As A Lesbian, I Love Women’s Bodies. So Why Is It So Hard To Love My Own?

TW: mention of eating disorder.

When I was 19, I plastered an entire wall of my college room with black and white photographs of naked women. My collection of female nudes was extensive and varied. There were sinewy gym rats with shaved heads and voluptuous goddesses with cascading tresses. Stretch marks and tummy rolls and tattoo sleeves and beaming smiles. Every one of these women was spectacular and every one of them was starkers. Behold, my Great Wall of Vagina.

Despite my literal shrine to naked women, I was, at the time, painfully in the closet. I could never have imagined that one day I’d become the out and proud editor-in-chief of sapphic magazine DIVA and the author of queer coming-of-age memoir What A Girl Wants: A (True) Story Of Sexuality And Self-discovery.

Back then, I was a stranger to myself. I didn’t consider the glaring possibility that my unconventional home décor might be a subtle manifestation of repressed homosexuality. Genuinely, I thought I was just an exceptionally enthusiastic feminist, celebrating the diversity of my magnificent gender.

Now I know the truth. I am an exceptionally enthusiastic feminist. I am also a raging lesbian. As both of those things, I’m a massive fan of women’s bodies. I champion their rights and admire their beauty. My love for women’s bodies of all shapes and sizes is longstanding and instinctive. Yet still, I struggle to truly embrace my own.

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My body image angst began, as it so often does, in early childhood. I was mocked for my weight when I was a very little – although never little enough – girl, forever preoccupied with the circumference of my waist and the dimensions of my thighs.

In the intervening years, I tried every diet going: SlimFast (aka AngryFast), Prosecco diet (gained two pounds, was too smashed to care), and the fabulously named Fist diet (sadly, it’s all about portion control and not nearly as racy as it sounds).

I’ve sobbed over “unflattering” photos, sustained injuries through compulsive overexercise, and starved myself to dangerous extremes. I know it’s dull, self-obsessed, and unfeminist to waste so much time worrying about my appearance, but it’s also a tough habit to break. That burrowing, corrosive shame about how my body looks has always been there. When I began to have feelings for other girls, I felt burrowing, corrosive shame about what my body desired too.

Some people imagine that queer women are immune to body image demons, but we still grow up in the same body-obsessed world as straight people. And when you’re queer, not only do people judge the way your body looks, they judge what it yearns for as well. Sometimes they object to its very existence.

Related: The Day I Realized Lesbians Could Look Like Me

So how can I, and all LGBTQIA+ women and non-binary people, find peace and self-compassion? More pressingly, how can we stop squandering our energy berating ourselves and channel it into campaigning for a world with equality for bodies of all genders, sexualities, sizes, races, and abilities?

Amid the rise of weight loss jabs like Ozempic and the so-called “skinny renaissance” currently dominating red carpets and social media, it feels harder than ever to resist my familiar, self-loathing tendencies. But when I think honestly about the bodies I find gorgeous – not the ones society has told me are attractive, but the ones I actually, authentically desire – I realise that they are all different. I have been with women far leaner than me, and women who wear a bigger clothing size than I do, and I have been intensely attracted to them all.

I met Mia on the sticky dancefloor of a grungy gay bar. She was a vision of curves, curls, and confidence. We danced and we flirted, and before I knew it, we were making out as Pink blasted from the speakers overhead. When she invited me back to her place, I was delighted. And horny.

That was the first time I ever slept with a woman with a body type similar to mine, and it was extraordinary. Not just because the sex was phenomenal, but because this fleeting erotic encounter presented me with undeniable proof that a body like mine could be sensual, captivating, and, yes, beautiful. It was the most profound one-night stand I ever had.

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It also highlighted the vast chasm between how I view my own body and how I view the bodies of other women. During self-assessment, I laser focus on my self-perceived flaws until they are all I see. When I’m looking at a woman I’m attracted to, I am in awe of her… well, everything. I also notice that my attraction is about far more than just her body. It’s the glint in her eye, the timbre of her voice, the way she makes me laugh uncontrollably, her passion, her strength, her tenderness.

As queer people, we’ve already rejected the pretty major societal norm of heterosexuality. So I wonder, what if we liberated ourselves from pesky, patriarchal beauty standards too? Could we learn to embrace ourselves as we embrace others, and harness our collective power to fight for the things that really matter, like the rights of our brilliantly diverse community?

Despite rampant prejudice against our identities and bodies, despite escalating pressure to conform to society’s narrow “ideals”, we must hold onto something that I know from my own experience to be true. Never mind what you’ve been told. The reality is that all women and non-binary people’s bodies – including your body – are glorious, worthy, and beautiful, just as they are.

Roxy Bourdillon is an award-winning writer and the editor-in-chief of DIVA, the leading magazine for LGBTQIA+ women and non-binary people. Roxy’s writing has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, Curve, and more. Her groundbreaking work in media has earned her a place in both The Guardian’s Pride Power List and the Attitude 101: LGBTQ+ Trailblazers Changing The World. What A Girl Wants: A (True) Story Of Sexuality And Self-discovery by Roxy Bourdillon is published by Pan Macmillan and out now in hardback, e-book and audiobook.