How Loving Up On Another Woman Helped Me Love Myself
In an xoJane commentary, ELIXHER founder and editor-in-chief Kimberley McLeod reflects on how falling for a woman made her fall deeper in love with herself.
Loving another woman is a revolutionary act. I’d heard it before but didn’t quite grasp the gravity of that notion until I recently caught myself confidently staring back at my reflection in a full-length mirror. My broad, uneven shoulders taking up most of the glass’s width, the remnants of the day’s makeup still at the corner of my eyes.
I was naked, imperfect — and beautiful. And it wasn’t always this way.
I used to hate my nipples. Hate my nipples. I wanted “porn” nipples. You know, the perky ones with the tiny areola? One of my friends in junior high school had them and I wanted them, too. We had this obsession with comparing the size of our budding breasts. I couldn’t help but think every time I looked at hers: “I. Want. Your. Nipples.”
In boarding school, a couple of my dormmates and I got the idea to measure the size of our nipples with coins. One girl was a quarter and the other was a dime. My size was indeterminate. We didn’t have a coin large enough but we estimated I would have been a dollar. I moped back to my room, wishing the large masses on my chest would disappear.
I went on to college, began dating guys and became even more self-conscious. Once, I heard larger areolas were more sensitive. That made me smile. But I soon remembered the porn stars and the not-big-enough coins.
Then one summer I met a woman — an amazingly breathtaking woman that answered all the questions I had about my sexuality.
“You can explore,” she gently encouraged our first night together. She then guided my fingers between her thighs and I timidly traced the new yet familiar territory. She began to outline the dark brown circles sitting on my chest. When my body tensed, she smiled and brought her soft lips to mine then to my breasts.
She loved my nipples. They transformed from obnoxious mounds to chocolate gumdrops that jutted forward instead of up in excitement. She was captivated by them. Our trysts began as an exploration of my attraction to women. But as I explored her body, I started exploring me. As I fell for her, I fell deeper and deeper in love with me.
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this resonates with me in a wonderful way. thank you for summarizing my feelings so eloquently.
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I love this article so much. Thank you for writing it <3
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lovely article, and ultimately very true.
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