tank tops, armpits and social norms

[forgotten_aria]

One of the things I would love to deprogram myself of is the notion that fat people should and shouldn't wear certain clothing in public. Today our coach requested that we find an excuse to flex, so I decided it would make a good IG, but as soon as I got on the tank top, there were my fat-wings screaming at me that it was not ok.

I've worn a tank top in public for taiko because I was required and never had the moments to really worry about it because I was playing, but I don't remember the last time I wore a tank top in public of my own choice.

Here's the other weird thing, part of the reason I don't wear sleeveless more often is that I feel like it requires me to shave my armpits, again because it is the social norm. I feel like I only barely have the strength to fight one social norm, there is no way I could fight two social norms.

I hate that I'm this controlled by it. The whole idea of "wear what makes you comfortable," but most of my discomfort comes from social programming that I feel is wrong.

I will have to work on this.

Comments

Normalizing body hair (is hard)

[desireearmfeldt]

I have never shaved my arms nor my legs. For years starting around puberty and going through college and past it, I basically always wore clothing that covered both. (Weirdly, I don't remember whether I worried about it with bathing suits, and I certainly swam in public, though I guess at those ages, not often with groups of peers any more.) I wanted to stand on the principle but I didn't want to be given a hard time about it. I felt betrayed when my mother got a job promotion that she felt required her to start wearing skirts and shaving her legs on public occasions (that phase didn't last long, I'm not sure why).

At some point I got comfortable wearing shorts/skirts that displayed my shins. More recently still (though it's probably been 10 years by now?) I started wearing tank tops, which I'd never done in my life before.

I do still get reminders from time to time that a lot of people consider shaving normal/something everyone does. I think the norm is still pretty strong outside my immediate circle of friends and not nonexistent within it. I also know I have some non-shaving female friends, which helps me feel less isolated about it.

I'm not sure how I came to feel more relaxed about the whole thing. I wouldn't say even now that I'm completely unselfconscious about it, but I'm reasonably comfortable.

Which is to say: I'm over here in roughly the same area of the map of lived experience as you on this one, and this is how it has happened to play out for me so far.

[mathhobbit]

Yeah, a lot of my clothing choices are about disguising my comfort choices.