Picking up from last time –
I told you I posted something on my old Facebook while I’d been working there. Well, now that I have a blog, I can post it here.
[Note: It was back in 2012 that I originally wrote this. I feel like lately I have been barraged with messages in the media of “love yourself no matter what!” “You are perfect the way you are!” And truly, I hate it. There are so many (so many!) commercials, campaigns, etc., and to me they often comes across as aggressive – and as cheap, manipulative ways to sell me more (sometimes beauty?!) products. So, I do *not* mean to be adding to the attack of manipulating “positive” body-messaging. When I wrote this, it was with a very innocent and good intent. And I’d like to document my feelings from that time. So, here they are.]
Dear women,
You are beautiful.
I wish each one of us got at least a day to work with tons of footage of professional naked women at some point in our early adulthood.
At the end of my first week at Playboy, I have seen numerous beautiful naked ladies from every possible angle, and you know what? I guess I always thought Playboy women truly were like literal perfect specimen. This is the first time I’ve seen Playboy models before they were edited, airbrushed, cropped, etc.
You know what every single one of these women had in common – women who were *getting paid* to be naked? Each one of them had stretch marks somewhere, a bad angle, off pockets of fat, and plenty more “imperfections.”
They were all still beautiful, but they sure as heck weren’t perfect. Not even close. Of course, we’re gonna cut everything to make them look as close to perfect as possible. The public will not see the same girls that I see.
So, if you questioned your body image today, or this week, or ever; and you thought, “I’ll never look like so and so” – please remember, “so and so” doesn’t look like that either. She truly doesn’t.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the woman paid to look at naked women.
You’re beautiful. Don’t sweat it.