Musings over a late lunch

Frank discussions of sexuality and body image below. Read at your own risk.

I have been a fan of Halcyon Styn since before he was a global web personality. I have been a fan of his since the Prehensile Tale days. I have always admired his cockiness, his self-awareness, his determination to make the world a better place. I’ve thought some of his projects (like the house with all the 24/7 webcams everywhere) were slightly insane, but I still admired his gutsiness.
Lately, he’s doing a lot in the adult entertainment industry, including Pinkgasm.com (NOT SAFE FOR WORK), a project with his girlfriend Tassy.
Now, I love their message of open and unashamed sexuality. It rocks. I dig that they practice what they preach and live up to their manifesto. My commentary below is not intended as a slam against either of them — it’s an exploration of my own reactions to their work. (And if either Halcyon or Tassy read this, I want to say: mad props for your work, keep it up!)
Onward!
I have been having a lot of trouble getting around one thing: Tassy has breast implants. And she just got bigger ones.
It is none of my business what Tassy does with her body – I don’t even know her, and after all it is her body.
But the fact that she and Halcyon present themselves as role models for the sexual revolution makes it really bother me that she has augmented her body so obviously. It makes me feel like if she and Halcyon ever saw me naked, they’d think I was unattractive. I have fairly normal proportions, not the super-thin-body-with-huge-perky-boobs that Tassy has.
I am clearly intended to look at the images of her on the sites and think “wow, she is hawt!”
But that also means I look at myself and think, “wow, I am not hawt.” I look nothing like Tassy, and not just because she’s thinner than I am. Her proportions are unnatural — and yet they are prsented as ideal.
I feel as though they are equating an artificial physical appearance with being sexually open and healthy. It seems as though regular people, regular-looking people, are shut out of this new sexual world they’re building. Sure, most guys could look like Halcyon if they worked out as much as he does, but for girls to look like Tassy, we have to have expensive and dangerous cosmetic surgery.
To me, this conflicts with what I perceive as their message: loving yourself and others. Heck, Tassy herself even said it when talking about why they chose the color pink: the world needs more soft, fuzzy, pink, unabashed love. real love. love for ourselves, our bodies, and general soft pink loving light, if you will. How do I reconcile that with what she has made herself look like? If you love your body, why would you jam inorganic bags of jelly into it?
It makes me wonder about Tassy’s self-image. I wish she would talk somewhere on the Pinkgasm site about why she augments herself that way. Maybe she does and I haven’t seen it — I don’t read the site regularly for reasons detailed below. But it upsets me that every time I go to one of Halcyon’s sites and see her, I feel the fragile self-image I’ve been working so hard to improve crumble a little.
OK, that’s a lie. It crumbles a lot.
I may have to relegate all of Halcyon’s projects to the Cosmopolitan pile – things I would like to look at but don’t because they make me feel ugly. I already don’t read the entries in the journal section of Pinkgasm for that reason. I wish I didn’t feel this way – I still dig Halcyon and like I said, I admire their work. But I also have a duty to care for my psyche.
I’d be interested in comments from my readers on the whole self-image/body-modification issue – you folks are an insightful bunch.