Let's Get Real About Stretch Marks
Let’s talk about common humanity. There are a few things all humans have in common, whether we like them or not: parents, our impending demise, and stretch marks. That’s right, stretch marks. I have seen hundreds of people naked at this point in my career and have yet to meet one with baby-smooth skin who could also walk, talk, and feed themselves. What I mean to say is that stretch marks are a part of growing and therefore a part of adult life. And I don’t just mean adult women. My husband is a 6’2” gym rat with a body type that’s unattainable for most people and he’s got them all over his fine ass because he grew faster than his skin could handle when he was a teen.
If you grew fast, you have ‘em. If you grew boobs, you have ‘em, if you grew a baby, you have ‘em. And if you don’t have them now, just wait! They are an inescapable part of life. Then why, if this is something we ALL experience, like having arms and legs, are we so ashamed of them? The problem with stretch marks is that someone, somewhere, sometime decided they were a problem and started editing them out of pictures. And then we thought perfectly smooth skin was an achievable beauty ideal and that if we failed to achieve it, there must be something wrong with us. Here’s a picture of a banana, because I want you to remember that that’s bananas.
The good news is that all we have to do is not believe the message that stretch marks are bad or make us in some way unworthy. The bad news is that it’s not such an easy thing to do when we are being bombarded by images in the media that are over-edited or have a filter applied. This is where we have to harness the power of radical self-love and acceptance. This is where we have to decide that how we feel about ourselves is far more important than what anyone else thinks.
We recently shot an expectant mother who has mastered this self-love. She saw her stretch marks as a work of art, a tribute to the process of creating a new life. We captured her stretch marks in a maternity boudoir shoot completely unedited. Because she unequivocally believed that her stretch marks were beautiful, everyone else did too.
It’s that simple. We must have conviction that our bodies are good and worthy, because in the end it is all subjective. If you truly believe it to your core, no one will be able to convince you otherwise and that is where the magic of radical self-love happens. That is where we can ignore the media messages, because we know better. It’s how we look at a filtered image of our culture’s beauty ideal and roll our eyes instead of feeling envy. Then we can finally celebrate our authenticity, appreciate what our bodies can do, and live our lives fully without shame.
