The female body is truly a thing of beauty.
From the softness of our skin to all our curves, our bodies are not only a visual delight but the bearer of life. We are truly magnificent beings.
So why do we hate ourselves so much?
Why can’t we look at our naked bodies and celebrate their splendour?
Why can’t we see what artists throughout decades have been inspired by to create masterpieces?
Why is it that all we see is what’s wrong with it?
I’ll tell you why.
It’s because women have been told how their bodies should look.
We are constantly bombarded with images of the “perfect” female body.
Firm, perky breasts, toned abs, shapely legs, thin ankles, perfectly round bottoms, slender arms, the list goes on.
While we all know that it’s an unrealistic expectation for all women to look a certain way, we continue to strive to do so.
This constant striving for “perfection” has led women to believe their perfectly natural form is ugly.
An ageing body, a body that has brought life into the world, one that has borne the stresses of life is even less desired. The older women get the more they dislike their bodies.
Our sagging breasts that have provided nutrition to our children, the stretch marks covering our bellies where once we bore life, the wrinkles on our faces that once expressed joy and sadness and pretty much everything in between, the skin that has drooped thanks to the force of gravity and having spent more time on earth than the younger women, is now seen as unsightly and preferably kept under covers.
When I saw the trailer of Emma Thompson’s latest film “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande”, I instantly knew that I HAD to watch it.
View this post on Instagram
A movie about a widow in her mid-fifties seeking sexual awakening after going through life having never achieved an orgasm or had any other sexual experience other than your run-of-the-mill missionary position.
So she does something completely out of character and hires a sex worker to allow her the opportunity to experience something, anything, beyond what she knows.
While I was intrigued as to how the rather handsome sex worker, Leo Grande, played by Daryl McCormack, was going to take her on this sexual journey, I soon realised the film was about so much more than just sex.
Thompson’s character, Nancy Stokes, had to first come to terms with and accept her body before she could truly let go of her inhibitions and immerse herself in the experience.
View this post on Instagram
During the first encounter, she could barely stand the sight of her own body, picking out only its flaws.
However, by the end, after finally achieving the orgasm that had eluded her, her entire life, she could finally look at her naked body with admiration.
It is the closing shot that has had people talking.
It is the full-frontal nude scene, of all the sex scenes in the movie, that the 62-old actress described as “the hardest thing” she’s ever had to do.
During a press conference at the Berlin Film Festival, Thompson spoke candidly about how she views her own body, saying, “I can’t stand in front of a mirror like that. If I stand in front of a mirror, I’ll always pull something in (or do) something. I can’t just stand there. Why would I do that? It’s horrifying. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Women have been brainwashed all our lives. That’s the fact of it. And everything that surrounds us reminds us how imperfect we are and how everything is wrong. Everything is wrong, and we need to look like this.”
If a woman as famous as Thompson, who has had a camera in her face almost her life, still feels uncomfortable in her own skin, how long will it take for us to stand naked in front of the mirror and say, “I love this body”?
