WANTED: My Own Desires
Posted: December 30, 2013 Filed under: Desire, Feminism, Woman | Tags: Bodies, Body, Desire, Feminism, Memoir, Relationship, Self-Care, Woman, Women's Bodies 35 CommentsWhat do I want? What do I really? This hasn’t always been as easy a question to answer as you would think.
For many girls, there seems to come a point when we stop being in tune with our own desires and begin to worry more about being desirable. I know this happened for me sometime after age 11—when I started to like boys and wanted them to like me.
When I turned 16 and replaced my glasses for contacts and my braces came off, boys started to pay attention to me—and I remember for the first time since I was a young girl suddenly feeling like I mattered to someone other than my family. Boys were looking at me and wanting me instead of finding me wanting. I felt seen.
Lose the Labels, See the Woman
Posted: December 13, 2013 Filed under: Body, Feminism, Sexism, Women in Media | Tags: Body, Body Image, Feminism, Gender, Memory, Sexism, Woman, Women's Bodies 29 CommentsAs someone who was born in the Philippines, I was thrilled to find out about the Pantene commercial airing there that has gone viral online. In it the contrasting ways that successful men and women are stereotyped are shown.
My first job out of college was as a video journalist for CNN. I worked so hard during the 4 ½ years I was there that every time I was eligible for promotion, I got the job. By my third year, I was writing and producing international news for the network’s CNN International channel.
I enjoyed what I was doing so much that working overnights, weekends, and coming in on my days off were not inconveniences but part of the job description as far as I was concerned. But what I hated about getting ahead—at the time, my movement in the company was considered rather rapid—was the whispering that went on behind my back.
I Think I Found My Thigh Gap
Posted: November 25, 2013 Filed under: Body, Body Image, Woman | Tags: Body, Woman, Women's Bodies 43 CommentsThis morning I went to the mirror to try to figure out what this “thigh gap” trend is all about. To be honest, reading about it has been very confusing for me and I’m not sure I totally get it. I thought it must be a super-young-person thing—kind of like when my nine-year-old nephew tried to explain to me how to play Bakugan with him and I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about—but then I read that women as well as teen girls have been measuring themselves against this latest “ideal” of beauty.
Curious, I gave it a go. I stood in front of my reflection to try to find a gap between my thighs that—if it existed—would supposedly mean I was more attractive than those who didn’t have it. Standing with my feet together, I definitely didn’t have one. Spreading my legs apart a bit so my feet weren’t touching each other—leaving just an inch or so between them—I still didn’t have one.
Freeing the Female Orgasm
Posted: November 15, 2013 Filed under: Body, Feminism, Sexuality, Woman | Tags: Body, Feminism, Memoir, Sexuality, Women's Bodies 28 CommentsSpoiler Alert: Details from Episode 6 of Showtime’s Masters of Sex are revealed in this blog post.
There are a lot of orgasms happening on the TV show Masters of Sex—mostly in the name of science. At a hospital during the late 1950’s, women and men are climaxing in their bodies both solo and together so that the two lead characters, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, can study their sexual responses.
You would think that with so many people climaxing, no particular orgasm would stand out. Yet in Episode 6, one female woman’s sexual release was so profound, I had to write about it.
Walking in the Womb
Posted: October 31, 2013 Filed under: Body, Creativity, Woman, Womb | Tags: Creativity, Feminism, Memoir, Nature, Spirituality, Travel, Women's Bodies, WPLongform 22 CommentsFor years I didn’t give much thought to my womb. I knew it was the place in my body where babies grow, but since I wasn’t sure I even wanted kids, any information about the womb was on a “need to know later” basis.
It didn’t help that I grew up in a culture that instilled in me the fear that my life would be ruined if I ever got pregnant at the wrong time or with the wrong guy. The word “illegitimate” is still considered a huge stigma in the Philippines and there is no divorce.
I didn’t realize that by distancing myself from my body’s ability to conceive, I was disconnecting from my innate creatrix nature. Because of this I struggled to carry even “creative” babies to term—books I wanted to write, scripts I wanted to perform, plans for new business. I felt unable (and afraid) to “birth” them into the world.
Me & My Belly: A Love/Hate Story
Posted: October 18, 2013 Filed under: Body, Body Image, Dance, Feminism, Movement, Woman | Tags: Body, Feminism, Memoir, Movement, Woman, Women's Bodies 29 CommentsIf there was a Facebook option asking for my relationship status with my belly, I’d have to choose the one that says, “It’s complicated.” I belong to a family whose women usually grow up to have big, round, female stomachs, and while I love being part of this full-bellied tribe, I’ve often wished that our physical trademark could have been natural washboard abs.
My belly was round from the time I was a little girl. My mom says that’s how I was born to be. “You’re like me,” she told me when I was ten, patting her own bump of a “puson,” which is the Filipino word for abdomen.
I didn’t want a round belly. I wanted a flat one, like the bellies of the three detectives on the popular 1970s TV show Charlie’s Angels. Jill Munroe, played by Farrah Fawcett, had a stomach that was flat even when she wore a bathing suit—unlike me, whose tummy stuck out in my one-piece.
The only time my belly was flat was when I lay on my back. At night in bed, I would run my hand up and down my stomach, enjoying its horizontal shape and wishing it would stay that straight when I stood up.
Stretching Out My Tongue
Posted: September 5, 2013 Filed under: Body, Movement, Woman | Tags: Body, Memoir, Movement, Tongue, Woman, Women's Bodies 12 Comments
I recently took part in a women’s subtle body movement class where the teacher had us explore our tongues. For nearly an hour more than a dozen women lay on yoga mats in the dark as they got to know this part of the female body.
As I lay on my back with my eyes closed, I stretched out my tongue, opening my mouth so there was room for its full extension, then curled it back in, rolling the surface of my tongue over and my top front teeth and then across the insides of my cheeks. I then curled the tip of my tongue backward so that it formed a ‘U’ over itself before lifting its tip just high enough to graze the roof of my mouth.
As I stuck my tongue out between my lips, letting it slither through my teeth, my neck to arch upward, my chin jutted out, and my shoulders reached back in a stretch. I discovered that extending my tongue in different directions—first up, then down, and later in circles and wavelike motions—created a ripple effect, as my back, my arms, hips, and legs began to extend themselves outward too. By the end of the exercise, my body felt all stretched out.
Up until now, I’d never given much thought to my tongue—only that it’s a necessary human organ for articulating words and tasting food. But having spent so much time getting to know this part of my body better, I was struck by a few aha’s that go beyond the tongue’s shape, texture, or the way it moves.
1) The tongue is a ripcord to inner space.
Stretch out the tongue in all directions and in different ways long enough and it’s like pulling the ripcord of a parachute. Only, what it opens up isn’t an expansion of space in the body. Extending and twisting and turning my tongue around caused the tension knots in my shoulders to dissolve, which led to my back relaxing, the tightness in my hips loosening, and my nervous system letting down.
Stories From the Belly 