The body is an elusive mistress that betrays me in my moments of deference—not just wholly for the loveliness of curving hips and a man’s defining muscles, but for my own horror of admiring, and at times even hesitantly defying, media’s perception of beauty. I am not talking about my reverence for the aforementioned curves and muscles. I am not talking of media’s bias towards the lanky, the fair-faced; a celebrity’s airbrushed features glorified in the latest edition of a magazine—no. Since I was twelve, I burdened a strange endearance for the wide and plush (not curvy) bodies bereft from media, and grew to love those types of bodies unconditionally notwithstanding the lack of confidence in my own. Read More