My Feminist Navel Piercing

This past Valentine’s Day, I went and got my navel pierced. It’s something I’ve wanted for years, ever since I was thirteen and I saw a pierced bellybutton in person for the first time: it belonged to a girl in my gym class whom I admired and, if I’d been aware of my bisexuality at the time, on whom I would’ve said I had a crush. But I always told myself I would only get it pierced when I “lost enough weight” or “got thin enough”. Now, I am not the world’s fittest person, but I’m healthy enough to climb Mount Fuji and run a couple of miles at a time. My body might never grant me a career in Hollywood or an Olympic medal, but it’s a good body that gets me where I need to go and is mostly pain-free most days, which I’m aware is more than a lot of people get. But I still have a BMI of 29, which is cause enough for loathing in this society.

Several months ago, my fiance and I broke up, and he almost immediately started dating a woman who weighs twenty pounds less than I do (and, despite that, has bigger breasts, to add insult to injury) and is a model for a local clothing store. If I didn’t hate my body before he met her, good God did I after. Very few days went by that I didn’t look into a mirror and mentally pick myself apart– I’d wish my belly was smaller and flatter; that my breasts were bigger, or at least perkier; that my nose was straighter; that my hair was redder; that the pale stretch-marks that crisscross my hips would disappear. If only I could be better-looking, I’d be more worthy of love, I thought. I started resenting pretty women, particularly women who looked like her. Being bi, and quite appreciative of the female form in general, I’d never been so filled with bile and hatred at the sight of an hourglass-shaped blonde before. Yes, I’d always felt a little envious, but never to the point of not being able to stand the sight of such a woman. In fact, I’ll be honest, I’d often tend to let my gaze linger.
It was about a month ago that I realized this, that my ex-fiance dating a more “conventionally beautiful” woman was interfering with my own sexuality! How ridiculous, I thought, that my own self esteem rested upon his approval, that my body image was determined by how “pretty” his new lover was, that I was letting his approval of her appearance over mine emotionally castrate me! So I went to the best-rated piercing studio in town and, after several lengthy discussions about the details of the thing (during which the poor piercer was very patient with me, bless his heart), set up an appointment for Valentine’s Day (which just so happens to have been the first Saturday after my 21st birthday, plus I couldn’t resist the joke of “getting poked on Valentine’s”).
It’s been a week, and I must say, I am so glad I did it. It’s my own symbol of accepting my body for the shape it’s in, no matter what anyone else says or thinks, and every time I look down at my stomach and see my little shiny, I feel so happy and giddy, which is a feeling I can’t say I ever felt just from looking at my belly before. I’ve been showing it off to anyone who will stand still long enough ever since I got it, and it wasn’t until Thursday that I realized: I’ve been showing virtual strangers my stomach; I nearly always used to keep it concealed except to lovers! And if nothing else, I’ll always know that I have, somewhere within me, the self-confidence, the personal pride, to show everyone my pale, flabby belly without even a second thought.