Your Body is a Weapon.

Your body isn't just any weapon, it's a weapon of mass destruction. Massive self destruction and otherwise. Unlike traditional firearms sported by armed soldiers and terrorists alike, your body, my body, destroys with softness and curves, instead of cold and unmoving steel. Men are mesmerized by the same figures that women critique and fuss over for endless hours in the mirror, wanting something else, yet the men just want you. Why is it that men and women take such different views of the same exact thing? As a former bulimic and woman joining the masses pursuing the perfect body: the perfect abs, sculpted legs and butt to match, I can certainly appreciate the seemingly endless chase to the distant finish line, marked with the unbroken ribbon allegedly promising perfection. It's hard to rationalize why woman use so much energy stressing over every physical imperfection, but it's kind of like how Potter Stewart defined obscenity. I can't put my finger on it, but "I know it when I see it", and in this case, when I look in the mirror and see the image staring back, I know exactly why I stress. With so much emphasis going into body image, you would think we all have a great amount of respect for our bodies. Why is it then, that when I feel a guy's eyes creeping away from my eyes and moving south or get a drunken compliment on my figure, I don't cringe, but feel a twisted sense of satisfaction? Perhaps this is just a personal issue, but most likely it's the sense of validation, no matter how disgusting and vulgar, that triggers this satisfaction. Maybe, just maybe, all of my insecurities are figments of my imagination and I can't see what others so clearly see. Vulgarities, are, well, vulgar. However, maybe there is something of truth at their core. They do say that the drunken mouth speaks the truth. Regardless of whether it's true or not, when did we, myself included, resort to validation from such shallow sources, and if I can believe them, why is it so hard to tell myself the same thing? Validation should come from ourselves looking in the mirror and seeing all that is right, not all that's wrong. Forgive mefor sounding like an editorial in Teen Vogue, but maybe we need to suck it up and not in and stop fixating. Bullshit? Maybe. Easier said than done? Definitely.