feeling too skinny

[bikinksterboy]

On and off over the course of a few months I've lately been feeling as though I'm too thin. I'm 15, 5'6 and 106 lb. I know I'm not underweight, and my current partner has said multiple times how he doesn't think my body should change and loves it, and I don't expect ultra-muscle for myself since I myself don't want that sort of physique, and knowing all this I still sometimes get that nagging feeling looking in the mirror at my visible ribs that I'm just not right. if this means nayhting i guess i should also add that its more about my upper body as my legs are fairly well defined, but my abs, chest, and arms are slim. I don't think working out would really be worth it since my current schedule just doesn't accommodate for exercise beyond gym class, like I feel it might be more of an issue with how I'm thinking

[Heather]

The biggest thing I see in this is you saying that your body is "just not right."

Here's the thing: there is no such thing as a "right" body or a "wrong" body. Seriously. There is simply whatever bodies we have, however they are. So, either all of our bodies are wrong, then, or all of them are right (I prefer the latter take, myself).

Your body, as far as I am concerned, has to be right, because there it is, the body you have.

So, het's maybe talk instead about what's going on with your body image: with how you feel about your body that has you thinking your body has to be different than it is to be or look "right" to you. Sounds like you have a clue that's the real deal here, anyway.

What can you think of that might be feeding these ideas lately, and possibly contributing to negative ideas about your body? Anything new or different in your life, community, the media you take in, etc. over these last few months that you think might have facilitated this change in how you feel about your body?

[bikinksterboy]

new or different things in my life not really in fact I've been seeing more skinny guys in media than ever lately(however most have been feminine, have yet to see too many examples of dudes with noodle arms virtually nonexistent abs that aren't made to look androgynous in fiction), people i don't think so,community well theres a few people at my school but i make a rule to not (consciously) compare myself to others, also in general with the whole fat acceptance thing which btw is great I've also been getting a lot of the message that while you can be healthy large thin is inherently bad, if that makes any sense, and i know this isn't intended by any true activists but it's been my subconscious perception n for a while.

[bikinksterboy]

sorry if I'm not making sense, going on about nothing, contradicting myself

[Heather]

Okay, so it sounds like you know that those messages aren't sound, though. Any sense, given that, of how they're kind of invading your feelings about yourself even though you know they're bollocks?

One thing I think I hear you saying is that you are seeing skinny guys mainly presented as androgynous, not masculine. How do you identify your gender? If you identify yourself as masculine, and want to see and conceptualize yourself that way, do you think this might have something to do with what feels like your body is in conflict with your masculinity, or how you conceptualize masculinity?

[bikinksterboy]

I think this might sort of be the case. I don't believe in most pervasive media definitions of masculinity, and despite this in the back of my mind I'm still thinking "you're weak, be a man". as much as I make a conscious effort to disregard society's expectations of masculinity and forge my own identity I still subconsciously think of them as true

[Heather]

Okay. So, you know, the good news about intellectually knowing something (or more than one thing) is a steaming pile of you-know-what, but not always being there emotionally, is that you can usually just work this all through in time by doing a lot of reminding yourself about the truth of things.

By all means, that might mean you feel uncomfortable on and off in the meantime, but we're going to often have at least some things like that in our lives at any given time, so it's sort of just something -- that conflict between what we know and how we feel -- that with practice, we usually can learn to live with and learn to deal with.

One thing I'd suggest as self-care when you're in a spot like this is to make a list of all the caring, affirming things you can do for yourself around your body: what things make you feel good in it, and take care of it as well as your feelings? Then start trying to do at least some of those things every day.

[bikinksterboy]

this is an old-ass thread, but reviving it now: this time the feels are again about the skinniness and thin arms, but 3 other new developments:
1) feeling less of a "man" in terms of maturity looking at my visible ribs and lankiness. Like, I know there's no way I'm supposed to look really but I have this very strong feeling of being a child in an adult-size body sometimes, when I look at my proportions.
2) I get weird feelings when my belly naturally pushes out a little/slumps down when I relax. I know that's just what bellies do no matter your weight, but again it just feels like a reflexive "myehh" when I see it. The belly thing is I guess more of an issue for me because being thin is at least compatible with "androgynous" and/or "femboy" for me aesthetically, but the belly doesn't really fit in with that
3) Again I know all this can be resolved with a simple "just screw what people say and what has been drilled into you" but like, I'm having issues with reconciling facial hair, with non-normative gender presentation. Like, I know I can be fabulous and queer no matter what but a part of me I think feels like I have to "prove" my queerness by fitting a certain image of androgyny and actively "rebelling" in my look. I know that being a bearded twinkboi is kind of subversive in its own way but I still feel the feels about it. this ties into my general sort of feeling that I'm "not queer enough" and too much of a "straight-passing normie," that "queer" is this exotic thing that's rebellious and different, something I'm not even if I claim the identity

[bikinksterboy]

(I know that I have accepted my beard in another post, I often have confusing contradictory feelings)

[Carly]

Hey bikinksterboy -- I'm sorry to hear you're thinking about this a lot again. Can you pinpoint why? Has something changed in your life that's making you think more about this or differently than you were? I'm sensing you may be caught up in what you should look like if you claim a particular identity. It sounds like this may be more of a general concern rather than strictly your physical body. Can you say more about why you don't think you're "not queer enough" and/or what makes you feel like you're too straight-passing?

[bikinksterboy]

super late reply and in some ways this thread is not relevant to me currently, but I guess, the not feeling queer enough thing is because I'm in a "straight" relationship with my (trans female) partner, and I"m not super stereotypically effeminate or androgynous in any meaningful way on the outside. I sometimes physically carry myself more like that in my body language, but because of my anxieties about fashion I tend to dress in a very "normie" way in like, graphic tees and jeans. And now since I have both long hair and a beard I'm out of the "femboy" realm with the long hair and into "borderline hippie." which is very much not a "queer" thing, archetypically.

And it feels like every attempt I make to be non-normative turns out to be something that has already been absorbed by the gender-conforming hetero mainstream, ie being a man wearing earrings, having long hair. Either that or it adds to an effect/look other than what I would initially have intended. I know the answer is popular representations don't matter, and I always am what I am on the inside no matter what, but part of expressing myself should involve expressions that can be generally understood by the wider world, right? Part of this is the yearning and searching for being different and ways to outwardly look unique and non-normative, which is probably harmful to me in the long run.

Since I really started forming my identity in my teen years, I've been on a continual quest to find my personal unique look that could not be mistaken for just any person. It's foolish. I know that I *am* who I am on the inside, but part of me really desperately desires to have people on the street look at me and know I"m different. It's probably also to some degree born out of my privilege and whiteness, feeling like I need some extra thing to define me or make me "more than" the dominant, "normal", majority type of society.

Yet the anxiety makes this very difficult too because I constantly feel like a poser and I'm also kind of terrified of change, so I never have the courage to make the changes in my presentation that I fantasize about. One more more thing too, it's a strange kind of disappointment I have realizing that my personal interests/autistic special interests, the kind of shows and games and such I would like to buy shirts of, are often not hte kind of thing that would be outwardly understood as showing signs of queerness. And I know that is incredibly stupid on so many levels. And I know that there is no real "queer aesthetic", but I'm kind of afraid of macho manliness and generic cool (Which by default is cishet male coded) because how can I show that without just being another dudebro?? idk. word vomit.

apologies for the rambles, kinda having to cover years worth of anxious rumination at once, and it's all flooding back to me

[bikinksterboy]

the above reply is basically just me channeling a mini panic attack into a post, so some of it is real some of it is complete nonsense.

also only just now realizing I only partly responded to the actual question. I think part of it was spurred on by taking a lot of classes in which media analysis was a big deal, and so looking at and thinking about queer or feminist or otherwise subversive readings of art, movies, etc was a thing I was doing a lot of, and I guess that led to putting the idea of certain aesthetics on a pedestal. Like the more twinkish male nude in late neoclassical French painting for example. Oh twinks too. I feel like being a bearded twink is strange. I know it's literally not strange and there is nothing inherently weird about it, but that's a feeling I've had. The idea of falling in between gay archetypes such that I end up right back in gender-conforming-het-normieville is something I've had floating in my head a lot and I know it's absolutely made the hell up and BS but it's had a power over me. The idea that i'm too thin for a bear, not muscular enough to be an otter, too hairy to be a twink, and so on, and that this is a bad thing.

P.S., to reiterate: I know 90% of this all is in my head and made up, and anxiety, and has no relation to how anyone worth caring about in the real world views other people.
-P.P.S. My feelings and thoughts on these things can very dramatically shift, from when I'm in a panic moment vs everyday,and very rapidly shift within panic times.
One more thing, I feel that my autism could potentially play in here as well, with a desire to name and categorize and label

[CaitlinEve]

Hi bikinksterboy,

I think that even if 90% of this is in your head, it's obviously still important to you and valuable to talk about! I'm happy that you aren't keeping it bottled up, even if you feel like some of it was 'complete nonsense'!

At the end of the day, your gender identity is yours. A lot of queer culture has been co-opted by what is seen as 'mainstream' and while I do understand the desire to signal that you're not a 'normie' (and can relate to that!), it may be that in your effort to take yourself out of that box you are putting yourself in a smaller, more restrictive box. What would make you happy, if you ignored all the social elements and just focused on how *you* want to present? I know it's SO hard to do, but looking inside yourself and thinking about what you (and only you) want may be a good start. Additionally, it sounds like your anxiety is very social-based; if it'll help, here is an article that has a list of anxiety resources you can check out.