This piece reminds me of a piece in the New York Times by Toni Morrison where she (lovingly) critiques the "Black is Beautiful" movement:
"But the more disturbing aspect of “Black Beautiful” was avoided: When the strength of people rests on its beauty, when the focus is on how one looks rather than what one is, we are in trouble. When we are urged to confuse dignity with prettiness, and presence with image, we are being distracted from what is worthy about us: for example, our intelligence, our resilience, our skill, our tenacity, irony or spiritual health. And in that absolute fit of reacting to white values, we may very well have removed the patient's heart in order to improve his complexion."
Something about how y'all both wrestle and sit with the complicated nature of physical beauty and its function in our current society is appreciated. It's vital that these conversations continue because the actual doing is so difficult when we are constantly being bombarded with visual rules to follow.
thank you so so much for mentioning this wonderful excerpt! i'll have to go read morrison's piece in full as i didn't know it even existed. i'm always really honoured when people comment that what I've written reminds them of the greats. it makes me feel like we've treading the same the soil. i, of course, understand her disturbance. i had a lot of conversations about this piece. i considered how beauty manifests specifically in Black culture (rather than a more broad analysis here). the need to affirm one's beauty as a resistance activity but also understanding the utility of beauty as a survival mechanism, it is complicating. as much as its a conversation, this piece is mostly just a call to feel, perhaps because even conversation requires a gaze, a looking, a watching, in order to respond. i want us to ask ourselves and feel the truth.
My view is generally that it’s always better to assert oneself as a subject than declare yourself a beautiful object— because a beautiful object is still an object, and I can’t feel very positive about that.
I wouldn’t say I’m positive about my body at all; I think being a body in a world full of body-destroying things is very horrible. But being an image of a body; that’s even worse! I don’t think a movement that says “now every body is an object of desire” could ever be emancipatory really
Asserting oneself a subject is a great counteraction, I'm wondering how one does this, practically? Is it simply a matter of looking at self as a collection of traits beyond being observed? Focusing on the philosophical?
The declaration of being a beautiful object, I feel, is the inevitable consequence of the "arenas of spectacle". Social media platforms are so concerned with aesthetics that they're naturally objectifying realms. It is a fundamentally complicating space. I absolutely agree with your statement: "I don’t think a movement that says “now every body is an object of desire” could ever be emancipatory really"
I suppose it’s putting what you want and think above what people expect from your image— you can still use your image to your own end, but if the image is the end in itself then you’ll be swallowed by it. I heard someone say it was just having a sense of self at all, which stuck with me as I think I lost my own
I can see how considering, or declaring oneself a subject is essentially having a sense of self because to declare yourself an object, even a beautiful one, is to (over)consider how you are perceived. The difference is internal focus and external focus, validations from outside self vs. from inside. These are things that are easy to speak, harder to practice!
Always a pleasure to read your words, Inigo. I find myself moved, giggling at parts, and just appreciating how your brain weaves words together to make points or to just observe. Genuinely enjoyed this.
pleasure to be read by you! this one had less of a destination and was more of a voyage that is still ongoing so it is lovely to have you travel along.
Inigo, you have the kind of talent that demands to be acknowledged and seen. I sincerely wish you success in your career as a writer (including this Substack).
Who-chile — when I tell you this is fixing me right up! Comes right at the end of the worst of my poisoned views of my physical self. Everyone needs to read this …
This article is so healing. As a 55-year-old “former baddie,” I ached as menopause ravaged me inside and out this past year. I have arisen quite at peace with my new face and body and intend to put it all on display as the beauty that it all is, just as I displayed it all when it was winning against gravity.
I was never a person who thought of anyone as ugly. I fought the ideas people tried to plant about what is desirable and not. And I’m glad I did.
Because even though I did not judge others by those standards, I judged myself and I can’t imagine digging myself out from under being the horrible way I’ve been to myself, toward others.
i'm so glad that it was helpful for you, QuYahni, thank you for reading/listening and i'm happy to hear you're at peace. sounds like you had a great journey to arrive there.
Who is this imposter on this audio? Where’s your voice, kind sir? 😁 just playing … I’m at work so I have to use audio instead of reading and I was shocked by the voice lol
This is a brilliant essay. Will reread it and would love to discuss in person! The first section on ig fostering a body positivity movement focussed on aesthetics reminded me of something the feminist philosopher Susan Bordo (& my guiding intellectual light) said - that modern cultures of the body, from weight loss to weight lifting, ‘although preoccupied with the body and deriving narcissistic enjoyment from its appearance,
takes little pleasure in the experience of embodiment’.
the susan bordo quote definitely speaks to what i’ve been wrangling with, the divorce of experience, mostly pleasure, in how things look vs. how they feel. i plate food and post on substack sometimes. the taste of the food is irrelevant which perhaps speaks to how the contemporary focus on aesthetics have created a vacation of empathy. would love to talk more when i see you!
Life is a simulation, and ugly is a customizable product feature. It’s part of the oppression add-on—designed to block both the beautiful and the profane from overcoming class distinction. “You’re not ugly, you’re poor”—which is to say, we’ve been ugly our whole lives.
The Matrix was so tamed in explaining the coded atrocity.
Good essay! The meaning of Beauty was something I wrestled with a lot as a visual artist. (I find writing a relief, because it's more subjective.) I feel like 'the visual' is a language that most people don't really speak. The flood of imagery that the modern world forces upon us daily acts as an assault, and habituates people to junk imagery. (As addictive as any junk thing...)
In fact ugliness is intrinsic to true art. Truth is often 'ugly'. Beauty can be a way of lying.
But besides all that, when it comes to whether people are beautiful or not, I really try not to care. It’s a roll of the dice, & we all change so much over our lifetimes. Beauty is a fickle thing to worship. Better to broaden the parameters of taste & try to get down with isness instead.
I'd push back ever so slightly. Despite the leanings of my essay, I don't believe beauty is a fickle thing to worship. Actually the opposite. Despite its *bodily* ephemerality, beauty as an abstract has been such a constant thrust of human experience. Maybe that's the problem, maybe it's the solution, maybe it just is. I think beauty itself undergoes layers of framing and reframing, largely because anything pleasurable becomes the ministry of beauty. Perhaps that is something I didn't say explicitly though alluded to--how beauty/ugliness fractures down binaries of pleasure/disgust. Truth, which doesn't even necessarily need to present as honesty, is something necessary. In art, a deep truth can be reached in the brushstrokes of paint or the pixels of a video and because it is reached, it becomes beautiful. Thus is the complication of beauty. It inserts itself when anything is done well.
Yes. Agree with this. Beauty is a complex & interesting subject. Like many things in the present moment, it's the capturing & exploitation of something deeply human, innate in us, that's the real problem-- as you say in your original essay. My hunch is that it has to do with 'ways of seeing'
This piece reminds me of a piece in the New York Times by Toni Morrison where she (lovingly) critiques the "Black is Beautiful" movement:
"But the more disturbing aspect of “Black Beautiful” was avoided: When the strength of people rests on its beauty, when the focus is on how one looks rather than what one is, we are in trouble. When we are urged to confuse dignity with prettiness, and presence with image, we are being distracted from what is worthy about us: for example, our intelligence, our resilience, our skill, our tenacity, irony or spiritual health. And in that absolute fit of reacting to white values, we may very well have removed the patient's heart in order to improve his complexion."
Something about how y'all both wrestle and sit with the complicated nature of physical beauty and its function in our current society is appreciated. It's vital that these conversations continue because the actual doing is so difficult when we are constantly being bombarded with visual rules to follow.
thank you so so much for mentioning this wonderful excerpt! i'll have to go read morrison's piece in full as i didn't know it even existed. i'm always really honoured when people comment that what I've written reminds them of the greats. it makes me feel like we've treading the same the soil. i, of course, understand her disturbance. i had a lot of conversations about this piece. i considered how beauty manifests specifically in Black culture (rather than a more broad analysis here). the need to affirm one's beauty as a resistance activity but also understanding the utility of beauty as a survival mechanism, it is complicating. as much as its a conversation, this piece is mostly just a call to feel, perhaps because even conversation requires a gaze, a looking, a watching, in order to respond. i want us to ask ourselves and feel the truth.
My view is generally that it’s always better to assert oneself as a subject than declare yourself a beautiful object— because a beautiful object is still an object, and I can’t feel very positive about that.
I wouldn’t say I’m positive about my body at all; I think being a body in a world full of body-destroying things is very horrible. But being an image of a body; that’s even worse! I don’t think a movement that says “now every body is an object of desire” could ever be emancipatory really
Asserting oneself a subject is a great counteraction, I'm wondering how one does this, practically? Is it simply a matter of looking at self as a collection of traits beyond being observed? Focusing on the philosophical?
The declaration of being a beautiful object, I feel, is the inevitable consequence of the "arenas of spectacle". Social media platforms are so concerned with aesthetics that they're naturally objectifying realms. It is a fundamentally complicating space. I absolutely agree with your statement: "I don’t think a movement that says “now every body is an object of desire” could ever be emancipatory really"
I suppose it’s putting what you want and think above what people expect from your image— you can still use your image to your own end, but if the image is the end in itself then you’ll be swallowed by it. I heard someone say it was just having a sense of self at all, which stuck with me as I think I lost my own
I can see how considering, or declaring oneself a subject is essentially having a sense of self because to declare yourself an object, even a beautiful one, is to (over)consider how you are perceived. The difference is internal focus and external focus, validations from outside self vs. from inside. These are things that are easy to speak, harder to practice!
Always a pleasure to read your words, Inigo. I find myself moved, giggling at parts, and just appreciating how your brain weaves words together to make points or to just observe. Genuinely enjoyed this.
pleasure to be read by you! this one had less of a destination and was more of a voyage that is still ongoing so it is lovely to have you travel along.
Inigo, you have the kind of talent that demands to be acknowledged and seen. I sincerely wish you success in your career as a writer (including this Substack).
Ahh, so lovely! Thank you for reading and all the support you show.
Who-chile — when I tell you this is fixing me right up! Comes right at the end of the worst of my poisoned views of my physical self. Everyone needs to read this …
This article is so healing. As a 55-year-old “former baddie,” I ached as menopause ravaged me inside and out this past year. I have arisen quite at peace with my new face and body and intend to put it all on display as the beauty that it all is, just as I displayed it all when it was winning against gravity.
I was never a person who thought of anyone as ugly. I fought the ideas people tried to plant about what is desirable and not. And I’m glad I did.
Because even though I did not judge others by those standards, I judged myself and I can’t imagine digging myself out from under being the horrible way I’ve been to myself, toward others.
i'm so glad that it was helpful for you, QuYahni, thank you for reading/listening and i'm happy to hear you're at peace. sounds like you had a great journey to arrive there.
Who is this imposter on this audio? Where’s your voice, kind sir? 😁 just playing … I’m at work so I have to use audio instead of reading and I was shocked by the voice lol
that's just a miscellaneous substack reader out of my control, i'm afraid!
This is a brilliant essay. Will reread it and would love to discuss in person! The first section on ig fostering a body positivity movement focussed on aesthetics reminded me of something the feminist philosopher Susan Bordo (& my guiding intellectual light) said - that modern cultures of the body, from weight loss to weight lifting, ‘although preoccupied with the body and deriving narcissistic enjoyment from its appearance,
takes little pleasure in the experience of embodiment’.
the susan bordo quote definitely speaks to what i’ve been wrangling with, the divorce of experience, mostly pleasure, in how things look vs. how they feel. i plate food and post on substack sometimes. the taste of the food is irrelevant which perhaps speaks to how the contemporary focus on aesthetics have created a vacation of empathy. would love to talk more when i see you!
Life is a simulation, and ugly is a customizable product feature. It’s part of the oppression add-on—designed to block both the beautiful and the profane from overcoming class distinction. “You’re not ugly, you’re poor”—which is to say, we’ve been ugly our whole lives.
The Matrix was so tamed in explaining the coded atrocity.
an interesting consideration, thanks for sharing it!
a futile exercise in nerd humor. the truth of my disposition keeps me up at night, wrestling with bar soap and astringent.
your work is enigmatic and culls response, as one of the earlier commenters mentioned. wonderful piece and sorry about the seasonal affliction.
if it’s any consolation, your writing really does exalt you beyond plebeian beauty standards.
Good essay! The meaning of Beauty was something I wrestled with a lot as a visual artist. (I find writing a relief, because it's more subjective.) I feel like 'the visual' is a language that most people don't really speak. The flood of imagery that the modern world forces upon us daily acts as an assault, and habituates people to junk imagery. (As addictive as any junk thing...)
In fact ugliness is intrinsic to true art. Truth is often 'ugly'. Beauty can be a way of lying.
But besides all that, when it comes to whether people are beautiful or not, I really try not to care. It’s a roll of the dice, & we all change so much over our lifetimes. Beauty is a fickle thing to worship. Better to broaden the parameters of taste & try to get down with isness instead.
I'd push back ever so slightly. Despite the leanings of my essay, I don't believe beauty is a fickle thing to worship. Actually the opposite. Despite its *bodily* ephemerality, beauty as an abstract has been such a constant thrust of human experience. Maybe that's the problem, maybe it's the solution, maybe it just is. I think beauty itself undergoes layers of framing and reframing, largely because anything pleasurable becomes the ministry of beauty. Perhaps that is something I didn't say explicitly though alluded to--how beauty/ugliness fractures down binaries of pleasure/disgust. Truth, which doesn't even necessarily need to present as honesty, is something necessary. In art, a deep truth can be reached in the brushstrokes of paint or the pixels of a video and because it is reached, it becomes beautiful. Thus is the complication of beauty. It inserts itself when anything is done well.
Yes. Agree with this. Beauty is a complex & interesting subject. Like many things in the present moment, it's the capturing & exploitation of something deeply human, innate in us, that's the real problem-- as you say in your original essay. My hunch is that it has to do with 'ways of seeing'
I enjoyed reading this Inigo!!! You are an exceptional writer.
Thank you so much, my darling of darlings!
I never regret my decision to read your essays, this in particular was healing and validating to read. Thank you. You are a beautiful person Inigo ♥️
! you too are beautiful, thanks for your continued kindness and support, my darling 🫶🏾