Tag Archives: body image

Trauma and the Body

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I am up early on a Sunday morning, enjoying the cool breeze that grazes my skin as I water the balcony plants. The air is scented with smoke, likely from a British Columbia forest fire. I go inside to mince fresh coconut and corriander, preparing a Kenyan chutney for dinner. While chopping the green chilis, I think about the book I read the day before, musing aloud: ‘I must have an extra large reptilian brain.’ According to neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean, the human brain is composed of three evolutionary layers: the earliest reptilian core is devoted to sensation as well as survival; the limbic or paleomammalian brain that developed next is concerned with ‘higher’ functions, allowing for emotion, memory, and learning; and the most advanced layer, the neocortex, is what distinguishes human beings and other select primates from ‘lower’ entities, enabling self-awareness and cognition. Although I like the psychedelic diagram of what is called the ‘Triune Brain’ pasted below—it is suitably 1960s, the era when MacLean first proposed his theories—I imagine that my sensory-overload mind looks more like the large-yolked scotch egg on the right, complete with its deep fried sausage casing. After all, I am a Scotch McEgghead.

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Biomedicalization at the Spa

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Wearing only a heavy white bathrobe, I recline on a narrow bed, my kicked-off flipflops nearby. A group of women gathers to watch as a professional irons my neck. ‘Does it hurt?’ asks a nearby voice. I cannot see this curious consumer because my eyes are protected by goggles from the flashing light of the SkinTyte laser being dragged up and down my lower face and neck area. ‘Oh no,’ I lie expertly, ‘at first there is a tingling sensation and the laser becomes warm by the fifth pass over my skin, but it is never more than slightly painful.’ I am performing my duty well, having received a $500 skin-tightening treatment for free by agreeing to participate in a seminar at the spa where I get laser hair removal on my legs and underarms. (I go somewhere cheaper for the full monty; see the post called ‘Pursuing Pain’ for a vivid description of that delightful sensation). Declaring that I would be the perfect model, my Lebanese aesthetician—she trades her fattoush recipes for my weight lifting tips—had handed me this invitation:  

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The Look of Cosmetic Surgery

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Unlike most people, I love long flights. That is the only time I can unguiltily relax, get caught up on Mad Men, or even better, read an entire book in one sitting. While travelling I recently completed Rhian Parker’s Women, Doctors and Cosmetic Surgery (2010). Though in many ways hideously dull and repetitive, I found one argument–based on in-depth interviews with Australian women who have purchased cosmetic surgeries of various kinds–surprising. Apparently, women do not pursue breast reductions or enlargements, nose jobs, and eye lifts in order to stand out or be looked at, enviously by women, lustfully by men. (All of the interviewed women were straight, something worth thinking about). Oh no; they just want to blend in and ‘look normal.’ 

Really? Because that is not my experience with cosmetic surgery; I mean, with hearing about other people’s cosmetic surgery, for I have had none of the invasive prodecures listed above (nor have I had any kind. I have not even had my appendix out or experienced a broken bone). Now I should confess–and this is something you already know–that most of the women I encounter who have had such interventions are fitness models, Continue reading →

Healthy but Abnormal

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This morning I was eating freshly baked pumpkin-spice-oatmeal muffins at a cafe–I had brought them in a tupperware container as a gift–with my adorable but injured graduate student. Her surgeon, she explained, had recently diagnosed her as ‘healthy but abnormal.’ We giggled and sipped on the cappucinos that the sexy-but-too-thin-for-my-liking barista had brought over. Oh that’s great, I said. Can I use it for my blog? Of course, she enthused, before describing the simultaneously painful and pleasurable itch-relief she had felt when her surgical staples were removed. She knows where I live. Is it wrong that I am compelled by everything corporeal and abject? Probably not. Is it troubling that I had an adventurously erotic dream about Mantracker last night? Most definitely. Oh Mantracker, the passions that lie behind your steely blue eyes…    Continue reading →

What Happened in Vegas #3: The After Party

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G-Smash got invited to the Saturday night Olympia After Party at Rain, a club in the Palms Casino, and I was lucky enough to tag along. Before meeting up with the usual crowd at the Alligator bar at the Orleans, we walked down the strip, eating pizza and drinking beer like the classy ladies we are, making occasional pit stops in some of the fancier casinos. G and I enjoyed comparing the custom scents that each casino-hotel complex has pumped through its ventilation system. Treasure Island smells like spicy rum; the Aria is suffused with vanilla mixed with cinnamon. And what does our cheap-cheap hotel smell like? An unforgettable combination of feet and mould.

Drinking in public is thrilling and we had a great time getting ready, stashing cans of beer in our purses. Just before leaving we sent the following text to my partner, who was playing in a poker tournament at the Venetian:

“About to hit the strip. Packing purse. Bud Light, check. Panties, check. Toothbrush, check. Vagina wipes, oops all out.”

Oh yes, it was the height of hilarity, my friends. But the fun had only just begun….

Can I first say how great it is to be a girl in Las Vegas? Men we didn’t even know—nice, lovely men–drove us to and from the Palms, no charge, and we drank for free all night. Glen Livet makes me very, very happy. I downed lots of it—straight up of course–and then began to dance with a close friend named Mr. Glowstick. We could have danced all night, and that’s just what we did, until the lights went on at 4 am and they kicked our asses out. Sadly, I then became separated from Glowy and we did not spend any more time together. Actually, I seem to recall tossing him down G’s bra, lighting up her cleavage in an impressive fashion. But that’s enough discussion of the party hijinks.

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