I know one woman with a perfect body- and she really is stunning. She has cheek bones you could cut cake with, legs that go onto to infinity and looks breath taking in a bikini which she is body ready for any day of the year. I also know about a gazillion women who do not look like this.
The rest of us muddle on with the bits we love and the bits we hate. We try to feel confident but some days it can be hard. I want to send out a hug to all girls who have ever felt anything like the girl in the picture. And I want to tell her something.
Firstly, I am sorry I have so many pictures that just push one body type. I am sorry if I add to the drip drip drip of feeling crappy and insecure because you don’t feel you can live up to the modern ideal of what form woman is supposed to take.
Secondly, if you are a girl, you have felt like this at some point no matter what you look like. Every girl has days when they do not feel pretty, even the prettiest girl I suspect.
Finally, if you can put on your prettiest something and throw yourself into the arms of the man that kisses you you just might fnd yourself getting spanked for giving yourself such a hard time.
If you have someone that spanks you then you do not have to do it to yourself.
I am adding this on the morning the post went up. I wish I had spent more time on this post because I think it is such a issue for many women. I thought I was over feeling like this about myself but last night (about two hours ago) I had a terrible nightmare, the kind you can’t shake even when you wake up. You still find yourself planning how to get away when your mind wanders and I have half an ear out for a helicopter even now.
I can’t believe I am going to tell you my dream but I will. I was with a good friend, a woman and there was a man with us. I knew I was starting a very happy making and exciting spanking adventure. A helicopter came (we were on top of a mountain) with several men in it. The men in the helicopter shot the man I was with and threw the woman off the mountain (this took time, I am rushing it.) They took me away and I was told I would be spanked (I never have spanking dreams) but then I would be tied down and an outline would be drawn around me, an outline of what a woman is supposed to look like and any part of me outside the line would be burned off with lasers. I won’t go into details about what it was like.
I was terrified. I am still shaken by it.
I was not going to tell you this but I want to say one more thing about Horrid (the nasty man that spanked me.) I went to see him after doing a 10 km run. I am fit and I am curvy. He, on the first time of meeting me, went on about me losing weight and how important that was. I explained that I am fit and I did not feel it appropriate for us to concentrate on that. He would not listen and insisted.
I saw him once more (the time he hurt me) and once again he saw fit to lecture me and tell me that it should be a priority for me, regardless of how I felt.
I swear to you, this man was so large he could not even have held his hands if he put them in front of his stomach. A massive sack of a man- who felt his way clear to judge me.
On a totally different note, Dexter has abdominal muscles*, the kind you can see all the time, not the regular hidden kind. And I am still me, fit but curvy. I will write more about this- not about my shape vs Dexter’s but rather about how our external shape can inform our mental state and how that impacts on spanking and issues of power and authority.
*He also has big arm muscles, the kind a girl could hang off. I am sitting here smiling now, imagining him bopping Horrid on the nose. I would not want that. It is very unevolved and violence is a horrid thing. This is a mental image only but it makes me smile so I am keeping it in my head. I can’t hear the helicopter any more.
Poppy, good morning.
and warm 
What a nightmare, what did you eat before you went to bed.
I’m no Adonis, with six packs and well defined muscles,
I don’t think that many men have that problem.
I tell my wife, it’s the spirit and character that count, not the shape of your body.
We receive our DNA and genes from our ancestors, and short of plastic surgery there isn’t a lot we can do about it
The haute couture have a lot to answer for, hoisting ridiculous images into the feminine subconscious.
I have no real idea what you look like, but I am sure that you are perfect for who and what you are.
Paul.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. It’s sad that the media place so much emphasis on physical beauty, which is only skin deep.
Horrid is nothing but horrid. He seems to have a superiority complex and an obsessive need for power and control. He was trying to intimidate you, to manipulate you psychologically. I’m glad you walked away from him.
I’m happy that you found Dexter.
When you like someone you mostly see their good parts.
And all women think they look crap in the mirror; its the law.
“Does my bum look too big in this?”
yes
you think 
Nooo you say
Like with you and Dexter – no one can be that great – are you just trying to make us guys insecure? I bet he’s not even real
or else a little pot bellied man 
(whoops – sorry Dexter)
DJ
DJ, are you a little envious?
(Just joking.)
I will write more later but DJ , i am sure Dexter would give you some healthy eating tips if you asked him. Or some working out tips- he really is kind like that.
Does his healthy eating tips involve Phish Food or Cherry Garcia?
Poppy anyone that can run, walk, and swim the distances you do certainly don’t need to worry about their weight. I believe that Horrid was just a bully.
It all starts when girls are little playing with their Barbie dolls. I remember when Twiggy was very popular. If I stopped eating for a month I couldn’t be that thin.
Poppy, you continue to make me so glad I read here, and so happy to call you a friend. You write the most amazing things–you do. They’re important and they mean something to so many people.
When I was young, my mother always told me and my sisters how beautiful we were–every day she told us. I used to roll my eyes, because I had a mirror. I knew I had scraggly hair and glasses and a goofy space between my two front teeth. But there did come a day when I started to believe her. And what she said to me gave me the confidence I have today: to reach out to people, to walk into a room and feel good about myself, to laugh and to cry and live all my life without worrying (too much) about how I look.
I am not perfect, I have my good days but I know lots of girls prettier than me, but in my heart, deeeeeep inside, my mother’s voice is there, telling me I’m beautiful.
I say “you’re beautiful” to my daughter every day I see her. I say it to my friends. And I know, Poppy, without a doubt, that you are beautiful, too.
Horrid is beneath our attention. DJ, however, is the kind of guy I like. He mostly sees the good parts. I hope Dexter with his six pack is a little bit like DJ.
Poppy, I can so relate to this post. In my late teens/early twenties I was the naturally thin girl, who doctor’s constantly wanted to fatten up. Fast forward to late thirties/early forties and after mega amounts of hormone treatments I had gone from a UK size 8/10 to 14/16 – yuk! Even the fact I have to say it’s UK sizes shows how icky it was to me!
I look at myself in the mirror and mourn the shape I had previously taken for granted. I swim and I walk and my body size is gradually coming back to how it was, although post children I recognise it can never be the same. BBH has never spanked me for giving myself a hard time, although I suspect he would like to, but the reasons for the weight gain are too personal, and he is part of that.
Using an analogy from a long ago post of yours,about looking at yourself in a skype camera, I look at myself post spanking and see a different, softer me, who I can accept and like – although a bit more weight loss wouldn’t go amiss!
Your nightmare sounded awful, and Mr Horrid should be returned to the world of trash! No one, however trim and fit they are (or not) has a right to denigrate anyone’s weight.
I think that sometimes, many times, I have been Horrid………to myself.
I am working on that!
When I was 31, my then husband told me I was fat and ugly and his 19 year old girlfriend was more attractive. I had gained some weight; but, not a huge amount. I couldn’t believe it when I saw his girlfriend; she was a lot heavier than me. For the record, I’m not beautiful; but, I don’t scare small children and puppies either.
Fast forward to the present. Ex and his SO look and act older than their years. And what about me? I’m so glad you asked. I have someone who is hot, hot, hot.
I’m still a little overweight; but, he tells me all the time that I’m beautiful.
I picture you as very attractive; and, I bet you are.
It wasn’t until I read this post that I wondered if there are sensual and erotic pictures of women who are more on the curvy side. If you come across any, it would be great if you could post them.
Best Wishes,
Sweetpea
I wish we all had had a mother like Scarlet (and her mother) and then both our external and internal Horrids would have to be silent or we would make them wither under our glamorous glare.
Sweatepea, I am glad you shed the weight (ie the two lumps of ex and his gf) and I will be posting more variety of body shapes. I will not do a special post about curvy beauty because that is a bit patronising but I will put all kinds of beautiful ladies in my posts.
Kundalini, I get spanked if I let my inner Horrid boss me about.
Kaki, Phish Food- yummy. Horrid was a total bully and I have to bear some responsibility in not telling him to sod off earlier, being submissive is not being a doormat. (I must write about that).
My mother was orphaned when she was only six years old, and afterward shuffled around between relatives, none of whom really wanted her. After she married my father, she created the home she didn’t have. Sadly, though, my father called her names and cheated on her. I think what she said to me and my sisters was what she was longing to hear.
Somehow it seems important to add this. My father said the most awful, soul-withering things to me,too. I have both voices in my heart.
But my mother’s voice is stronger.
Kudos to your mother, Scarlet.
Scarlet, your mother sounds like a wonderful person. Too bad my father didn’t meet your mother. We would have had the bestest parents and be sisters.
A friend had a similar backround to your mother’s only her father was still alive. He promised an expensive vacuum cleaner to his sister if she took her in. He didn’t keep up the payments so out she went. She is the most wonderful mother and grandmother.
I have a wonderful quote that I think speaks to all of us and what we must do in our own lives:
“Choice of attention – to pay attention to this and ignore that – is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences.”
–W. H. Auden
Poppy this post just makes me want to give you a big hug, I can tell just by reading your blog you are a beautiful person inside and out. don’t forget that