In The Flesh

A new frontier in he body positivity movement goes beyond plus-size. Ere a look at the history of body image, the social media looking glass, and the next wave of representation

- Jes Baker

When Ashley Graham posted a photo of her body on Instagram last summer, it shouldn’t have been particularly radical. Seeing Graham, a supermodel, in this capacity is what her followers may expect. But this photo was different. An intimate close-up of Graham, who had recently shared her pregnancy, it showed stretch marks, dimples of cellulite, and, maybe most meaningfully, rolls of flesh at her bra line and stomach. The photo amassed more than 1.3 million likes and over 23,000 comments, many of which included heart emoji, thankyous, and the word Beautiful over and over. The reverence and appreciation from her followers was as overwhelming as the obvious craving for more pictures like it.

Body diversity isn’t Graham’s mission alone. In the last few years, the body positivity movement has infiltrated the world’s social media feeds, news reports, and pop-culture consciousness, and with it a fascinating trend has bubbled up: a focus on a body part that many (even I, as a plus-size — or, my preferred descriptor, “fat” — body image advocate) struggle to embrace — the soft and squishy stomach.

Curvier women with this feature are often called “Rubenesque”, after the voluptuous female nudes famously captured in great fleshy detail by painter Peter Paul Rubens five centuries ago — women whose body type was an ideal of the time. Rubens’s subjects, usual themes from Greek mythology, often included women lounging or twisting about, their bodies irresistibly soft-looking. The Flemish artist is quoted as saying, “My passion comes from the heavens, not from earthly musings.” Whether that was specifically about painting women or not, it certainly speaks to “heavenly bodies”. They are otherworldly. And suddenly Rubenesque is starting to feel more and more modern (and desirable) today.