tee?

It’s causing a controversy because, you know, women aren’t trophies.

Oh, you knew that already?

So it’s supposed to be a “fun wink” according to Target’s official statement on the issue.

It is never our intention to offend anyone and we always appreciate receiving feedback from our guests. The shirt you’re describing is part of a collection of engagement and wedding shirts that are available in our women’s and plus size departments. The collection also included shirts that say ‘Team Bride,’ ‘Mrs.’ and ‘Bride.’ These shirts are intended as a fun wink and we have received an overwhelmingly positive response from our guests.

My head just kind of aches with the attention this shirt is getting (and yes, I see the irony as I am talking about it now, too).

I mean, I would never wear the shirt because I think it’s stupid. I think a shirt that says “Bride” or “Mrs.” is stupid though too.

There’s even a Change.org petition started over the shirt. 

Personally, I don’t see much use of putting so much energy into fighting a stupid novelty tee-shirt.

Does it promote rape culture? Does it demean women?

Or should everyone just chill out with the politically correct nonsense?

I mean, why are there are no petitions to ban Hooters restaurants? Or the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition?

Those are things that are just as much out there in young girls’ view.

It is not the gag tee-shirt that is the problem, it is the “real,” non-joke items that are marketed and accepted as normal.

If You Are a Stripper, Then You Must Also Be...

I remember being so frustrated as a young woman who stripped and posed nude because of what people assumed about me.

Since I was a stripper, I must also be a whore. I must also be a slut. I must also want to be talked to like an object.

This was probably the most infuriating aspect of my adult entertainment experience. I didn’t know how to put into words what I felt.

The actress and feminist Caitlin Stasey says it so well in Jezebel’s When a Magazine Only Wants You If You're Willing to Pose Nude.

But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Nudity in the abstract is not the issue, and my body is not the issue either. What is the issue is the way that many men like Ben Naparstek-your-head-in-the-oven believe they have an inherent right to both because of my recent projects and my candor. It’s the same logic we apply to a woman’s sexuality. Just because she’s fucked one guy she must be available to all of them, right? Just because she’s wearing a short skirt, just because her shirt is sheer, just because she is a woman, she must be available to me.

Men were surprised when I didn’t want to be paid to have sex.

Men were pissed when I didn’t show them everything they wanted.

Men were enraged when I told them the truth.

Why was I making trouble? Why was I fucking with their view of women? Why was I insisting on being a person with my own ideas and feelings?

The sad thing was that often I listened to what they said. It’s not that I didn’t know I could say differently and stand up for myself, but that I was not properly equipped to do it.

I was young. I was scared.  I was vulnerable.

Today I am still trying to impress completely upon myself that I have agency and that I make the decisions about my body and it doesn’t matter what others think.

I have a right to be who I am just as I am. Clothed or naked.

I do not need to explain my choices to anyone if I don’t want to.

It’s been a long journey to get to where I am today and I am grateful for who I have become even as I acknowledge I still have a long way to go to truly understand and forgive myself.

Body Positivity in the Age of Trolls

Be this size; be that size.

Be thin; be skinny; be healthy; be curvy.

This is good; this is bad. No, wait…I mean, the right amount of thin, but not too skinny.

Curves, yes, but just in the right places.

Lord, help us!

How’s a woman supposed to be on the Internet without questioning her body type?

Body issues? Try Instagram on for size by Julia Carpenter points out how Instagram has been great for body positivity, but the trolls still abound.

This just makes me think about my friend Wendy Wisner’s latest blog post Crazy Commenters on Social Media (Or,What is Wrong With the World?). As a writer on parenting sites, she’s had a crazy amount of negative talkback in the comments.

The anonymity of the Internet seems to make people feel bold behind their computer screens. Things that most people would never say out loud becomes easy to spout at a distance.

Perhaps the only way around this negativity is to not read comments at all? But then we miss the opportunity of receiving the positive messages, too.

I for one am happy to hear criticism about my work in any form if its aim is to point out ways to improve upon the work, but when people attack a person based on their opinions, that’s really taking it too far.

Whatever happened to…if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?

Let Them Be #Curvy

Instagram has some kooky rules on what hashtags it bans or not: Instagram bans users from searching for photos tagged as 'curvy' - but continues to allow images labeled with 'skinny', 'thin', and even 'anorexia.'

The word “curvy” has been used a lot on Instagram to hashtag photos containing nudity, but other more explicit words like #penis or #vagina are apparently ok to search for on the site.

The example of the reverse being banned, thinspo, is very different, right? Thinspo has been banned because it encourages the use of too-skinny girls as inspiration for what some worry are anorexics browsing for pics of inspiration.

Is Instagram afraid women are going to start looking at “curvy” women as inspiration to gain weight? We wouldn’t want that now, would we?

Actually, the whole idea of banning certain words from searches is ridiculous. Yes, I know Instagram is a private business and so can make the rules. But the rules don’t make sense.

When will we learn that “hiding” things, or banning them, just makes them more attractive and another #curvy word will just come to replace the one left behind.

If someone wants to fins naked pics on Instagram, they will find them, regardless of the words they are tagged with!

If a woman wants to empower herself by using the term #curvy as an awesome way to identify her body positively, then by God, let her and let people be able to find her and celebrate her.

I may not be curvy, but today I am #curvy!

Warning: Degrading Job Ahead

Which is a more degrading occupation? A stripper or an office worker?

Apparently, they both suck. In A former female tech worker turned exotic dancer says both are‘degrading in their own ways,’ we are told both jobs leave "Tiffany" unhappy.

I couldn’t agree more. I remember when I made the transition from stripper to administrative assistant that I had moments where I would wonder which was worse—dancing naked for dollars or fetching coffee and faxing for dollars.

“Degrading” could be seen by another individual as an entirely different occupation.

A lot of it has to do with the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the eye of the worker. Different things make people feel shame or humiliation.

Of course, there are certain tasks or how someone is spoken to that can inherently up the degrading factor, (like being called names, having drinks poured on you, or being asked to, ahem, for $20), but we all have different tolerance levels.

Have you ever had a job that you felt was degrading that didn’t involve shedding clothes?

Pro-anorexia Sites Not So Bad After All?

Interesting article by Amanda Hess abut pro-anorexia sites on Slate: Let Them Blog: The panic over pro-anorexia websites and social media isn’t healthy.

The consensus has been that these sites are dangerous and triggering for those with eating disorders. The sites often give thinspiration or “thinspo” tips and photos, basically encouraging people’s eating disorders as a lifestyle instead of as an illness.

Pro-ana blogs are easier to understand when you stop seeing them as propaganda organs and start viewing them as expressions of mental illness. In a paper published last year, psychotherapist Tom Wooldridge describes one patient with anorexia who used pro-ana blogging as “a psychic retreat” where she could “withdraw from overwhelming emotional pain.” Some sites are less autobiographical diaries and more portraits of anorexia itself: Posting thigh gap after thigh gap to Tumblr helps some girls release the pressure of the images that anorexia pounds relentlessly into their heads. One pro-ana blogger, who blogs under the handle AnaGirl Empath, cautions that pro-ana’s more extreme manifestations are “creative alliterations” that should not be “interpreted literally.” As the French sociologist Antonio Casilli put it last year, “Criminalizing these websites means [criminalizing] mental illness—a double burden for sufferers.” 

This change in focus could be healthy for those who suffer from any kind of mental illness, not just eating disorders.

If more sufferers felt free to write their experiences in any way that comes naturally to them while they are in the throes of an illness, how therapeutic that could be.

For the readers searching for tips on fasting and getting thinner, all they need to do is go to just about any Internet site.

Perhaps the harm is coming from somewhere else...

Write Your Stories

Sometimes it takes real bravery to tell your story.

There’s lots that can go wrong: people may judge you, you may have to make changes in your life, or you may even offend someone.

You can tell your story anyway.

If you have a story, or a “secret,” that you’re holding in…write it down.

There’s lots that can go right: people may celebrate you, you may get to make changes in your life, or you may even inspire someone.

Write your story down, even if you share it with no one.

The act of writing your story out can be transformational.