“My Not-So-Bikini Body” by Samantha Dunn at Glo.msn.com
Illustration by Elizabeth Patch from her book, More to Love
A Lesson In Confidence For Bathing Suit Season
Like most people who don’t spend their lives at the gym, every swimsuit season causes me some measure of unease. This year, though, was set to top all. Keith Lewis, the director of the Miss California USA pageant and a friend of mine, asked me to advise him on a book project he has in the works. The Miss USA show was taping in Las Vegas, so Keith wanted me to fly out for a couple days to get a behind-the-scenes look.
“We can have our meetings by the pool,” he offered. “So much better than the office, right?”
Better? Better?
It’s obvious, isn’t it, that Keith himself is a buff, beautiful male specimen? Only a person like that would think it’s a good idea to sit around by a pool in a place where 20-year-olds from around the nation, engineered for optimal beauty and firmness, are certain to congregate.
I imagine walking poolside at a swanky hotel, the sun beating down on my fish-belly white skin, as I struggle to keep the towel that’s tucked around me from slipping. I seek refuge in the form of a little heavily-shaded table in a far corner … but just when I think I’m safe, a thundering herd of Glamazons in heels materializes before me, looking like moving bronze sculptures in string bikinis. Before I can get out of their way, the Glamazons barge past me and whip the towel out of my grip. Suddenly, I’m standing exposed to …
Read Dunn’s full piece here
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I love Samantha Dunn’s experience with loss of confidence re: bathing suits. It seems that even the thought of wearing a bathing suit strikes fear into the hearts of so many women!
Here is my writing on this same topic, the one that I originally created this illustration for.
Summer Pleasures
thanks for pairing me up with this author!
Cherry,
For an exercise in real insanity count how many magazines in the check out isle have diet or lose weight headlines next to magazines geared towards women on cooking super fattening food. ugh.
Loved the article – it’s good to see a bit of humanism behind people with strong ideologies! Being one myself, I could completely relate to the not always being able to practice what you preach notion. It’s one thing to appreciate your body theoretically, but aesthetically? Not always so simple. It also makes you wonder how many of the high-heeled (high heels? by a pool? Health and safety, people!) ‘beauties’ were fretting about exposing their bodies, too. Confidence can be deceptive.
I’m going to steal Ms. Dunn’s ‘fish-belly-white’ analogy…as a natural redhead too, I’d always gone with ‘Pilsbury doughwoman’. Nice to have a variety of self-deprecating descriptives 😉
I enjoyed the article, chuckling and thinking we’re all ‘crazy’ when it comes to our bodies, especially after seeing the beautiful face of Samantha Dunn and feeling her sincerity in her words. But then i had a shock – I went to leave a comment at glo.msn.com and what came up were photos of people like Kim Kardashian in bikinis. Huh?!
Cherry