Written and illustrated by Jessie Ngaio.
I’m living in a culture which promotes self acceptance, “you’re beautiful just the way you are” pop stars croon while they sparkle with the sort of magic only obtainable through the joint effort of personal trainers, stylists, makeup artists and so much money.
I exist in a world of mixed messages. The sometimes overt and often incredibly subtle and insidious lesson coming from every billboard, every magazine, every shop, every cinema, every news reporter… is that beauty, a very specific sort of beauty, is the most important aspect of a woman.
“Why are women so stupid that they fall for these messages?” people ask disdainfully.
We’re not stupid. We’re more intelligent than we’re ever given credit for. But nobody exists in a vacuum and it’s really bloody hard to overcome and ignore the constant messages one is endlessly bombarded with. Sometimes it feels impossible.
Imagine this; you believe something intellectually and hold that belief dear, yet you are surrounded by thousands of voices yelling “WRONG! WRONG! YOU’RE WRONG!” unremittingly.
Self esteem doesn’t just happen… I have to fight for it every single day of my life.
Ahem. Anyway, sorry to get all serious and shit on yo’ asses. This is going to be something you’ll have to put up with from time to time but I promise there will be plenty of butt and puke jokes in between.
~Jessie.
Indeed.
I am frequently bombarded with ads for Latisse on Hulu. That particular product — and the fact that people are apparently buying it — is what has thoroughly convinced me that we are truly living in the End Times.
Hugs to you, Jessie. I am quite sure that your butt hair is lovely just as it is.
So I just checked out the Latisse website and while I’m not particularly inclined to look into the credibility of their claims, I am intrigued yet terrified by this statement on their website:
“Only apply at the base of the upper eyelashes. DO NOT APPLY to the lower eyelid. Hair growth may occur in other skin areas that LATISSE® solution frequently touches.”
GAH! WHAT? Does this mean I could give myself, for example, hairy boobs? Because that would be a little tempting…
“I am quite sure that your butt hair is lovely just as it is.”
Thanks! It is long, lustrous and luxurious which I attribute to a diet consisting entirely of egg whites and broccoli stems.
I kind of wonder if Latisse is ever used off-label for head hair loss, but the whole “permanent eye-color change and/or blindness” possibility is presumably keeping sales in check. For now.
oh I want 3 boobs and sexy knuckles
Saw your new tumblr profile pic and you look fantastic!!!
I think your friend who doesn’t eat sugar and uses the gym is right but has nothing to do with a boring idealised uniform beauty. Right from life drawing at college I love how fat softens curves and looks beautiful. We all have as much fat as our body needs. As an elegant battery system for our body, it’s a beautiful part of us. What we need is not to lose all the fat, but to maintain it as an elegant battery system. When that elegance is lost we are insulin resistant and then diabetic and obese.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNYlIcXynwE&feature=player_embedded
So looking thin isn’t the ideal, it’s maintaining our fat as an elegant battery and exercising to maintain it’s fat burning mechanism and not over producing insulin by eating too many sugars and carbs. I only just learnt all this yesterday
so I’m spreading the word.
But anyway back to the comic, love it, love the portrature and my view is in a comic and in phots and video you look fabulous
I said, be MORE gross, not less gross. Less gross is so 1997.
I didn’t notice the text you wrote
Looking good isn’t the most important thing it’s a nice bonus. The problem is all our cultural naratives from movies to TV the hero’s and goodies are all one type of beauty and the baddies are one type of ugly. That has a huge subliminal effect on us.
Thanks Jake, though I’m not really talking about ideals health wise… more the culture that surrounds body issues.
Bobby, I swear there will be gross to come!
New Rule: Everyone who makes these rules about what people should look mlike must find someone to kick them in the nads once every day! If they don’t like it, the stop making rules.
3 boobs? Have you seen the movie “Total Recall”With Arnold Schwarzenegger? Check it out!
I tend to make a habit of avoiding anything with Schwarzenegger in it simply because I despise the man, he makes my everything hurt.
However, if I were to search Youtube for “Total Recall three boobs” would I see what I obviously need to see?
I don’t really care what other says about body image. I think it’s important to be healthy. Starve yourself to be skinny is stupid, excuse you excessive eating habit and let yourself be overweigh is lazy and ignorant. For guys, you don’t gain fat so easily, but some of you struggle with your food portion too and some of you gym too much. So, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a guy or a girl. Please just be healthy. Have a balanced diet and excercise. Take good care of the body you’re given.
i wonder who’s the guy in the last panel.
“Starve yourself to be skinny is stupid, excuse you excessive eating habit and let yourself be overweigh is lazy and ignorant.”
I think a simplistic point of view like that is lazy and ignorant, personally.
Teej, the guy in the last panel is my partner and the main writer for this website, Wes. You can learn all about him on our “About” page. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The 3 boobs search does contain a few seconds of Schwarzenegger. Just saying
“But there is more to “it” – here meaning body/fat acceptance – than being healthy. Saying “it’s about being healthy” implies, implicitly, that those who are not healthy or practicing healthy behaviors are less worthy of this state of acceptance and self love that we talk about.
If someone weighs XXX pounds (Insert whatever number you wish) and eats nothing but candy and never leaves their sofa, their health may suffer from it at some point. However they still deserve the same rights, acceptance, medical care AND the same ability to love and accept their body as they do if they eat healthful foods in the right amounts and move their bodies. Body acceptance should not be contingent upon whether or not you are actively practicing HAES, an exercise program, whether you have diabetes or high blood pressure or a disability or none of these things or all of these things, body acceptance is for EVERYONE.”
~ From this excellent article “It’s about being healthy, not skinny”. http://bodyimageblog.tumblr.com/post/11892683913/its-about-being-healthy-not-skinny
Oh jessie I love your last comment so much I had a brain orgasm.
Fucking brilliant. The class hypocrisy of people telling you “just be yourself” while they spend unlimited amounts of time and cash retrofitting their bodies with all manner of high tech glamor installations, is exposed here. Thank you!
I have seen many women that I would help *unnecessarily* bleach their bunghole. But I’m just helpful that way.
The other naughty bits… surely there is something better for them than skin bleach. Saliva keeps coming to mind as a place to start.
btw… Angelina has horrid HORRID legs. Worse than bent toothpicks without calves. She’d never be a “standard” without the lips. Her tattoo museum from when she was 19 and an idiot, being used by a guy on his 10th young actress… well, I hope she enjoys explaining that stupidity!
Para-QUOTE: “BillyBob and I… we want get closer. I think one day we’ll drink each other’s blood!”
Right! You’re firing on all cylinders, we can tell with that quote, in addition to how you’re the only one with tattoos of him all over, but not the reverse!