Who knew a conversation about lip gloss could be so triggering for me?
Last night over dinner, my 10 year old daughter recounted her experience at school earlier in the day, when her friends dared each other to try on a lip gloss. A special lip gloss that makes your lips look fuller. Only, it stings so much to apply that they created a competition around who could keep it on their lips the longest.
10 year old girls using a product that is designed to cause irritation (that’s it’s mechanism of action) for the sake of achieving fuller lips.
My body had a physical response to this story.
Why?
Because there’s nothing that gets you in touch with your body hang ups quite so well as having a daughter. And around this age (mine and hers) it’s starting to get really challenging. And frequent.
It probably sounds ridiculous to be even talking about lips, but they’re actually something that I’ve been acutely conscious of since as long as I remember. As some with naturally full lips, they’ve always been my most prominent feature.
When I was a little kid I’d get the comments about how pouty I looked. But by the time I was around 10 or 11, the comments started getting more sexually oriented. A group of older boys decided to label me ‘Luscious Lips Lauren’…hmmm, ok. Everyone else (including my family) seemed to think this was funny, which made me think it was a compliment, but it always felt a bit weird.
The comments continued into high school, gradually getting more lewd in nature. Again though, everyone else’s reactions suggested these comments were fun and complimentary. But looking back, I’m not so sure a group of your friends sitting around discussing how your lips would be advantageous for performing certain sexual acts is really that much of a compliment, especially when you’re 16 years old.
As it turns out, there are quite a few men who seem to think its completely reasonable to give out these types of ‘compliments’. Especially, it seems, taxi drivers. They just love letting you know how attractive your mouth is to them. Just what you want to hear when you’re travelling in the car alone with them. Creepy.
The weird thing is, I think it’s only been in recent years that I’ve realised how weird this all is! And how a lifetime of commentary about my lips has impacted my behaviour. It’s one of the reasons I’m almost always found smiling in a social situation - because it’s the one sure way I can avoid looking pouty or sultry. I wouldn’t even consider wearing lipstick to work for fear of coming across as too attention seeking. Which, I’m now starting to realise, is kind of ridiculous!
This is why a simple story about 10 year old girls mucking around with lip gloss caused me to take pause. Because, whatever progress we make on women’s equality, we still have these stupid ideas of beauty and pressure to pursue it. And this pressure to change your appearance for the sake of others seems to be coming at an earlier stage. I mean, if 10 year olds are already talking about the so-called-ideal of full lips, how old are they going to be when they start getting lip fillers? Is that what we want for young women? Why can’t people be happy with natural looking lips these days?
It’s not what I want for my daughter, that’s for sure. But equally, I’m quite sure the more I make a big deal of it, the more attractive it’ll become. She is my daughter, after all! Ugh, parenting is hard.
So, instead of giving my views on female beauty standards and the importance of delaying being seen as a sex object, I simply said “You know what else makes your lips sting? Hot sauce. You should try that for your next dare”.
In honour of the topic, my favourite song about lips, from a time that was pre-filler, but still full of sexual inuendo.
Gross. I got similar comments growing up and it always made me feel so gross. It's so fucked up. The boys and men making the comments should have felt gross, not me. Bleugh,.
I've never heard that song Lips Are Unhappy before, Lauren – thanks for the link.
It is a real challenge to "not" be triggered by things that remind us of our own adolescent hang-ups. (And no wonder one of yours was lips, from the way you describe it.)
When my now-adult daughters were children, I was terrified I'd somehow pass my former neuroses about food and body image onto them. I did everything I could to make food "neutral" and not to make value judgements on bodies. Amazingly, they did have a healthy attitude to food and to their bodies, growing up. At least, a lot more healthy than I'd had.
It sounds like you're responding really sensibly. I'm sure your daughter will benefit from that and learn resilience.