The sexy

I meant to write this blog post something like a month ago, I forgot about it, but was having a conversation tonight that reminded me of it. What triggered this was a Facebook status update about looking sexy or something. I correlated it to looking good, and someone I respect, love and admire said that sexiness is about attitude. I definitely agree with the sentiment, but I don't know if I agree that that is exclusive to what sexiness is, at least for me.

I don't consider myself as some epic sexy icon, in fact for the longest time, I didn't feel attractive at all. Before that, I KNEW that I had it going on. I was a size 12, young, full of piss and vinegar and rocking the hourglass figure, mind you, my hair wasn't nearly as fabulous! As time went on, I gained weight, got up to a 22 at my highest, but maintained a regular 18. Logically I knew I wasn't ugly, but I didn't feel it. Needless to say my self esteem in that regard dropped to an all time low at the time of my separation. It was at that point I made a decision that no matter how shitty I felt, I was going to look well put together. Fake it until I make it, that was my idea. In a completely unrelated move to my looks, but affected it wildly, I pretty much stopped eating well. That was pure stress, but needless to say, it took me down from a size 20, to a 14, which is pretty much ideal on my body, or at least my ideal.

Anyhow, every once in a while, someone would comment that despite how awful my circumstances were, I looked fabulous and that gave me a little boost. Now while I shouldn't tie my happiness to how others view how awesome I look, I needed that superficial bump. Slowly, as time went on and I continued to fake it until I make it, I noticed here and there that I was being noticed. Again, superficial, but much needed at the time. What slowly started to happen though, was that every now and again, I'd catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and be taken away by that pretty person looking back. It was a split second before the Critical Joy jumped up from her coffee break to take that moment away, but it was something I hadn't experienced in the past several years.

My therapist mentioned that it was important as a sexual being to have your loving partner desire you, not that I had a partner, but I think to a degree, knowing that I could turn a head now and then, it somewhat woke up that Joy who remembered that I was sexual and desirable, at least to a few people. However I realized that I was still tying my confidence to how others see me. It would give me a boost, but it was short lived and very surface like. When I noticed that a certain fella was making eyes at me, then something really jumped, because here was someone that I was interested in, who I could see found me easy on the eye. Some months later, the affection is based on so much more than my looks, but it's once again nice to feel desired when I use my eyes or smile to evoke that reaction. That said, more and more, those split second glimpses in the mirror started to grow longer and Critical Joy started to shut her yap. Confident Joy was clearly sitting on her giving her noogies because I started saying "not too shabby girl" to myself.

Then I went and did something radical, I had a tummy tuck. Really, probably the antithesis of sexy truly coming from within, but strangely enough, now I feel it. My body is far from the Hollywood ideal. I'm not 90lbs soaking wet with insanely huge tits. I have fat, cellulite, wrinkles, greys, my arms flap, I'm a solid size 14 and without more surgery, or serious boob deflation, I don't see that changing anytime soon and I spend enough time tweezing that if I ever were granted three wishes for myself, one of them would be to have every stray hair removed forever without any pain, just so I can be fucking done with it already! However, I feel good about myself. Well sometimes, it's hard for me to get rid of that old critic that reminds me of the time where I didn't feel so good about myself, but I feel like I can hold my own. Interestingly, my plastic surgeon told me that I was the ideal candidate because I didn't want an unrealistic image, I just wanted get rid of a part of my body that had been warped due to pregnancy. I guess if I were truly "I am woman, hear me roar", I would have worn that battled and bruised part of my body with pride, but I guess I need to not feel so at odds with something so changed in order to feel a bit more normal about myself.

So obviously my sexiness is very much tied to my appearance, which I wonder how healthy that can be. I mean, I know I can flirt up a good storm, I'm funny and playful. I'm pretty smart and what I'm most proud of, is that I'm a survivor of shitty situations in life and that has given me a confidence and swagger. That helps to give me self worth, but it doesn't really make me feel sexy, unless that self worth is what is to be considered sexy, which I guess in the end, can count for a whole lot of it. I think also, sexiness tied to appearance isn't necessarily awful. I mean, it's a pretty demanding thing if your ideal of sexy is unrealistic, like what Hollywood projects, but if you're a size 14, 16, 18 and you are rocking it, maybe that is a good thing because you're brave and open enough to see your beauty outside of the norm.

So I dunno, sexiness is attitude deep inside and not tied to how you look, or its something based on how you look and your desirability, or it's a little bit of both. Like just about everything in life, it's probably sitting somewhere close to the middle. I do believe that confidence is your sexiest asset, I'm just not sure where or what that confidence is based on is appropriate. I guess one of life's riddles for me, obviously enough to keep me blogging at 12:30 at night, but enough said on the topic, now it's time for me to get my beauty rest. ;)