Why Don't I Look Like That?
I was 8 years old when I got my first look at pornography.
It was way before the internet, and at that time, this type of book would either come through the mail in a plain brown wrapper or be purchased at an adult bookshop. I can’t tell you how my parents got them, I know it was easy to find them in their closet.
With a bit of effort, I would climb onto an open drawer and up to the top shelf where the stack of “picture books” were. And on stay-at-home days, if my mom was working and out of the house, this was a ritual, something I anticipated. This was the pattern until I was 19 and accepted the Lord. I actually took them with me when I moved out, and then dumped them in a dumpster, like a sacrifice.
At 8 years old, I had no idea what these feelings were going on in my body as I looked at the pictures, but I did know that when I grew up, I would look just like those beautiful women, with large breasts and curvy hips and make-up and manicured nails.
Unfortunately, my body did not cooperate. And I never liked high heels or girly dresses and I never filled a bra until I was pregnant. And that “asset” was short-lived and quickly shrank after breastfeeding ended.
Through elementary school, junior high, and high school, I wanted to be beautiful and desirable like those picture book women; not petite, not “cute”. Those pictures in my head screwed with my mind and my body image. I was disappointed each morning I put on my 32AA bra. To me, breasts made a woman a woman. In comparison, I was a boy, and at times, would spend long hours staring in the mirror, contemplating the discrepancies between my left and right facial features; one ear slightly higher, one eye a fraction smaller. I didn’t see a feminine person, I thought I should have been born a boy. Looking back, it’s scary to think I was alone in my thoughts, and that today there are so many kids questioning themselves and who they are, just as I did.
As my friends have given in to the “ideal”, getting breast augmentation, I have passed on having it done. After 2 lumpectomies (including one where the doctor asked me to come back to see how the scar healed because he had never “worked on someone with such small breasts”!), and the fear of cancer, you begin to see that the size of your breasts doesn’t make you more of a woman, or more attractive, sexy, or desirable; it's the size of your heart that matters most to God and your friends.
I still have my moments of disillusionment, when I stand naked in front of a mirror or when I try to fit into a bathing suit top, but in general, I’m content now with what God gave me.
As I get older, those pictures in my mind have sadly not faded, that is the damage porn does, but the women in those pictures are less ideal and more a lie that Satan has tried to make me believe.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7
- Anonymous
Old School Food Freedom podcast: Episode 48 - Finding Freedom from P*ornography & S3xual Shame, part 1
Old School Food Freedom podcast: Episode 49 - Finding Freedom from P*ornography & S3xual Shame, part 2
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