The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Taylor shares the story of a woman named Keisha, who was made fun of during childhood for traction alopecia, which left her with bald spots on the sides of her head. Taylor explains that when people retrace their first experiences of body shame, there are often many commonalities to these stories: These experiences happen in youth, often in response to rapid body change, heralding a time in one’s life when one becomes acutely aware of difference. These experiences are usually attached to self-worth, and they are reinforced by family and society.

As another example, Taylor shares a story of her childhood neighbor, Nia. When Taylor and Nia were children, family members and adult neighbors joked about Nia hitting puberty. She recalls that after this, Nia hid herself and did not want to go out in public. This made Taylor afraid of the same thing happening to her.

Taylor emphasizes that the way in which people are treated in childhood can have severe consequences. She points out that nearly half of transgender youth have seriously contemplated suicide, and a quarter of trans youth report that they have attempted suicide.

Taylor explains that many impactful body shame experiences arise from feelings of difference. She acknowledges that humans have evolved to notice difference as a survival tactic, but she contends that equating difference with danger is not useful in the modern day. Difference, rather, is something people should embrace. She gives the example of people who say that they don’t see race; this supposed “color blindness,” she says, erases difference, and the only reason someone would claim to be blind to race is because they see difference as dangerous or undesirable.

Addressing the reader, Taylor acknowledges that there are two common reactions to reading the preceding section of the book. One typical reaction is meta-shame, or the feeling of being ashamed for having shame. She recognizes that the body positivity movement often creates a sense of pressure to be loudly and unconditionally celebratory of one’s body.

The second common reaction, she says, is the desire to hunt down people from childhood who negatively impacted one’s perception of their body. However, Taylor argues, every person is part of a larger system that upholds body shame. Essentially, the roots of body shame are more complicated than a victim-perpetrator model allows for.

Taylor segues to discussing the impact of the media on body image. She begins by pointing out that the perception of the human body has shifted over time. For instance, fat bodies, during various periods in human history, have been seen as aspirational. Gender and gender roles have morphed over time, and constructions of race have also changed. Of all the influences that have caused these perceptions to shift, Taylor contends that the primary one is media, a powerful force that fuels what Taylor calls the “body-shame profit complex,” or BSPC.

She drives home the magnitude of BSPC with statistics. The global advertising industry spent over $500 billion in 2018, and the global beauty industry earned over $500 billion in 2019, which is greater than the GDPs of 170 countries; these industries exalt a type of body that just 5% of American women naturally possess.

Taylor addresses the connection between consumerism and body shame, describing what she considers two types of purchasing: best-interest buying and detriment buying. Best-interest buying, she says, reflects one’s values of radical self-love. Detriment buying, on the other hand, is connected to feelings of not being enough.

Aside from capitalism and consumerism, bodies are also impacted by governments, Taylor argues. Those in power, she says, are not free from body shame, either as recipients or perpetrators. Government officials can perpetuate body shame and body-based oppression through laws that dictate which bodies are accepted as normal and which are ignored or criminalized.

Taylor asserts that strong language is needed to describe the dire state of body oppression in the world. She uses the term “body terrorism” to describe this phenomenon, arguing that societies that profit from self-hate create the conditions for body-based terror. To reinforce her argument, she cites statistics that illustrate the breadth of body terrorism. She points out rising suicide rates, especially among marginalized populations such as Indigenous Americans; she notes that over 100 pieces of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation were introduced to the US Congress in the first part of 2017; and she states that young Black men are over 20 times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts.

Taylor also recounts the story of a trans youth, Leelah Alcorn, who died by suicide after her family refused to give her permission to receive gender-affirming surgery. The stakes of body terrorism, Taylor contends, can be life or death. Taylor goes on to share a personal anecdote in which she was groped by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents in an airport. After this experience, she says, trans friends told her that they are regularly subjected to similar treatment because TSA agents are instructed to look for “anomalies” in the groin region.

Weaving together these statistics and personal narratives, Taylor argues that the term “body terrorism” is not hyperbole.