My Decision To Be Gorgeous

One day I decided I was hot and became so. I am not conventionally attractive by today’s Western standards. I am highly unlikely to be on a reality dating show - because of my personality, and then on top of that my looks. I am a short “middle-thick” sometimes-bloated brown Latina with curly hair that I still have to figure out on non-wash days, and skin I just figured out how to keep mostly-free of acne. I am on the eve of turning 30, or the age where I can hardily be a valid sugar-baby contender. I have a couple of grey hairs coming in and am sincerely looking forward to more. (My mother likes to say that it is a privilege to grow old because not everyone gets to do so.) I don’t shave the hair on my arms. I say no when several eyebrow-threading ladies have offered to start with my upper lip first. I won’t even tell you about the waxers I don’t go to.

All of this is me today, and growing up was no different. At summer camp before fifth grade, I disgusted my fellow cabinmates when we were discussing upcoming puberty and I told them that I had already started to grow pubic hair.

As a child, I imagined growing up to be a lean, flat-chested, pale woman with freckles and straight light brown hair. I don’t know how that corresponded to my young brown skin and frizzy black hair that would later develop into my mother’s curls. Main point: it didn’t. I didn’t have the representation I needed as a child (for now, I’ll put aside my qualms about multiculturalism as a means of rejecting assimilation for true revolution). The closest representation I had was America Ferrera in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005) which came out circa fifth grade. It was three thin white girls and her. They each had different body types, but I argue that America’s was the most different. I believe the miracle of the pants fitting all of them was because of her. My mom loved her, saying “She has an ass!” as she gestured to mine.

My single statement that I tell my friends now - one day I decided I was hot and became so - was (for better or for worse) inspired by the 1980 book The Twits by Roald Dahl (known anti-Semitic). In the beginning he describes how someone sees themself and their good thoughts influences how others see them.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. - Roald Dahl, The Twits (found here)

I was inspired. I think about this sentiment every time I say my line.

I have made others around me more attractive as well. A friend says she looks great when we take our selfies. I respond, “It’s because you’re not worried about how you look when we do, and you feel good being with me.” (On the other hand, this is unfortunate only when I want to be petty about building up yet another man. I have stated, post-break-up, “If he’s more handsome now, know that was MY work.” Listen, I’m working on not repeating the same mistake for the too-many-th time.)

I wear things I look good in, and I look good in a lot because I wear them with confidence. I like love being admired. But the admiration is a product, not a reinforcement, of how I feel about my looks.

Even with this success, I am still finding it difficult to love my new back rolls. My body is changing and I have been working on getting used to it for years. Yet, I went to a Korean spa recently with a friend and loved the experience, in part because I saw so many body types and ages and everyone was beautiful because they were shameless of their own bodies.

I already try to have as little shame as possible, especially to combat how women of color are perceived in society, and loving how I look is only one part of it. I strive to be kind, and shameless about who and how loud I am.

A woman of color’s self-love is political and radical, and it is unsettling for the status quo because she is choosing bravely to dismantle the narratives of racist aesthetics against her. So when people bully a girl of color for being content and satisfied with her appearance - a reality that is subjected to racist, sexist slurs in cosmetic industries - and when they tell her to be “humble” which is normative code for “Nah, you’re not special, you’re not light and delicate in a Eurocentric way” then she has every right to chew their hearts and spit them out. A non-white girl’s self-love is revolutionary and anyone trying to water it down needs to back right off. - Mehreen Kasana

One day I decided I was worth more than what society said, and it started with being shameless about loving how I look.