(via GirlsWithSlingshots)
"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known." - Chuck Palahniuk
So, I (like a lot of people I know) grew up thinking I was an ugly duckling. My sisters were the pretty ones, I was the smart one. Ignoring the fact that this kind of thinking was damaging in its own way to all of us, it was helpful in its own way for allowing me the time to develop my own sense of beauty.
I didn't think I had access to being beautiful, so I didn't try to mimic normative standards of beauty.
Woo-hoo!
Unfortunately, this did mean that once I realized I was beautiful, I went through quite a few stages of aggressive mimicry. You have to try it on different styles to see what fits. SG is one of those models I've used over the years to build a new comprehensive sense of my own beauty.
Now that I'm a hopeful, I find myself again re-adressing beauty standards. In most ways, I've moved far past the SG copying I did when I was a teenager (although some of that definitely resurfaced during my first few photoshoot attempts) but as I frame myself in order to fit into the SG model, I'm intrigued to find the parts of me that are shining through from other sources.
like my gender
like my queer culture
like my nerdliness
...and a great deal like everything I've learned from the kink world
Its an amusing process, and one I feel very privileged to have tacked with intention. As I get prepped for my first set going up for member review (on October 28th!) I find myself reflecting on the fact that I wouldn't have had that privilege if it wasn't for my "ugly duckling" start.
ggdeckard:
First of all, I adore that Chuck quote. (Yes, I'm on a first name basis.) Secondly, that's a very interesting way of looking at growing into beauty- not physically maybe, but psychologically.