Body Blog
So many ladies. So many pretty bodies.

Yes, we're all plenty more than who we are on the outside. I'll be the first one to say that given what most people think about me (hey, that dumb blonde!). But there's something about the body that's just wonderous. Every one is unique. And it's true, the personality makes the person, but the body tells so much in addition to what we can only imagine.

I'm a voyeur and I'm proud of it. Every day I'm at the rec center, I take a moment to watch the women around me and learn.

Tall. Short. Young. Old. Fat. Thin. Hard. Soft. I have complete respect for each and every figure I see.

We have something in common in the Women's locker room. We're all there to take care of our bodies, to learn from them, to improve ourselves. Even the young and anorexic, the old and obese, we all look to each other as sisters-at-arms, competition, or role models. We are conscious of our bodies and use them as a vessel for our minds.

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At the far end of the locker room are the staff lockers. The older women cluster there, gossiping. I sneak a peek sometimes and imagine what my body will be like when I'm 45 or 60. It's hard to picture. Some of them have gone soft with age. Some are thin and fragile. Some are wrinkly, some obese. But most are a happy, healthy build with soft curves and the slight wrinkle of graceful age.

The girls around me are younger, more self conscious. I am one of the few who doesn't insist on covering myself when I change or hiding myself beneath a towel when I'm going to shower. Sometimes I think I make a few of them nervous with my candid exhibitionism. For the most part, I ignore this with a chuckle, proud to love who I am beneath the brand labels.

Most of the regulars are short and slim, their bodies hardening from their efforts. Some are works in progress, their bellies plump and pleasant. They hide themselves under hands and towels...

can such a thing be despised?

With varying degrees of modesty, we regard each other from the shower stalls, looking and comparing when backs are turned.

I never knew the variety of colors and textures in skin, breasts, hair. This voyeurism is one of the highlights of my day.

Most of the girls and women are lovely, built into their bodies like they are comfortable and planning to stay. Some are self-conscious to the point of the extreme, unwilling to strip off their bathing suits until the moment before they step into a towel. Once, I saw a modest asian girl get into the shower in her underwear before undressing.

I think they are like me, looking at others through shaded eyes, not acknowledging curiosity or admiration. I glance and I wonder. Is that what I look like? Is that my stomach? My breasts?

Breasts. These amaze me the most.

The color, the texture, the variety. What we're shown in ads and pornography is some homogonized ideal, some gentleman's preference that became the standard. I'm offended by the lack of real breasts in the media. We avoid looking at the large, soft breast or the small pointed ones and portray only those few that seem to defy gravity. Apples and oranges. Are these things real?

To see a breast so unlike my own on another woman is a wonderous thing. They are snowflakes, markings unique to the individual. So many so much more round or pointed, low or firm, pink, red, and brown. It amazes me. I love them all.

But there are some women I don't like to look at and wonder why.

[I swear, a few girls in there have really hairy backs.]

These others... Are they too extreme? Is their mottled and unhealthy? Do they carry themselves strangely? Do they make me nervous?

Sometimes one of the larger women showers opposite of me. I don't pity her and I don't find her ugly or even unattractive. But I do often wonder what it's like to have skin that rolls upon itself and to have to walk carrying all the weight. Her body sags and yet she is so young.

This summer, I often saw a woman so thin it pained me to look at her. She would come into the showers while I was washing and take the stall across from me. I would avert my eyes, not so much in respect but in sickness. Her body was wasted to a point near oblivion, every rib visible, her elbows knots of flesh and sinew, her buttocks mere skin over bones. She had no breasts.

Some part of me wondered if she were fragile from surgery or disease, the yellow bruises on her skin from medication. But her gauntness seemed that of a painful starvation. After a while, I stopped being able to look at her. If I came to shower and she was in my line of sight, I moved away to another stall so I couldn't see her twisted body or even her body ankles below the stall wall. Too fragile. Too painful.

And

There are a few girls I've "met" in the locker room whose bodies I've absolutely fallen in love with. They come and go, the built, voluptuous ones who make me stare too long. I wish I knew their names so I could write them on a list and title it, simply, GIRLS WHO MAKE ME WET.

Yum.

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I think looking at women like this has made me love myself more. Not because I'm better than them. But because, though I'm different, I am a woman and I have a fabulously womanly body. I am proud to be a woman. The strengths that come with it so outnumber the weaknesses.

I wish that all these girls who I ogle loved themselves for what they are. I don't think they do.

I wonder what they're thinking as they look at me when my back is turned.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not objectifying women. I don't check out people on the street or undress them with my eyes. I don't want to demean anyone or rate them by their body only.

I just love the female figure, my own especially.

What I really wish is that I had a hidden camera and could collect these bodies, line them up and wonder at them.

So many beautiful women. So many beautiful shapes.