I just spent the last two hours making myself “presentable” in view of the fact that I am scheduled for surgery tomorrow at 7AM. I have taken a long bath, removed unpleasant body hair, scrubbed my skin to make it softer, gave myself a pedicure, trimmed my nails, waxed my facial hair. As I was doing this with a considerable effort (since I cannot eat much these days, everything I do is like climbing a mountain), I reassured myself that it was OK to do this. That even though I don’t give a damn about beauty standards, it was OK to be scared of the possibility that my surgeon, anesthetist, nurse or assistant could potentially be one of those Daily Mail (or Men’s Health or Maxim) commenters that believe that women who do not groom according to their expectations do not deserve to live, do not deserve to be loved or cared for. Because you know, those commenters on websites are real people. And they could, potentially, have your life in their hands. And I also realized how fucked up it is that beauty standards might come to that.
For the past decade and a half I have been making all my content available for free (and never behind a paywall) as an ongoing practice of ephemeral publishing. This site is no exception. If you wish to help offset my labor costs, you can donate on Paypal or you can subscribe to Patreon where I will not be putting my posts behind a lock but you'd be helping me continue making this work available for everyone. Thank you. Follow me on Twitter for new post updates.