Oh, kids, I am raging this morning. Apparently the IT people at the large hospital for which I work have decided this here very blog is pr0n. It's blocked on my computer. Seriously? Pictures of a woman in her underwear in which all her parts are covered, underwear that shows no more than would be revealed by a standard two piece bathing suit, and which are posted not to titillate anyone but to illustrate hard-won muscular development (or lack of progress therein, sigh), is pr0n? Maybe in Saudi Arabia or Amish country, but uh, not in mainstream America. I am appalled. Amused, but appalled.
Let me tell you something about the female body. It exists for reasons other than for men to look at. Its main purpose is NOT to arouse/not arouse guys. Do I take it as an insult if a man tells me my muscles are sexeh? No, of course not. But that's not why I'm growing them. They're for me to look at***. They're tangible proof that I'm getting stronger and stronger. I like how they feel beneath my clothes. I like how, even though I'm "a woman approaching 50", they prove to me that I don't have to let my physical body deteriorate completely. And I like to show them to my friends who also lift and who appreciate muscle, hence the OMG! underwear pictures.
Or maybe it was the pictures of Jamie Eason in a thong that got the IT people riled up.
Hint: there's nothing dirty about her muscles, either, but the fact that women (i.e. fitness models) who should probably be considered athletes make most of their money posing in quasi-pr0ny ways just shows how commodified women's bodies really are.
xoxo
***I have two tattoos, both of them on the back of my body in places I have a hard time seeing, even in a mirror. I've occasionally had people question me about that, and I say, "they aren't there for me to look at, they're there for me to know that they're there." I feel similarly about my muscles; even the ones I can't see are there not for anyone else to look at necessarily, but for me to know that they exist.
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