on beauty standards and diagnosis criteria |
I have become The Untouchable. In our dream society we observe the finest of lines lies between ideal and horrifying. The holy grail of ‘slim’ is seated adjacent to the undiscussed netherworlds of ‘beyond skinny’; of ‘emaciated’. I started in one camp and have gone turncoat into the more sinister. I am the wire-girl you see running sometimes, the one your mother tuts at. Im the girl you heard about who goes to a different school, the one who got really ill, a ‘delicate subject’. I’m the one who you double-take when you walk past. First glimpse as standard, second to reassess whether the frame you saw first was distorted by the light- and it wasn’t. I live this. I'm the girl that friends worry about and talk of when she’s not there, replaying the same scenarios, forming no definitive conclusion or decision. Because I am untouchable. I'm treated like i have slipped into another realm, in a Perspex cage that excludes the voice of reason. Or, rather, that's how they'd like me, exemplified as the 'How-Not-To'. That way they are powerless and guilt free, and i'm strictly for observation only. Please do not touch the exhibit. She is ‘fragile’. |