After months of gray skies, the sun is finally here! And with the sunshine comes a barrage of pressure to get that perfect beach body, a picturesque figure worthy of Instagram likes.
If that’s your jam, all the power to you. Do those squats and burpees and own the shit out of your bathing suit—if you’re brave (insane?) enough to do burpees, you’ve earned it.
But, even if you don’t do burpees, you’ve still earned the right to rock whatever clothing you want, and to feel comfortable doing so.
The reality is this: summer in Victoria is not an air-conditioned oasis. Although we have little right to complain about our weather in comparison to the rest of the country, there are those couple weeks in the summer where it goes from glorious to gross—I’m looking at you late-July, early-August. During that time, the idea of wearing more than a minimal amount of clothing is gnarly.
So, logic would dictate that if you’re hot and need to cool down, less clothing would be a productive solution to swass and under-boob sweat (yes, gentlemen, this is a thing). The problem with this logic is that while less clothes equals more comfort, less clothes also equals sexualization and social stigmatism.
Like it or not, we still live in a society where the amount of skin we choose to show has sexual connotations attached to it. I wish this wasn’t the case, but the amount of heads that turn when a girl walks down the street in short shorts and a crop top tells me otherwise. The way those heads turn also tells me if they are turning in appreciation or degradation.
Observation: how those heads turn is more often than not correlated with the size of the person wearing said clothing. It’s almost as if society is saying, “It’s okay to wear that, but only if you’re a size-two burpee addict.” And it’s infuriating.
The truth is that it takes a certain amount of body confidence for anyone to walk down the street in short shorts, but even moreso if you have heinie dimples or a plus sign on your size tag.
If you’re one of the amazing, strong goddesses who has mastered the art of owning your curves (side note: can you give me lessons?), you likely don’t give a flying rat’s patootie what other people think, but for those not as body-confident it takes a lot of courage to walk out the door in weather-appropriate clothing when “weather appropriate” equals “minimal.”
It’s so easy to take a swipe at another’s ego, even moreso if it’s whispered out of earshot—but why? In my humble opinion, if someone is daring enough to brave chub rub, they deserve those short shorts.
So, as the weather grows warmer and clothes grow smaller, I implore you: don’t judge. Don’t sexualize or shame, and rock the shit out of whatever you want to wear. Because everyone, not just the size-two burpee addicts, deserves to be comfortable. And everyone deserves the right to express themselves through their clothing, or lack thereof.