Learning To Love My Body
By Victoria Ogunsowobo
Ara mi
Translation from Yoruba (a Nigerian language): ‘My Body’
Learning to understand and respect myself has been a great struggle for me all my life. It’s only now, at the age of twenty-one, that I can finally say with confidence that I love my body.
Perhaps I had my strict Christian mother to blame or that overzealous pastor at church but as a child, I remember believing that my body wasn’t my own. I was “fearfully and wonderfully made” and my body belonged to God and would always belong to him. It wasn’t mine to pierce or litter with tattoos, wasn’t mine to fill with alcohol and wasn’t mine to touch. When you’re a child not much of this makes sense to you but it doesn’t need to. You follow the rules if you don’t want to be a sinner. You’re perfect the way you are because you belong to God.
Now here’s where it got a little confusing for me.
My first big insecurity came at around the age of ten (it could have been there earlier when I think of it). I was uncomfortable with the fact that I was black and dark-skinned at that; there was no way I could argue being mixed race (and ten year old me tried.) I understood that my body was God’s, so it had to be perfect, yet in my eyes, there were people who looked a lot more “fearfully and wonderfully” made. People that were white. I too wanted the milky skin of those women in the perfume adverts. I wanted long luscious hair that fell down my back. I wanted to blush. I wanted to blush badly and I blame all the books for that. It seemed to me that only the white girls could fall in love with their rosy cheeks and hair splayed out on pillows. White people were superior and that belief was reinforced every day. All the people on TV were white, all the adverts were white, all the books were written in white. I found myself wondering that if I was so “fearfully and wonderfully” made then why wasn’t I white? Why were we all not white? I found myself jealous; another sin I couldn't help.
There was no way for me to hide from my blackness so in my head I’d compromise. If I couldn’t be white and I couldn’t be mixed race, then maybe I could at least have nice hair. Good hair. I was grateful for my mother’s persistence on relaxing my hair but not quite satisfied with how it sat awkwardly. I wasn’t allowed braids or weave so as well as being black, I had to learn to tolerate my hair. Before I’d even hit puberty, I had learnt to hate both my skin and hair. Before I’d hit puberty, I had learnt to hate being black. With that hate came guilt, confusion and more guilt. I didn’t want to question God’s decision but I did. I even prayed on it.
Side note: I’m no longer a Christian and that’s for many reasons. However, I do think that especially when it came to my relationship with my body, Christianity in itself wasn’t necessarily to blame. Christians, just like other people, are influenced by societal standards and norms. Having been raised in a Nigerian household, I realise that attitudes and ’rules’ governing the female body were a mix of culture and religion. Perhaps the original intentions of Christianity are buried under years of translation, culture and society but that’s a discussion for another day.
More insecurities came with age especially when I began to see beautiful black women alongside white women in the adverts. The problem wasn't just my being black, it was also this body I’d been given.
The biggest insecurity I have faced to date are my breasts. My obscenely large breasts. Paired with the fact that I wasn’t allowed to wear a bra, my breasts brought me a lot of shame. Puberty had given me more reason to hate my body and, as is often the case with all things heavy, gravity was not on my side. I would dread getting changed in the girls changing rooms for PE (physical education) and would dread non-school uniform days. I hated summer; it was impossible to hide during summer and my breasts only grew bigger. When I was eventually granted permission to wear a bra, I thought that would be the solution to my problem. I desperately wanted cute perky boobs like the girls in the porn videos my deviant self had come to discover. Yet no amount of bra-wearing seemed to change the appearance of my boobs. In my mind, I couldn’t be beautiful. No man would choose a dark-skinned black woman with 4c hair and large saggy boobs. Not as his first choice anyway.
Throughout secondary school the insecurities kept piling on. It wasn’t just my breasts, it was also my belly. I wanted a flat belly with a cinched waist but I got a blob of fat around my midsection. I’d nitpick at my body; my nose, my feet, my arms, I hated it all. Knowing that I had a nice smile didn’t redeem me either. I’d regard myself with disgust in the mirror. I felt trapped in my body and so I’d bully myself. In private and in public. I became the class clown. My body was a joke and if I couldn’t hide it, I could laugh at it.
This all feels like a lifetime ago now because when I look in the mirror, I see a beautiful black woman. I see me. My friends and I have had several discussions on body dysmorphia and how warped it can make one's self-perception. The truth is, I haven’t changed all that much. I’m still a dark-skinned black woman with 4c hair and saggy boobs and a belly. However, when I look in the mirror now, it’s like looking at a new person. I’ve witnessed this new person forming bit by bit. She feels at home in her body: she stands tall, she poses, she’s a dream in lingerie and she’s kinder to herself. My sister even pointed out to me recently that my walk has changed.
The journey to loving my body hasn’t been easy and I think I still have a little way to go. It came as a shock to me when I learnt that nearly everyone suffers from at least one insecurity, even the people I believed to be perfect. It's sad how we’ve shaped society into something so toxic that there’s room for everyone to be flawed. The journey to self-love starts with filtering out that background noise.
It’s breaking down all those negative thoughts and unlearning what you’ve been taught about body standards. It’s understanding that your body is your vessel and no one else's. Not even God’s. It’s picking up a mirror and looking at your vagina for the first time. It’s feeling comfortable one day and then feeling shitty the next because that top you ordered doesn’t hug your boobs like it did on the models. It’s having great friends who push you to wear your natural hair out for the first time; who tell you that you can be beautiful with your big belly in that tight dress. It’s feeling sexy. It’s getting piercings and dying my hair pink. It’s noticing all the overlooked details that make my body unique.
When it comes to loving and understanding your body it’s important to know that your body is yours. You have every right to feel beautiful in it and the world has no right to an opinion on it. Everyone’s journey to loving their body is different. It’s our responsibility to create and uphold an intersectional society that allows the expression and safety of everyone. At the very least, we owe that to ourselves.