like, i get the desire that people have to want things like scars & stretchmarks & imperfections to be beautified and aestheticized in the same way that features which conform do. i get the need to want to see yourself romanticized in that way, to want to switch the language and the way people visualize imperfections.
but like, sometimes i really don’t understand the point of doing all that. because these things just exist at the end of the day, & i just want them to exist without adding or negating my value as a human being. i don’t even want 80000 aesthetic pictures of my acne scars or armpit hair, i just want them to exist and for people to treat me like a human being, and not like some kind of eldritch horror OR as some kind of epic symbol against beauty standards. i just wanna exist and for these things to just be treated as what they are–a consequence of living a life and nothing else.
and i think it’s deeply misguided sometimes to act as if the only way to counter negative shit from some of the narrow beauty standards that exist is to run in the total opposite direction, rather than learning to come to terms with the fact that yeah, some things aren’t pretty, but that doesn’t mean they’re ugly, that just means that they are and they exist and don’t have an inherent value, and more importantly, don’t have any sort of bearing on your own worth as a person either.
fishyfishyfishtimes