I’m living in a movement that expects that I’ll regard my own body as perfect, or, at the very least, acceptable. It’s the movement that expects that I’ll regard other human bodies with the same reverence I am presumed to regard my own. A movement that proclaims that “all bodies are good bodies,” without leaving space for bodies that don’t feel “good” to the people inhabiting them, disabled bodies, bodies that don’t match how their inhabitant feels, fat bodies, wrinkled bodies.

Can I call myself part of the movement I live in the center of, if I don’t love all of my body, all of the time?

Where am I left if I love my body but still want to change it? Where am I left, if, at the intersection of self-love and vanity, I choose vanity?

Do I lose my credibility?

And if I don’t want to change my body, but you want to change yours? Is my self-love more real than your self-love — the self-love infused with breast augmentation?

Can I claim superiority?

Can self-love and vanity co-exist?

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