Two Poems. Genetic Lottery. Work of Art

The following poems are an autoethnographic account of body image from the perspective of a 39-year-old bountiful, White-privileged, mixed-race femme dyke. The purpose of the poetic form is to inspire emotional connection and offer analytic commentary on the social construction of body image, aging, and beauty as a social commodity, from a lesbian perspective. Together, the poems present a perspective on lesbian body image that highlights our socialization as women first. Lesbian consciousness has a role in how we construct body image outside of a primarily male gaze, but it does not supplant heteronormative feminity. The poems also show the critical social gaze as reconstructed within us and by our lovers. In addition to social influences, the poems also show the life of the individual as a site of body image activism. The agency of "I' to reconstruct interactions of body acceptance and self-love is as clear as the contexts in which those struggles take place.