When I was young, my parents tried to convince me to have plastic surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re surprised by that, you\u2019re in good company. I didn\u2019t<\/em> have the surgery. This is what I look like. The teasing photos, the videos\u2014nothing on my body has been altered by the medical establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only by time, maturity, fashion sense, and an ever-more-confident sense of self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the hard truth is this: my parents made it clear to me that my body was not good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They wanted to police my eating. They wanted to consult a plastic surgeon. They definitely wanted to dictate my clothing and piercing and style choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raised in religion, this meant I wore them two sizes too big. No collarbones or underarms or cleavage showing. No shape, unless \u201ctent\u201d counts as a shape. I was supposed to hide. I was supposed to keep men from their \u201csinful\u201d thoughts. I was supposed to be less\u2014in mind and in body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I left religion. And I left them. And every year, I leave more of that baggage behind me, tossed into dumpsters where it belongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I replaced the baggage with a carefully curated suitcase of admiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For my lean muscular dancer legs, the high arches of my feet, the softness of my belly, the plunging cleavage that appears in nearly everything I wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love my eyes, dark and deep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love my curls (when they behave, let\u2019s be honest).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love the soft curve where neck meets shoulder, the hollow of my collarbones, my eyebrows, my lips, my well-tended smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time I see myself and feel a deep sense of pleasure at the sight, this is my revolution. It is my power. It my hard-won gorgeous joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time I post a photo and the simps beg to kiss my feet, it is my revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time you tell me I am perfect head to toe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time you worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are worshipping a phoenix birthed from the ashes that were supposed to ruin her, to make her small, to trap her so deep in shame that she was willing to go under a knife for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She is a revolution. A goddess. A warrior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And she deserves every drop of that adoration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was young, my parents tried to convince me to have plastic surgery. If you\u2019re surprised by that, you\u2019re in good company. I didn\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kink-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourgoddesspandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}