Clare Chambers - Intact: A Defence of the Unmodified Body

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First published by Allen Lane in 2022

Copyright Clare Chambers, 2022

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover Artwork Coralie Bickford-Smith

Grateful acknowledgement is given for permission to use the following images: , courtesy of Caroline Partridge and Face Equality International.

ISBN: 978-0-241-43905-0

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I used to be very talkative when I was a little kid, and now Im just shy. Im anti-social.

Nadia, a fourteen-year-old American girl, sits on a sofa in her home. She is articulate and calm as she explains to a CNN reporter that she has been bullied about her appearance since she was in first grade. Watching her on screen it is difficult to see whats wrong with her. Nadia looks like a perfectly normal, attractive, teenage girl. Then she explains. When Nadia was seven years old a girl told her that she had the largest ears the girl had ever seen.

I was speechless, Nadia says. I didnt think about it until she said that.

Nadia slightly tilts her head. Now we can see the problem.

Well, we can see her ears. And weve been told what the problem is. Its her ears. Her ears are too big. And people arent afraid to tell her so.

Your body is never good enough.

Sometimes you know this because youre told so. You need to lose weight, says your mother, your doctor, a public health campaign. Is your body beach ready? a billboard demands. The question is rhetorical: the only answer it will accept is no.

Sometimes you know this by osmosis. Streamed selfies seep into your subconscious. Appearance anxiety hangs in the air. Everyone is judging, critiquing, shaming. It doesnt seem to matter if the target is another body or your own; the process is the same. Every body is wrong; no body feels right.

Sometimes you receive a compliment. I like your hair! Have you lost weight? Nice ass! Its good to be appreciated but are these compliments all they seem to be? Why do they leave you feeling worse? Why dont they dispel the feeling that something about you needs to change?

Distress about our bodies has reached epidemic levels, exacerbated by social media and selfie culture. Our bodies are always under surveillance, must always be camera-ready only now the camera always lies. No image is left unfiltered; no photo is left unshopped; the ultimate act of courage is to post with no make-up.

Sometimes we change the image. Sometimes we change the body itself. Body modifications once thought extreme are now mainstream: cosmetic surgery reaches many people and sculpts almost every body part. Members of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) performed 28,347 surgical procedures in 2018, including a sharp rise in liposuction for both women and men. According to BAAPS, that rise was driven by the popularity of TV shows such as Love Island and the fashion for womens athleisure clothing.

Body modifications once thought counter-cultural are now simply cultural: piercings and tattoos are no longer just for goths, punks and sailors. Last week my MOM got an actual TATTOO, tweeted @JoMoore in 2019. Im still in shock. Important deets 1. Shes been drunk twice, ever 2. She thinks crap is quite a bad swear word 3. She got the tattoo on a Womens Institute coach trip to Chester 4. Its of a ball of wool and knitting needles. The tweet has been liked 32,000 times.

Even body modifications once thought outlandish no longer cause the bat of a Westernized eyelid: they seem unremarkable, even inevitable. There is a brisk market in injecting Botulinum toxin, an actual poison, into the face. Or you could have a so-called Vampire Facial, which also involves injecting things into your face this time its platelets extracted from your own blood.

Surgeries that were unheard of relatively recently are now familiar: labiaplasty, buttock enlargements. In the late twentieth century you wanted small buttocks and no one would mention your labia; in the early twenty-first century you want large buttocks and small labia, and everybodys talking.

Many women will try any diet, exercise, or device that promises to help them get their body back after pregnancy. I googled get your body back and found over 5 billion results. The first was a personal trainer offering thirteen ways to get your body back into shape after giving birth. Here they are:

1. Cut out sugar.
2. Drink lots of water with fresh lemon.
3. Use a smaller plate.
4. Slow down.

Not by sitting on the sofa and having a rest with your baby, you understand, but during mealtimes. Eat with chopsticks or scale down the size of your utensils. Use a small fork and a teaspoon, for example.

1. No white bread, rice, flour, or pasta.
2. Eat soup for dinner for at least three nights in a row.

With a teaspoon, presumably, although the chopsticks would make it even slower.

1. Avoid red meat.
2. Eat the rainbow.

Every plate should resemble a Pride flag.

1. Prepare for eating carrots, celery, peppers, etc. in advance.

Were not talking mental preparation here: you dont have to psych yourself up to crudits. Were talking chopping and bagging.

1. Eat a cup of Cheerios or Chex if you need a snack.

Surprising, this one. Its something to do with gluten.

1. Do NOT sit and eat while watching TV.
2. Get off your butt, get moving and CHALLENGE yourself to break a serious sweat at least 5 days a week for an hour.

And then the final one and here the irony is almost overpowering:

1. BREATHE. Relax and let go.

Its not just personal trainers offering advice, either: the third result for get your body back was the mainstream medical advice website WebMD. Dedication and patience are key to losing postpartum baby weight and looking like your pre-baby self again, it instructs.

Another first-page result is the website of personal trainer Sia Cooper, who states: My sole mission is to shape and create fit mommies by providing workouts, recipes, and fitness tips. Sia is scathing about failure. I constantly get asked how I snapped back into shape within two weeks after giving birth to my second baby, she writes.

For starters, it was not easy by ANY means. I credit staying active throughout my entire pregnancy for allowing me to bounce back so easily. People can say that its genes, age, how many babies Ive had, or whatever, but to me that is all complete bullshit. Hard work did the trick and the thing about it is that many women are not willing to put in the time and effort that it takes and then there are some that cant due to health reasons, high risk pregnancy, etc. However, if you are physically able to do it,