June 24, 2015 - Written by: Alison Graham

The Return of Swimsuit Season

In a perfect world, this article would be about a low-budget horror film in the vein of Sharknado, something so spectacularly bad it is somehow good. I’m picturing fanged sunbeds and sunglasses which are inexplicably demonically possessed.

Unfortunately, ‘swimsuit season’, along with its cousins ‘beach body’ and ‘summer diet’, actually succeeds in creating feelings of dread.

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Recently an online and offline campaign emerged in response to that billboard promoting weight loss supplements. The issue was not, as some cynics would have you believe, the body of the woman featured in the advert. There is nothing wrong with being slender, toned and tanned. What is wrong is the culture created through an onslaught of adverts, television, film and fashion that says slender, toned, hairless and tanned is the only way you should be.

As the comedian Sarah Millican noted, in typically wonderful style:

‘Generally, the only time I ever see a picture of someone who looks like me in a magazine it has the word BEFORE above it. Or is so covered in circles highlighting what’s wrong that it looks like a spot the difference puzzle’.

I am certain that I am not the only one incredulous at people so determined to deny the reality of female body hair that we never see so much as a strand of armpit hair in apocalypse films, whilst the men’s beards grow wild and free.

It’s led to some of the most surreal razor ads I have ever seen, featuring hairless legs being shaved over and over so that the protagonist of the ad may earn the right to venture outside in shorts.

Conforming to these standards, either by genetics or through your own efforts, says nothing about your character. You cannot discern, say, a person’s brilliant sense of humour or artistic talent from their dress size, or stray eyebrow hairs.

This unpleasant attitude has wormed its way into feminism, with some feminists taking the time to misguidedly reassure critics that feminists are all slender and pretty. The fact is some feminists are not conventionally attractive, and this has no bearing on their humanity and their right to be treated as such.

Indeed, if you make the mistake of thinking character can be discerned by appearance, you risk foregoing the friendship of many interesting, supportive and positive people.

There is much debate about where exactly beauty standards come from and how we learn them, but what we, ourselves, can do is resist these standards, and the accompanying body policing. People making uninvited comments about your body should be met with a firm ‘thanks, but no thanks’ or a good old-fashioned ignoring. Likewise, avoiding magazines which advise you on how to dress as if your body requires 24/7 management and monitoring would be a start – you are not a hazard for mitigation.

Perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is not ‘Am I beach body ready?’ but rather, ‘Am I beach ready? Am I picnic in the park, walking the overexcited dog, reading a great book, braving the lido, evening barbecue, spontaneous water fight ready?’

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘All Advertisers Are Going To Sell Us Shit, It’s How They Do It That Matters‘ and ‘Dare To Go Hairy?‘?!