Maintaining a healthy weight was a condition to stay in college.
It was a requirement, not something I personally embraced.
But the following spring, I came face to face with it.
Blake Little / Getty, Illustrated + Designed by Jocelyn Runice
Or rather, body to faceother peoples faces.
And as a bonus, she’d met her boyfriend there.
But that’s when I started to realize that for him, there was no elephant.
My weight andclothing sizewould not cross his mind, and hopefully, my sexuality wouldnt either.
At the start of the class, the teacher explained that Id switch poses every time an alarm sounded.
They thought in putty erasers and charcoal lines.
Gradually, my discomfort gave way to boredom ($80 for being borednot bad).
Soon I was going almost every week.
During breaks, I started chatting with the students.
Theyd talk about their artistic endeavors and, sometimes, the drawings in front of them.
They discussed the shadows and the contours but never the body that produced them.
One (a straight man) said he preferred drawing men because he found their shapes more intricate.
I realized my friend was right: This could not be less sexual for them.
My body was not inherently provocative.
They viewed my figure not as a sexual object but as an artistic one.
I didnt mind being objectified in that way.
As I grew more comfortable, I’d leave my clothes off during breaks.
It didn’t make a difference.
Nobodys eyes darted below my face when we spoke, no matter how little I wore.
Weeks passed before I mustered the courage to see the drawings.
But finally, I couldnt resist, and I peeked.
The first image I glimpsed depicted a woman too heavy to be me.
The figure on the second canvas seemed thinner than me.
Yet both were me.
There was no truth to learn about my appearanceonly varying interpretations from innumerable angles with different mediums and styles.
But this is not how artists view bodies.
They view them as fluid and ever changing based on lighting, perspective, position, and motion.
I let go of the need to label my body along with my fear of its effect on men.
I found an escape from thinking in calories, weight, and clothing size: I was unquantifiable.
