Delilah’s Mirror Episode 3: An Epiphany

My quest for beauty stems from the fact that my grandmother’s valuation of my worth was based on my looks, i.e., I was fat and that was unacceptable for a good, young Southern lady (I was 5), whose figure should match her manners and politesse–whose figure and manners and politesse should be used for the catching of a husband.

It didn’t matter that I was smart and funny and charming and cute. Furthermore, it didn’t matter that I was her granddaughter and was worth valuation because I carried her DNA. It did matter that I wasn’t “more slender like your Aunt Mary Jane.” It did matter that I was fat, and I was never going to get married if I didn’t lose weight.

My father tried to instill in me the fact that I was lovely just because I was his daughter, but it never took – partly because he kept my hair boy-short and refused my efforts toward femininity, and partly because I was fat. The combination was deadly. I was ugly. No two ways about it.

I spent my Friday nights watching Knight Rider and Remington Steel, and my Saturday nights watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island instead of dating and forming appropriate coping mechanisms for man-woman relationships.

Oh, I related to boys all right, but not as a girl. I could shoot a gun, fish, and throw a curve ball better than any of my male friends. Now I can ride a bigger motorcycle and fix it faster than any of my male friends – if I had any male friends, because I have no desire to keep men as friends.

It was in my father’s best interest to turn me into a boy, because then he didn’t have to deal with his extreme discomfort of rearing a little girl to sexual maturity.

I don’t blame him. I showed signs of sexual maturity very early on, and I was in constant contact with boys. Keeping me ugly and as hoydenish as possible put a cage around me and hung a sign around my neck that said, “Keep out!” When I began to develop, I was banished from his side as an “associate of mine” because he noticed the men he was talking to at cattle auctions and auto repair garages paid more attention to me than they did to him.

I was clueless then. Now I’m not.

I’m a very sexual woman. My father’s efforts to turn me into a boy failed miserably, and I am now dealing with the consequences of that effort.

After having been a part of the online low carb community for two years, I have come to the conclusion that the great majority of female emotional issues concerning weight loss for women involve one thing: Sex.

• Having it
• Getting it
• Not having it
• Not getting it
• Being afraid of it
• Being afraid of having it
• Being afraid of not having it
• Guilt over having it
• Guilt over getting it
• Guilt over one’s own sexual desires
• Guilt over not having sexual desires
• Having been molested
• Having been assaulted
• Guilt over having been molested
• Guilt over having been assaulted
• Attracting the wrong people
• Attracting the right people
• Not trusting one’s own ability to quash inappropriate advances
• Not trusting oneself to want to quash inappropriate advances

You get my point.

And even if you think you don’t agree now, you will eventually.