I was one of several guests on a radio show in Baltimore on Friday. The topic of the show was apparently going to be about sex education and social justice, but turned out to be more like fear-mongering and a whole lot of projections around teen sexuality mixed with focus on parents and teen sexuality. I got the impression all four of us who were asked to take part, despite some of our disagreements, were very frustrated with the show and the host clearly asking questions he didn't want factual answers to, despite purportedly asking us to take part to provide just that.

At one point, he asked one of the guests to talk about rape victims and survivors. She said she did not do any work with rape or survivors, but instead of deferring to any of us who had, or just saying "I don't know," she went ahead and did some postulating and guesswork. There were several things she said in a rush of words that bothered me, but one of the most troubling was a statement that rape survivors "compulsively have sex."

This is a very common stereotype. It's one that can be incredibly damaging in several ways. It's also one which has long since been dismantled by rape survivors, people who work in the field as advocates for survivors and educators about rape.

I had to wait a while before I got a chance to respond, since the host accepted what was said at face value. I should mention that with a response like the speaker's, the onus was not just on her but also on the host to defer the question elsewhere or ask that speaker to talk about something that was within her area of expertise. This is one of a couple reasons why I'm not naming names here today out of courtesy. The whole show was so badly organized and biased that I don't want to tar someone who said some uneducated things when I am sure did not say them with malice, and when she may very well take responsibility for them herself elsewhere.

When I got a chance to do some correcting, I was cut off before I could do so well. Part of why I got cut off is that the only chance I got to correct the information was in answering a question about what parents should know per teen sexuality and talking to teens. I think I was also cut off because in explaining some of this, I identified as both someone who has worked with a survivor and as a survivor myself, which I got the impression, made the host seriously uncomfortable. While I was going a little off-topic in making the corrections, not only were they important not to let stand, the information was relevant to what parents should know, and I want to explain why.

Part of what kept getting bandied about was the primarily media-manufactured idea that teens are now having sex earlier than before. In asking all four of the guests -- all sexuality educators, and two of us work with very large, broad sex education groups and have for many years -- if this was in fact true, we all said that it was not, each explaining why. (At some point in the show I was asked to explain what "sexualizing" teens meant, and I regret I did not throw tact to the wind and say "Adults endlessly obsessing about what kinds of sex and how much sex teens are having, especially when trying to insist they're having sex at rates they are not, in order to be provocative for their own notoriety is an example of sexualizing them.")

In the discussion, it began to seem like that the host, just like all too much data on sex as a whole, was not separating consensual sex from rape. The host also used the term "unwanted sex" at some point -- again, just like all too much data continues to do -- instead of saying rape.

One thing I'd mentioned earlier about ages of sexual debut was that when discussing sex and 13-15 year olds, we know from an awful lot of study and work with that population that a great deal of young women that age "having sex" -- having intercourse -- aren't having sex at all. They are being raped.

One third (33%) of sexually active teens 15-17 reports “being in a relationship where they felt things were moving too fast sexually”, and 24 percent have “done something sexual they didn’t really want to do.” More than one in five (21%) report having oral sex to “avoid having sexual intercourse” with a partner. More than a quarter (29%) of teens 15-17 report feeling pressure to have sex. Nearly one in 10 (9%) 9-12th grade students report having been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to at some point. (Kaiser Family Foundation, National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults: Sexual Health Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors, May 2003.)

NONE of that data is about fully consensual sex: most of it is about rape and other kinds of sexual abuses.

As well, the younger a girl is when she has sex (a statistic which again, often does not separate rape from consensual sex, but just counts any vaginal intercourse as 'sex") for the first time, the greater the average age difference is likely to be between her and her partner. (Abma JC, Martinez, GM, Mosher, WD., Dawson, BS. Teenagers in the United States: Sexual activity, contraceptive use, and childbreaing, 2002. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Stat 23(24). 2004.) When it comes to rape, for victims of all genders, it's most common for rapists to be a male older than the they are, especially the younger the victim is. This is not to say all age-disparate relationships involve rape, but it is to say that many do, particularly for the youngest people.

It's accepted and understood that around one on every 4-6 women are raped in their lifetime, and around one in every 33 men (though in both cases, underreporting is an issue, so both numbers are likely higher, particularly the male figure). Data we have on rape also has long shown us (and plenty of us have the personal experience to know this already) that the rate of rape for people of all ages is usually highest for the youngest people: teens and young adults of every gender are victimized at the highest rates and are at the highest risk of being raped.

• 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18. and 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18. (Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, 1995-1997, Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)
• Women ages 16 to 24 experience the highest per capita rates of intimate violence--nearly 20 per 1000 women. (Bureau of Justice Special Report: Intimate Partner Violence, May 2000)
• 17.6% of women in the United States have survived a completed or attempted rape. Of these, 21.6% were younger than age 12 when they were first raped, and 32.4% were between the ages of 12 and 17. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women, Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November, 2000)
• More than half (54 percent) of female rape victims were younger than age 18 when raped; 32.4 percent were ages 12–17; and 21.6 percent were younger than age 12 at time of victimization. (Thoennes N., and P. Tjaden. Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 2000, NCJ 183781.)

When someone is raping us, they are refusing and removing our autonomy. A rapist is taking control of our bodies against our will to get what they want sexually and/or emotionally for themselves, and not only when we don't want it, but often expressly because we don't.

After rape, it's common for survivors to feel like that robbery of body ownership and sexual ownership can hijack or co-opt ourselves and/or our sexualities in many ways for quite some time. If we choose to have wanted, consensual sex and have body memories or other post-traumatic reactions, if we find we can't not think about our rape or rapes in some way during sex, you can perhaps understand why we feel that way. If rape or other sexual abuse leaves us feeling like our only value is as a sexual object, you can perhaps understand why we feel that way. If we can't even think about sex we want without thinking about rape, you can perhaps understand why we feel that way. If we can't chose to have any kind of sex without someone suggesting it's merely a compulsion about our rape, you can perhaps understand why we feel that way.

The belief or statement that if we have sex after rape, it is only out of compulsion or reaction to our trauma is one way we are also robbed of autonomy and choice. What that purports is that after rape, for weeks, months, years or ever after, we still are no longer able or allowed to make the free choice to have sex we want when we want it. That kind of statement is yet another robbery of our personhood, and our right to want and/or do the things people who were not raped want or do. It's one of many statements made about rape and sexual abuse survivors that suggest we are all damaged goods, a statement not only biased and ignorant, but unsupportive and damaging. This is one of many ways in which it's not just our rapes themselves that do us harm but the way we are treated by others because we have been raped. It puts survivors in the mode of being perpetual victims, not recognizing the hard work many of us have to do heal, and the strength and force of will our healing process can give us. Frankly, speaking both for myself and the wealth of other survivors I know and have spoken with through my work over the years, once any of us have come through that process, I'm inclined to say we're a group of people who generally are more equipped than most to ONLY choose to have sex when that is absolutely what we want, not less.

The speaker also said sex was "always more confusing" for survivors. That can certainly be true sometimes. But it's important to remember that most of us not only figure it out in time, but tend to have even more clarity around what is or isn't wanted, what is or isn't sex, because we have had an experience which has made very clear what sex is NOT and what is NOT wanted. That's an experience those who have not been abused or assaulted have not had in the same way, and often are more unsure about than we are by virtue of our experience. As someone who has worked in sex education for over a decade, who has had tens of thousands of one-on-one conversations about it with individuals and whose work just never seems to stop piling up, it also seems to be stating the obvious that sex is clearly confusing for a whole lot of people, not just rape survivors.

Do some survivors have sex compulsively as a reaction to rape or other sexual abuse? Yes, some do, but so do lots of people who have never been sexually assaulted or abused. Compulsive behavior after assault can also manifest in a lot of different ways when it is an issue. But many rape and sexual abuse survivors don't ever have sex by compulsion.

Of course, it's also possible that just like this host and many others call or see rape as "unwanted sex", that what is seen as "compulsive sex" is instead, yet more rape. Many rape survivors are raped more than once, either because they feel it was made clear they do not have the right to say no, because they have not been able to identity dangers when it can be seen coming, because they have not left or been removed from the relationship in which rape happened the first time or a host of other scenarios. This can particularly be an issue with the youngest victims: girls who were victimized before turning 12 and then again as adolescents (ages 13–17) were at much greater risk of both types of victimization as adults than any other women. (Siegel, J.A., and L.M. Williams, Risk Factors for Violent Victimization of Women: A Prospective Study, Final Report.) Since so many people still think of rape only as stranger-rape, rather than the more common contexts it happens in -- especially to the youngest victims -- where the rapist is a family member, boyfriend, friend or otherwise known person, it can be all the more easy for people who conceptualize rape simplistically to continue to conflate rape with sex.

Why do parents, not just young people, all people, or advocates, need to know this stuff? First and foremost because it's just not okay, wise, beneficial or kind to misrepresent people, and it's particularly shitty to marginalize people who have been already been marginalized by abuse. In other words, everyone needs to know things like this because it's unacceptable to stereotype survivors or other or objectify us further.

Many parents also assume that if a young person says they had sex or is discovered to have had sex that it must have been consensual. By all means, most of the time, that is the case, since the majority of people are not raped. However, that minority isn't minor: it's millions of people. Because of the way people and so much of our culture talks about and treats rape, like calling it "unwanted sex," because of how much victim-blaming there still is, because of how hard and scary it can be to disclose or report rape (of which false assumptions or suppositions about victims are part), and because people generally do NOT want to have been raped, it's not uncommon for people to be very reluctant to disclose rape or to call their own rapes rapes. Many people don't realize how many rape victims don't disclose or report because they worry about being further attacked or "getting their rapists in trouble." Of course, assuming that any sex must be unconsensual just because of someone's age or gender is problematic, too.

If and when a young person has been raped or otherwise sexually abused, it's also vital to do things that will help that person heal. Presenting someone as damaged goods does not help with healing: it just adds insult to injury. Suggesting that wanted, consensual sex must be a compulsion or post-traumatic reaction does not help anyone heal, particularly since part of most of our healing is to get to a place where we can have our own sexual life. Suggesting our minds, bodies and sexualities will never be fully our own is not only false, it also gives us the message that you think our rapists won in taking us, and we can never have our whole selves back. I have had to help plenty of survivors unpack their hurtful internalization of these messages, messages many have received from people and the world around them long after they were raped or abused, over and over again.

Again, sometimes survivors do have sex that is compulsive or reactive. We also want to be sure to recognize that sometimes that's about trying to relive the experience to process it or change the script or other known on unconscious motivations which can be about processing and healing. In other words, even in some cases where it is or appears troubling to an outsider, it may just be where someone is at in their own process, and outsiders should carefully consider the judgments they may make about that, or any way they may pathologize behavior that may not be pathological. Hopefully, people can also start to garner an awareness that judging a rape survivor's sexual behavior can put even more baggage on a person than it can to non-survivors.

A lot of the time, rape survivors of every age are having sex because sex is what we want, because it makes us feel good about ourselves, our bodies and our interpersonal relationships, and for the whole range of reasons people who have not been raped want to engage in sex.

Once more with feeling, all survivors of rape do not behave the same way, just like all survivors of concentration camps didn't, all survivors of other hate crimes do not, all people who have been mugged do not, all veterans of wars do not. Just like many other kinds of trauma, not only are all rapes different, all of the people who survive them are different, as is our process in reacting, healing, surviving and thriving.

A post over at Shakesville sums this up so well:

There is no such thing as a “typical” response to rape. Immediately following a rape, some women go into shock. Some are lucid. Some are angry. Some are ashamed. Some are practical. Some are irrational. Some want to report it. Some don’t. Most have a combination of emotions, but there is no standard response. Responses to rape are as varied as its victims. In the long term, some rape victims act out. Some crawl inside themselves. Some have healthy sex lives. Some never will again."

It's important for everyone, including parents, to understand the manufactured myth of the "right response" to rape, or the way victims are "supposed to act" is myth and is dangerous. Just like the idea that if someone isn't crying or angry after rape they haven't been raped, the idea that if someone is having sex -- either of any kind, or in ways or frequency arbitrarily considered acceptable or not -- or isn't tells us who has been raped or who hasn't, who is healing or who is not is also false. Ideas or statements there are right or wrong ways to behave, sexually or otherwise, post-rape leave many victims feeling unable to disclose or report as well as unable to either heal or be recognized as having healed; as a whole person, like anyone else, not as some kind of one-dimensional person who is but merely as someone who got raped, an idea that suggests we our rapists didn't just rob our personhood while raping us, but forever.

Sometimes, being careless or clueless about any of this will hurt our individual feelings as survivors and make us feel crappy: that's not acceptable, but most of us can and will deal, even though it sucks (particularly since we're often all too used to it). Some survivors can't deal with that, and it sets them back in or keeps them from healing. But the effect can be even more serious and far-reaching than that, because statements like this, especially broadcast widely and with a voice given any kind of authority, also can enable rape and the continued maltreatment and dehumanizing of survivors.

Be careful how you talk about us, especially if and when you haven't shared our experiences or done any work yourself to really listen to us as a large, varied group or haven't done a whole lot of homework in reading the work of those who have, and those who have collected sound data on rape and rape survivors. If you're asked about rape or rape survivors and you're talking about your personal experience, qualify it as that. If you're talking about rape or survivors as a group with no experience, personally or professionally, then either refer people to those who have that experience, to sound sources of general data like RAINN, or just say you do not know. If you want to know or speak about what our experiences have been like? Ask us. We're right here, willing, wanting and able to speak for ourselves, needing you to allow us to do just that by not speaking for us.

If there's a common compulsivity in all of this, it's the habit of non-survivors or uninformed speakers to speak with bias or ignorance about survivors. Foot-in-mouth disease when it comes to talking about rape victims and survivors is long-established and epidemic compulsive behavior.

I want to wrap this up with something a lot of survivors and thoughtful people who work with survivors know, but a lot of people don't realize.

If and when you have been raped or sexually abused in some other way, when the time comes that you can experience consensual, wanted sex, that in and of itself -- even if the sex isn't all you wanted it to be, whether or not you get off -- can be a profoundly liberating, healing experience. It is watershed to have positive, enjoyable and reclaiming experiences about parts of our bodies or selves that were traumatized, just like it's a huge deal for someone who had an injury they were told meant they'd never walk again to find themselves walking. Tangibly experiencing and clarifying that rape and sex are radically different things is huge. Having a wanted, consensual sexual life is not only of the same value to us as it is to everyone else, it can also help send our hearts a clear message that no matter what others say or intimate, we are NOT damaged goods, forever cursed to be sexual objects or dysfunctional sexually or interpersonally; that no matter what happened to us, our bodies and sexualities are still absolutely our own, by our choice, within our control and for our own pleasure and joy.

Rachel, who blogs at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman, poses this question from her 16 year-old self: how do I stop creepy old men from hitting on me? Rachel writes of a recent encounter with her favorite advice columnist, Melissa Hoyer:

Me: “OMG, I loved your column! When I was 16, I was going to write in to asking for advice. I wanted to know how I could dress differently to stop attracting creepy old men and start attracting guys my own age instead.”

Melissa Hoyer: “Er, I don’t think I would have been able to help you with that one.”

Rachel explains:

At the time, I had come to the conclusion that the reason I was attracting more attention from men who were 18 or 20+, right through to 40 or so, than guys my own age (the ones I was actually interested in) was because I dressed in manner that was too “adult”. I wanted to write to Hoyer because I was searching for a way to reconcile my desire to dress in clothes that I felt an aesthetic affinity with, with my desire not be designated an “adult” - an identity I was far from ready to take on at 16 - or a piece of meat because of it.

It was a question that was about far more than fashion, though - and I suspect that’s the reason Hoyer told me she wouldn’t have been able to answer it (although I like to think she would have been touched had I ever sent it off). At its heart, it was a question from a girl/young woman trying to come to terms with and navigate her own objectification.

As a feminist and a father, a professor and a former youth leader with years of experience working with teens, I thought I'd take a shot at answering Rachel's query.

If I were writing to a 16 year-old named Rachel, I'd say:

Dear Rachel,

I wish that I could offer you specific fashion tips that would guarantee that creepy older guys wouldn't hit on you. For that matter, I wish I could share with you how to dress in a manner that would assure that your peers wouldn't frequently judge you, either to your face or behind your back. Unfortunately, I can't tell you how to ensure those things -- because the sad truth is that no matter how you dress, no matter what you wear, you will be perceived by some men as a target for their unwanted advances.

You may have heard people say things like "girls who wear short skirts are asking for 'it'". By "it" they may mean anything from rape to crude comments and penetrating stares. But as you may already have noticed, girls aren't immune from harassment when they're wearing simple or "modest" garb either. I've had plenty of students who've been accosted while wearing sweatpants or long dresses. I've had Muslim students who chose to wear head coverings, and they've been harassed both religiously and sexually. The bottom line is that there's nothing you can wear that will guarantee respect from others. And the reason is that the root of this problem isn't skin or clothing, it's our cultural contempt for women and girls.

Have you noticed the way this works yet? If a girl is thin, she's accused of being "anorexic"; if her weight is higher than the cruelly restrictive ideal, she's "fat" and "doesn't take care of herself" or "has no self-control." If she wears cute, trendy clothes she "only wants attention" and if she wears sweats and jeans, she "doesn't make an effort." If she's perceived as sexually attractive, and -- especially -- if she shows her own sexual side, she's likely to be called a "slut." If her sexuality and her body are concealed, she's a "prude." As you've probably figured out, the cards are stacked against you. You cannot win, at least not if you define winning as dressing and behaving in a way likely to win approval (or at least decent respect) from everyone.

The advice I'm going to give may sound clichéd, but it's important nonetheless: you should dress in a style that makes you comfortable.

Comfort, of course, has many dimensions. There's physical comfort to consider. A fashion choice that leaves you sweating and itchy on a hot day, or shivering on a cold one, is by definition uncomfortable. When the weather's warm, wearing more revealing clothing is often as much a matter of comfort rather than style.

Of course, there's a psychological aspect to comfort, too. The more revealing your clothing (regardless of your reasons for wearing it), the more of your body others can see. It's important to be honest with yourself about how that makes you feel. Different people have different levels of comfort with having their bodies noticed. That's a normal variation, and the key thing is to be aware where you are on the spectrum. If your peers or parents urge you to dress in a style that leaves you feeling vulnerable and uncomfortably exposed, you have a right to push back against them. The reverse is true, too.

It's important too to note that however much skin you are revealing, you are never responsible for another person's inappropriate behavior.

Save for the blind, we are all visual people. We notice each other. There is no right not to be seen. But there is a right not to be stared at with a penetrating gaze of the sort that makes you feel deeply uncomfortable. While it may seem that you get those leers more often when you're showing more skin, you've probably noticed that you get those creepy stares at other times as well. And the key thing you need to know is that men can control their eyes -- they really can -- and women can control their judgment. Your body is not so powerful that it can drive others to distraction. (And yes, if we're honest, sometimes we wish that our bodies were that powerful, particularly if it meant drawing the attention of someone to whom we are attracted!)

If some men choose to be distracted by you, that is their choice, a decision for which they (not you) are solely responsible. No matter what anyone tells you, you need to remember that.

It is not inconsistent to want to be seen and not be stared at. You know the difference, I suspect, between an "appreciative look" (which can feel very validating) and the "penetrating stare" that leaves you feeling like crawling into a hole. While people are not required to give you the former, it's not unreasonable to expect them to avoid giving you the latter. It's also not unreasonable to want guys your age to be interested in you, and want the creepy old ones to leave you alone. Remember, it's not hypocrisy or naiveté on your part to dress in a way that you hope will get you that positive attention you want without also bringing the negative attention you fear and loathe.

Sometimes, of course, we need other people's insight and advice. There are little fashion rules that it can be helpful to know (even if only for the sake of breaking them, like the old one about not mixing browns and blacks, or not wearing dark-colored bras under light-colored tops.) Friends and family members may have suggestions for what colors or styles are most flattering to you, and sometimes those suggestions may be helpful. I'm certainly not suggesting you shouldn't listen to those tips. But I want you to know there's a world of difference between saying "you know, I think lime green isn't really your color" and saying "you shouldn't wear short skirts, because then men will think you're easy." The former bit of advice is rooted in an aesthetic truth (aesthetics is a fancy term for the study of what is beautiful or good), the latter in an anxiety that is based on a false assumption about male weakness.

It's okay to ask, when headed to a new school or a workplace or a party, about the dress code. Few of us want to stand out as totally different from everyone else. Most of us can figure out that what you wear to a birthday party at the water park is different from what you would wear to a funeral service in a church. Dressing for the occasion is part of living in a community with others. But that standard should still have room for a lot of flexibility. A bikini is probably not appropriate at Thanksgiving dinner (unless you're poolside), but when it comes, say, to school, don't let anyone tell you that can't dress up (or down) depending on how you feel.

Here's a key point: As a father and a teacher and a youth leader and a feminist man who has been around a while (and worked with thousands of young people), I want you to know that while not all men are safe and trustworthy, men's bad behavior is never, ever, ever, ever, ever "your" fault. Your miniskirt doesn't cause guys (of any age) to do anything they don't choose to do (no matter what they say to the contrary). It's not your job to dress to keep yourself safe from men.

Lastly, let me say that finding your own style is an adventure. It involves a lot of trial, and some not infrequent errors. I promise you, ten or twenty years from now you'll look at photos of yourself at 16, roll your eyes, and say "What was I wearing? What made me think that looked good?" Despite what some folks tell you, these are not the best years of your life. Not even close. And in terms of your style and your beauty, you aren't anywhere near your peak. I say that not to belittle you, but to reassure you that you don't have to get it right yet. You have much more time than you think.

Much love and best of luck,

Hugo

I know it's only so much consolation to you right now, but the older I get, the more I notice how much easier having a positive body image becomes. I know that's clearly not the case for all older women: after all, plenty of women my age and older are getting sliced, diced and Botoxed to within an inch of their lives. However, it's also not just me. I often notice that women I'm friends with also seem to have a good handle and perspective on their body image, despite the diversity of our bodies. Usually a much better one then they had when they were your age.

But you know, what I wish I knew then that I do know now is that most of my body image is totally up to me. Just like it is now, so it was when I was in my teens: I have control over how positive or negative it is. And that's something you'll find many older women wish they had known back when. You don't have to wait until you're in your 30's, 40's or beyond to get to a better place with yours. You can start doing that right this second, and I'm hoping we can help you out with that some here.

When I was young, I rarely heard older women talking positively about their bodies. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, what I watched and heard about from older women growing up was how fat they were, how they needed to lose this many pounds, how this thing or that one didn't fit them (and how they needed it to), how what they looked like was making them miserable; how what they ate, if anything, resulted in their misery. Of course, what was really making them miserable was what was coming OUT of their mouths, far more than what was going on.

I wasn't helped by all those negatives. But I was helped by the positive messages I did hear, and also by the messages I heard that were simply real and truthful, even if those older women weren't yet in the best space, but they at least made clear they were trying to get there by self-acceptance, rather than self-torture or conformity.

So, because so often here we hear from users struggling with body image, I wanted to pass on a little holiday gift to you. I asked a few of my friends in their late twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and up -- who are also a range of shapes and sizes -- if they'd pass on what they've learned and where they're at right now with body image to share with you. Here's what they wanted to say:

Alison: As a teen, watching my friends w/ eating disorders, I made a conscious decision to accept my body as it is. It hasn't always been easy, but making that commitment to myself is one of the best things I've ever done, and I continue to strive to live up to it.

Danya: The more time you spend thinking about how your body looks, or what you've eaten or haven't eaten, or any of that stuff, the less time and brainspace you have to think about and plan your creative work; notice inequalities and plot revolution; pay attention to what other people need and respond to that; feel your feelings; come up with big visions, schemes and plans; meditate, pray, or otherwise feed your spiritual side; or do any one of a million other things that can help you enact your potential in the world. When you catch yourself going there, think about what else you could be doing with that mental space, and USE IT.

Linda: I have always had the ability to look at my body in a mirror and see at least one good thing that I like, usually how narrow my waist was-instead of dawdling too much on having a wider behind than most. I have been every size there is, and it's always come down to how it feels to live in my body. Is it comfortable to move? AS a teenager, I always thought I had to be a specific size, and wasted too much time worrying over not being able to buy the "in" styles. Then I started being more creative about what I wore, or got pants tailored to fit my smaller waist etc, and wow did that help. I wish I could tell my teen self how beautiful I was. At 15 I actually said "I will probably never be prettier, and sadly, I am the least likely to recognize that fact". I had already noticed how women talk about their bodies as they grow older, and everyone said they were really perfectly themselves as a teenager but failed to stop and enjoy it. Dancing NIA is awesome for body self esteem. I highly recommend it!

Amanda: I had a pretty good body image in high school. I didn't understand why fashion magazines seemed to obsess over back fat and arm fat and FAT. Life seemed too short to worry about those sorts of things. Then I gained weight and it was a struggle to not obsess. And then I realized that the power I had as a teen had little to do with my size (I certainly wasn't thin) and more to do with how I felt and carried myself and I just try to recapture that feeling. When I hear women talking shit about their bodies, I just want to remind them that fat does not equal ugly. There are so many people that prove this on a daily basis. And then I try to show them Joy Nash's "Fat Rant."

Amy: As a fat woman (who has been fat my whole life!), I can say that every minute of every day is a struggle. A struggle to accept what I look like, a struggle to shout down and shut up the voices inside my head AND outside in the world AND in every piece of media I see that tell me I am ugly, bad, greedy, gluttonous, asexual, unloveable and less than human because of what I look like. It was a struggle when I was a teenager, and it's a struggle now, and so far, that's never changed -- and I'm sad that I don't have any better news than that. There are days when I AM able to shout louder than the negative voices, and I can dress in clothes that I like and go out into the world and feel powerful and capable and worthy and talented, regardless of my weight. There are other days (when I get "moo'ed" at walking down the street, or read personal ads that say "No fatties", "Please be thin -- sorry, but overweight girls gross me out") when I retreat into the house and can't face the world anymore.

The best I have come up with so far -- regarding how to live in the body I have, in this world as we know it -- is to appreciate my body not for what it looks like, but for what it can do. I'm grateful that it has supported me and remained functional through an amazing amount of stress and pain and crap. :) I'm grateful that despite my weight, I can MOVE - I can walk FAST, I can walk FAR, I can do yoga, I can stretch, I can lift weights...I am a fully-working person (and there ARE THIN PEOPLE who can't say that, dammit!). And the times when I feel best about myself -- when I really do feel connected to my external self in a positive, caring way -- are when I'm exercising. When I'm walking on a treadmill, or ellipting, or hiking...when I feel my muscles moving, and my own sweat and breath...I realize that THIS is what a body is.

It is ANATOMY, it is BIOLOGY, it is CHEMISTRY. It is not APPEARANCE -- or at least, it shouldn't be. The idea of beauty is so insanely subjective, so random and ineffable, that it's utterly f*cking ridiculous for our culture to label our three-dimensional flesh-and-blood "houses" that do so much for us as beautiful or not. So, I try to remember that. I try to care more that my body works than whether it's meeting a beauty standard.

But it is hard. It is never less very very hard.

Priscilla: I spent my teen years thinking I was fat and gross. I often wish I could tell my teenage self that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. One thing that helped me to get to a better place, actually, was going to clothing optional events. I saw a lot of women's bodies and realized that my body was just fine, that beautiful bodies came in lots of shapes, and that I shouldn't compare myself to women in porn or in fashion magazines because they were not the average and they were airbrushed all to hell. For most women and girls today, the only naked bodies they ever see are in porn, so they compare themselves to an unrealistic standard.

Erika: It's much better NOW at 48. Main reason? I finally got fitted, and now have bras that FIT. 34 FF: delicious! And I adore my ass. Gawd, I sound narcissistic.

Samantha: I think it was some time in my 30s, when I heard the (source utterly forgotten at this point) quote "You're the only person you're going to wake up with every single morning of your life." That made me really think about whether or not I was un/happy with my appearance because of me, or due to outside influence. And since this is the only skin I'm gonna have this time around, I'd better damn well get to loving it and understanding it, no matter what else is going on.

So I tried to be more gentle and forgiving toward my body on days when it felt bloated or slow: there was a reason for that after all. And I've kept trying to do that, and remind myself that overall, this body has been awfully damned good to me through the years, it deserves more appreciation than I've been kind enough to give it at times.

Also, figuring out how to wear clothes that fit properly! Neither too large, nor too small.

Mary: I've had endometriosis since I was 13, with extremely painful periods, and always felt that my body was punishing me for being female. It wasn't until I was much older that I decided to treat it as a disease instead of as "just part of being a girl."

For me, hormonal treatments are the answer; for a lot of women, surgery to remove lesions is the answer. Finally being pain-free has made me start to really like my body and feel good about being a woman. The moral is: illnesses of the female body aren't curses or our special lot in life; they're just illnesses requiring medical treatment, and it's important to keep searching until you find a treatment that works for you. We deserve to be as healthy as anybody else does.

Nancy: Think about what your body can do, not what it looks like. Your body is designed to move through space and propel you through your life. Your legs and thighs hold you up, so you can dance and shake your tail feather. Having just seen "Fela," an amazing celebration of movement and body diversity, I'd recommend African dance, which embraces power, agility and all body forms - not skinny and weightless. Embrace the space that you take up in this world!

And here's my own two cents: when I was younger my mother would put these images on the fridge which were intended to inspire her not to eat. (Starvation diets were all the rage in the 70's and 80's: not like we've come that far since then.) The one I remember most was of a fat, mostly naked woman who had covered herself in cake and garishly colorful makeup. She was laughing and smiling, and appeared to be having an outrageously good time, seeming to have no idea or care that for some women like my mother, she was an object lesson of some kind, a warning to other women.

Comparing the image of that woman, and her relationship to food and her body, with the image of my mother -- who rarely, if ever, looked happy with herself, who felt that food was her enemy (she's since gotten over it, by the way), left me with a very different takeaway than it left my mother. My mother looked at that woman and herself and saw her nightmare. I, on the other hand, looked at that woman and saw a joyous, fleshy lady who made life, the body and food look like the best party ever. If I had to pick a body image role model of the two of them, I would have picked the woman in that photo, hands down. She was the one with a healthy body image and a healthy relationship to food. She was the one who was clearly happy and who clearly felt good about herself. I loved seeing that lady on the fridge: she always made me smile.

I've had some times in my life where I was so poor I had to skip meals, sometimes for more than one day. Not only did that wind up impacting my health (two of my internal organs eventually gave up the ghost and landed me in the hospital at death's door because of it), it's something I can never forget when I'm not in that position and I can eat. I love food, and it loves me back: it nourishes me and keeps me healthy and vital, plus, it's freaking delicious and an amazing sensual experience to eat. I'm always grateful to be able to put fresh, delicious food on my table and to have the time and the privilege to savor it. There were times in my teens that due to the words of an abusive stepparent about my body that I tried very hard to love food less, to get thinner, thin enough, I hoped, to stop the jeers. I'm lucky to have come out of that with the chutzpah and self-worth to reclaim a positive body image, but when I think about the times I did really let those nasty messages sink in, I feel pretty angry with myself. I want to go back in time and deliver a comeback a lot like one Carrie Fisher shouted out recently:

"What the @#*! do YOU look like?

I know I don’t really have the right to ask……I’m a public figure——Ive made an unspoken contract to keep that figure slim…….but still, I find myself wondering…….See, I think the folks that insult & mock celebrities who DARE to pack on ten pounds or—–God forbid——MORE than ten!…..I would think it only fair that they post a photo of themselves along with their poisonous observations! And you know what else would be SUPER cool??? Their IQ! ALL the numbers! An approximate count of Weight AND wisdom!"

In my adult life, at around 5'4, I've weighed everything from 120 to 185. At 120 I was skeletal, and I looked freaking scary. I only weighed that little because I could not afford to eat. I'm not a small-boned or small-muscled gal: I come from hearty stock from all sides of my genetic spectrum. 120 is NOT a healthy weight for me, not at all. At 185 I was depressed: not because of my weight, mind -- I weighed what I did because of my depression. I've felt best in my body when I weighed around 155, at the time that I was able to teach and train in a sport that I love for an hour and a half three times a week, and when I ate like I was fueling a small country. When I was at that weight, due to all that boxing and kickboxing, my body shape -- which is often the relatively rare hourglass shape we so often hear is THE timeless ideal when I don't train so hard -- was hardly the typical feminine ideal: I had forearms like Popeye, my breasts shrunk considerably, and my already substantial thighs got even bigger.

Go figure that the weight I felt best at happened to be the one when my personal body was at its healthiest and I was also doing all the things I loved to do with it the most: not the weight or shape where I was closest to popular beauty ideals. Not when I wasn't eating. Not when I was most focused on what it looked like rather than what it could do.

It might also be helpful to know that besides the time when I was so thin because of being sick, people I know seem to guess my weight wrong all the time, thinking I've lost weight when I've gained, or gained when I lost; thinking I weigh 140 when I'm 180, or 170 when I weigh 150. (When I hear women talking about needing to lose five or ten pounds, I can't help but wonder where they got the idea anyone could even see that kind of difference.) There are times I thought I looked like hell that I heard how sexy I was, and times I thought I looked amazing when no one else seemed to notice. Other people's perceptions of our body are always going to vary, be more about them than us, and often will have little to do with any kind of reality. If I tried to base my body image on what other people thought and said, I'd feel a lot like taffy being made; pushed and pulled in 57 different directions all the time with no solid center.

One thing I think can be really tough about body image when you're younger is that so many of the beauty ideals out there feature young people. It's a lot easier to look at those ideals and try and find how you measure up, because those folks are at least your age. When you get older, you get even further and further from those ideals, so it can become easier to care less and less about them as they clearly are just not about you. I can weigh whatever I do, look however great I look, but I'll be 40 next year: I cannot possibly look 18. And I don't want to: I want to look like me. I did the hard work of living past 18, so I've no shame in having an almost-40 self to show for it.

The truth is, those ideals aren't accurate for most of us no matter how old or young we are, no matter how tall or short, how fat or thin, how black or white. The fact that many models are around your age may be the only thing you have in common with them. Actually, that's not true: if you're eating disordered, feel totally controlled by what others think of how you look and are constantly at war with your body, you probably have that in common, too.

Here's the thing: when I accept and embrace my body -- no matter what I weigh, what shape I'm in, if I'm sick or I'm well -- I enjoy my body. When I put it down, pick on it, analyze every inch of it, consider my appearance as a combination of flaws and perfections, think about how it could look better in this way or that one, focus on my disabilities instead of my abilities, I stop enjoying it as much and being fully present in it and in my life. I start to other it when I do those things, which is a pretty crazy thing to do about something that isn't separate from me, but an integral part of all of who I am and all of what I do.

My body can't be my enemy, because my body IS me. If I forget that, I also tend to get my priorities skewed, and invest more energy in my appearance -- which even on the days when I think I am seriously hot stuff, offers me little of value -- and less in the whole of my life that really makes me feel good about myself; really benefits me and everyone else I interact with. Even the activities that are really mostly about my body tend to be less fun if what I'm focused on is what my body looks like instead of what it feels like and what I feel like in it.

My best advice is to do the best you can to make sure that anything about your body is really about your body: not about someone else's or your ideas or ideals about other bodies. If you're having any kind of sex, be sure it's sex about you and your body. If you find clothing that really catches your fancy, see how it feels to you on your body, rather than looking at how it looks on the person in the dressing room next to you or the mannequin at the front of a store. Pick things to do with your body that feel like the right things, that feel good -- physically and emotionally -- rather than focusing on if you think -- or think others will think - they look good. If you feel better, happier, more free, dancing in a way that makes you look like a floppy, wet noodle than you do when you look like you're giving a lap dance, pick the noodle-dance. Those happy feelings have more staying power than what you look like in a given moment.

And remember that there's nothing you can ever do to have the same body, look the same, or be the same weight or shape all of your life. Like every other part of our lives, our bodies are in a constant state of change, be that what we weigh, what our hormones are doing, if we have wrinkles and grey hair or not, if our boobs are up here or have moved down there, if we've been pregnant or not, if we've become disabled in a way we used to be abled. Body image issues you have at 15 may be something you get over with the passage of time alone by 40... just in time for some new issues you didn't see coming. If you don't take the time and use your energy to really deconstruct and discard all the crap that feed your young adult body image issues, you probably won't be able to handle the second or third round any better. So hopefully you'll work right now to acquire both some wisdom and profound impatience with putting so much into things that offer you so little. Doing that sooner rather than later will let you ditch a lot of these worries that will keep you from the best stuff in life and from fully experiencing how great the best stuff is (and yes, that includes sex: if you hate your body, no matter how good you think sex is now, wait until you see how righteous it is when you love the skin you're in).

I've met women who started their body negativity young and held unto it for years, some for decades. But one resounding thing I hear from women of all ages, when we finally do get past all of this -- and if we have lives we earnestly enjoy and fully participate in, we do -- is a big-time anger at how much time we wasted getting there.

If you have body image issues now, I beseech you: do what you can to get over them yesterday. In some ways, it's tougher when you're younger, but in other ways, it's easier: after all, while age tends to help women flip the world off more, we also live in a world where youth is considered beauty. If you're in your teens or early twenties, this is probably the closest you are ever getting to mainstream beauty ideals, no matter what you look like. If you invest energy now in trying to meet those ideals and cling to them, things probably won't get easier for you as you get older as they have for many of us: they'll get harder. And you'll waste more of your life, miss out on more of the good stuff while you're drowning in this crap that benefits you and others in no way whatsoever. We can't expect to feel anything but empty if we put our hearts, minds and energy in empty places.

As you can hopefully see just from the words of women on this page, it's not how well we do or don't meet beauty standards or ideals that best determines our happiness with and our love of our own bodies and selves: it's how little a hoot we can learn to give about them.

We're pleased to host the 6th edition (oops, make that the 8th!) of the newly reborn Feminist Carnival! In the spirit of rebirth, and in alignment with the readers and mission of Scarleteen, this round puts it's focus on young feminist bloggers and feminist issues particularly pertinent to younger women.

The F-Word & The Myth of the Invisible Young Feminist