EXACTLY. With Florence Given. Episode 13: BODY IMAGE: Sex, Summer and Self-Objectification

Floss: [00:00:00] Hello. Thank you so much for listening to exactly with me Florence Given. As always I really want to thank you all for your support and for joining me on this journey, it's truly been incredible. We've been exploring a wide range of topics from sex, social media, feminism, and relationships. And to kick off this season of body image, I'm talking to the incredible Lexie and Lindsey from Beauty redefined.
We're here to talk all about body image resilience, objectification, the male gaze, which is a subject that absolutely fascinates me. I've wrote about it a lot, myself in my book and on Instagram and so much more. At the end of the episode, I'll be answering the questions that you sent in via our podcast WhatsApp number at + 4 4 7 8 9 0 3 0 2 6 6 5.
Then in the fourth episode of this mini series of body image, we're going to be opening up this conversation to you. My guest, and I will be answering your calls, your texts on your phone. So any questions or dilemmas you have to do with body image? You can just drop me [00:01:00] a line on my WhatsApp number. And again, the number is plus 4 4 7 8 9 0 3 0 2 6 6 5.
Today, I'll be talking to the wonderful Dr. Lindsay kite and Dr. Lexi kite, who are identical twins and co-authors of the book More than a body: your body is an instrument, not an ornament. I love that quote. That is just, it's so incredible. They are also directors of the non-profit company, Beauty Redefined.
If you follow their Instagram account, you'll know that they post these incredible truth bombs and that they just get to the heart of a lot that is often missed in conversations about body image. I love that. They're just so direct with the snappy quotes. They just kind of cut through the bullshit. And I love women who cut through the bullshit.
They discuss the problems with body image just don't happen as a result of personal failings or of having a certain type of body, but it's literally bred into us to believe that [00:02:00] our perceived desirability by others is the most important thing about us. I called my book ' women don't owe you pretty' for exactly this reason, which I credited as a derivative of Erin Mckean's quote. "Prettiness is not the rent you pay to exist in the world as a woman". I was so exhausted of feeding, like prettiness is the price you have to pay just to be a woman. And that its importance comes before who we actually are as people, before we think about, are we kind, are we compassionate? Do we enjoy our life? We're taught first to think, am I pretty? do I look good while I do the things that I enjoy? Lindsey and Lexi are revolutionary in the message that they're putting out into the world. That objectification, both internal and external is the root of problems with body image. Their work centers on the truth, that positive body image isn't believing that your body looks good. It's knowing your body is good, regardless of how it looks. They talk about body image resilience, and I want to explore with them how that differs from [00:03:00] body positivity, how we can learn to stop objectifying and, practically take steps to heal our relationships with our bodies, but start living more fully in them.
Lindsey and Lexi, thank you so much for coming onto my podcast, exactly. 
Lindsay: We're so happy to be here. 
Lexie: We're so happy to be here. Thank you so much 
Floss: before we get into everything that I want to talk about with you today. I'm going to ask you my five quick fire questions. I ask all of my guests, uh, just say the first thing that comes to mind.
I've not done it with two guests before. 
Lexie: I know. And we're such twins. We're going to say the same thing. 
Lindsay: We'll take turns, Lexi, your first. 
Floss: Okay. Okay. Okay. Lexie first. So question number one. What's one thing that sets your soul on fire. 
Lexie: Feminism. Linds are you supposed to answer too?
Lindsay: Yeah, we'll go back and forth.
Okay. Resilience. 
Floss: Oh, resilience in yourself, or seeing it other people?
Lindsay: Yeah. What we do is body image resilience. So like being able to face hard things in our culture, all the objectification around us and come out stronger for it, like, because of it, instead of in spite of [00:04:00] it. 
Floss: Yes. Wow. Okay. Great. Okay. Question number two, if you could, wear one outfit for the rest of your life, a look that would define you forever, what would the outfit be?
Lexi. 
Lexie: Oh my gosh. I already am known for doing this. I find a thing I like, and then I wear it forever. It's like a, it's like a modern citizen, very simple black fitted mini dress with like a, like a caftan or like some sort of cool sweater over top of it. 
Floss: Okay. So very cool. Very comfortable. What about you, Lindsey?
Lindsay: That's very Lexi. A little bit boho. I have this one, like tie- waist, black sweatshirt sort of thing that I could just wear every day of my life. Like it's extremely casual, just like a drop shoulder tie waist thing. So it looks cute, but it's comfy, and I'm just a sucker for like a stretchy pencil skirt really year round.
Floss: Oh delicious.
uh, question number three. What's something that people frequently misunderstand about you Lexi, 
Lexie: probably more radicalized [00:05:00] than they think I am in terms of like feminism progressive -ness in general. Okay. Maybe I come across a little bit more conservative, but I'm not. 
Floss: And what about you, Lindsey?
What's something that people misunderstand about you? I think at first glance, people think I'm very sweet. I always get the comment like you're so nice. You're so positive and cheerful, but then I have a little more of an edge to me. Once they get to know me, I can be kind of like sarcastic and funny. So- 
yeah, for sure. I I'm the exact same. Um, although I am a, like an overwhelmingly positive person. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Uh, number four, finish the sentence. I'm still a work in progress when it comes to 
relationships. 
Lindsay: Yeah. It's still, you know, going on a lot of dates trying to meet people. Yeah. I've I listened to every like dating podcast. I read all the books. I'm still figuring it out. 
Floss: Okay. And what about you, Lexi? 
Lexie: I mean, if we're talking body image as a body image [00:06:00] expert, I'm still a work in progress when it comes to my own body image. I've come leaps and bounds, but I'm still, uh, I am in a female body, in an objectifying world. And constantly confronting that.
Floss: Absolutely. That's something I really want to get into later, knowing that you shouldn't feel this way and still feeling that way. Okay. Last question for my quickfire questions. Uh, number five, when was the last time you majorly cringed at yourself? 
Lexie: Uh, probably last night, my husband was away playing basketball and I got the idea that I should cut my hair. So I got my own hair in the bathroom. I did a blunt cut all the way across, I wanted some inches off and yeah, it was super cringy and it probably is. But you can't see-
Floss: no, I can't. And I think it looks fantastic. Okay. What about you, lindsay?
Lindsay: Oh, I hesitate to say this, but mine was last night as well. Um, I was just out with some friends and I ended up talking to a guy [00:07:00] that I don't share any beliefs or views with in any way.
And we like argued the whole time. Um, but it was really fun and we kissed. And I laughed so hard and I keep laughing about it all day. 
Floss: Oh my God. Now I have been there, but what is it about that tension with the debate that just makes you want to make out? 
Lindsay: Yeah. It sucked me in.
Floss: Did you two get into doing this and what have been your personal journeys with your own body image that led to this incredibly purpose driven work? 
Lindsay: Ooh, that's a big one. We got into it because we recognized once we started college, how unbelievably affected we had been by really, you know, stereotypical ideals about bodies.
We were really obsessed with our appearance and especially with weight loss. Um, we grew up obviously as identical twins being constantly compared to each other by other people and then doing the self comparison to each [00:08:00] other. 
Floss: I didn't even think about that with twins 
Lindsay: Every single time, if we met a new person or even just like showing up at school or to a family thing, everyone has to look back and forth.
Look you up and down, make comments about what's different. Lindsey has this Lexi has that, you know, Lindsey has the round face. Lexie has the longer face. Lexie has a mole on her nose. We're always in competition. And so that created like tension between us, but also this thing where we were constantly looking at each other.
Like I would look at Lexie and think, oh, okay. So that's what I look like in those jeans from behind. Like, I've never seen that before. And we were like a mirror to each other and we found out over time that our kind of obsession with weight loss and this feeling that we weren't going to be worthy of love and success. And we couldn't really be healthy until we were thin was it, it was kind of proven wrong once we got to college and started learning about media literacy, really like why media is engineered the way it is and specifically how women's representation has been [00:09:00] so particularly manipulated to make us feel thinness, whiteness, youth, beauty, no flaws is the only way to be a woman. We were just so effected and it kind of just set off a spark in both of us at, in separate classrooms in the same semester, we both just felt goosebumps, like heart racing. This is something that I want to learn more about and like really, if I don't have to be obsessed with what I look like, and if my happiness and my future doesn't depend on weight loss which has been so difficult then what does life look like? Is that freedom and how can we help other women feel the same? 
Floss: That is honestly a radical concept, even to me, as someone who who's very well read and they're surrounded by feminist friends, the idea of not concerning myself with my image. And being able to live a life that is not concerned with my image is so radical to me.
It's like, I would feel like I was fucking flying. Like that. That is how it would feel. 
Lexie: That is seriously. [00:10:00] Our life's work, what we realized when we got to college and really diving deep into master's degrees and PhDs. Like we did 10 years of college without taking a break because like our freshman year of college we had this fire lit within us, where we sat in this, these same college classrooms- to be such twins. 
Floss: How old were you?
Lexie: 18
Floss: That happened to me as well, that fire. 
Lexie: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yes. Oh. And I just have so much hope that teenagers coming up now they're getting that fire. Even earlier, they have access to more info, more advocates than we ever had. And so for Lindsay and I, it was sitting in that college classroom that lit this fire.
That was like, not only how do I heal myself, but how do we help girls and women, especially people who identify as female, to get back inside their own bodies as their own in a world that has convinced them they are bodies first and people second. And that set off this like doors were opened for us to do this work and to get the PhDs that we didn't think we could get.
And we didn't think we were [00:11:00] smart enough and start this nonprofit and write the book that we've written that is all about helping people get back in. And what does that look like? Because you are right. That when we can prioritize our own first person perspectives on our bodies, the world opens up and it sounds inconceivable, but it is possible.
It's this, it's this act of coming back in again and again. Like we built this model, we can talk all about it with body image resilience that is banking on the fact that we will continue to feel shame, we will continue to look at ourselves instead of living inside of our bodies. And how do we respond when that comes up?
Floss: When you talk about being inside your body to anyone who and I, I wanna ask you about this later about men's body, body issues and how they differ to women's. But to, to like my dad, that would sound mental. What do you mean you're not in your body, you're in your body. And I think it's such a uniquely female experience to watch yourself doing things as though there's a camera on the wall at quote that changed my [00:12:00] life was John Burgess, quote, "men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at." So I'm never really looking at myself. I'm always looking at myself in the mirror as though there's a man inside my head. Or as though there's a man on that, like, there's just a man there. Can you talk more about what it means to be in your body and, and the whole feeling like you're under surveillance thing?
Lindsay: Yeah. We've had the same experience. Like what you describe, where men react, like, what are you talking about? We've had that same thing, as long as we've been doing this research and speaking to people where women nod their heads when we describe self objectification, which is looking at your body from the outside, it's evaluating yourself instead of fully being focused on what you're doing, what you're feeling in the moment that's self objectification. This is overwhelmingly an issue that women and girls deal with on a scale that boys and men do not. And it is as a result of growing up in this culture that is patriarchal and objectifying, where it prioritizes [00:13:00] a male heterosexual perspective of women's bodies of women's lives, potential worth success, everything else and we internalize that. And then we watch our own bodies. We think of ourselves imagining ourselves from the outside for how we look instead of who we are and what we're doing. 
Floss: Would you say that there are moments where that is most present? Because as soon as you said, we're, we're watching ourselves do things instead of being in our bodies, I immediately thought of sex. Um, and I immediately thought of almost being an own voyeur to having sex as women. Have you found that there are places where women feel at most present? 
Lexie: Yeah body bearing situations come up, so sex for one. Um, but also anytime that you are triggered by seeing bodies. Like we see this come up a lot because of social media, social media literally illustrates what self objectification is. You are looking at yourself or you're looking at another body. You're looking at how you compare to that body, scanning it up and down, and that splits you from yourself.
So that immediate act of seeing another body and our [00:14:00] brains comparison that kicks into place immediately upon seeing another body. Another peer, causes us to split from ourselves to watch ourselves instead of live. Of course it happens during sex. It happens in times when you are not in a flow state, like in a state where you're immersed in your work. And we find that boys and men are better able to get into a flow state than girls and women, because part of their consciousness is not taken away from them by how they look. And so you talk about like internalized patriarchy, internalized misogyny, it's the same deal, the clinical word for that is self objectification. It is. I mean, there's more to it than that. But self objectification is what we all do to cope with living in a world that tells us our bodies are a compilation of parts in need of fixing. And if we aren't constantly thinking about evaluating, flaunting and fixing those. We're not doing our jobs. 
Floss: What you said then about women finding it harder to get into flow state. I thought about how, when I go to work in a [00:15:00] cafe, I will spend an hour getting dressed to go to the cafe. And then I'm thinking about how do I look, sat here while I'm writing my book, my book about feminism. And then all of a sudden you've become hyper-aware of all of this stuff. That's half of your brain working as a voyeur to what you're doing and the other half is also trying to work. I didn't think about the capacity that that must take. 
Lindsay: Yeah. Yes. We talk about how part of your mental energy and your physical energy is being drained away by this invisible focus on how you look. And so men often don't experience that. And one of the interesting things is that this split starts to happen right around puberty.
And so when girls' bodies start to change during puberty, it typically puts them further away from the physical ideals for women's bodies. Like we know that a very adolescent looking shape for women with large breasts on top of that has been the ideal for quite a while. You know, times change a bit. We still want that extremely small waist, but just [00:16:00] with a larger butt that has no cellulite, no stretch marks, nothing else. Like all of these kinds of anatomically impossible ways to be. But boys during puberty, their bodies become closer to the male ideals. They're growing hair, they're getting larger and taller. They're, you know, they're experiencing these changes that women feel gross about while at the same time getting attention from men for likely the first time and that when you see men watching you, when you get cat called for the first time, when people make comments about how, oh, you need to pull down your skirt, or we're going to have to get you a bigger shirt to cover your chest that you're growing now. That puts girls into this immediate state of self objectification, where we are viewing our bodies as if we're strangers and often like male onlookers to ourselves. 
Floss: Yeah. When you, when you speak about the adolescent body type, being the ideal and then, and then how women actually when they reach puberty and they go through puberty, they struggle to have that. And then we start filling our bras within in England, we call them chicken fillets and then we to like [00:17:00] shove our bras with them and do all the stuff. I was like taping up my tits, shaving my legs, cutting them from shaving for the last prickle, all of this stuff. Um, body con dresses, heels that made my feet hurt, just to perform femininity. Um, and like you said, actually, men naturally get to have this progression and age, like a fine wine. Um, and women decay with age and all this efforts. Oh, to 25 is your peak on all this kind of stuff. Why do we have this adolescent body image? Why that is the ideal body type? 
Lindsay: I think it's a kind of a perfect, um, combination of patriarchy and capitalism, to be honest, um, that adolescent body ideal is the one that is hardest for women to reach. To accomplish and sustain and so this is really idealized because as you know, it drives sales for the rest of our lives. Um, even when the economy is tanking, then the weight loss industry is thriving and the cosmetic surgery industry is thriving. Women are still trying to seek these same ideals. Um, and so [00:18:00] really when I say adolescent, it's, it's the thinness of adolescents. It's the, it's the lack of hair and stretch marks and cellulite and all of those other things that start right around puberty. 
It's the signs of life. It really comes down to the fact that in every one of our lives, and we ask people to do this, to really take inventory of the time, the effort, the pain, the energy that you have committed to beauty work to performing femininity.
Floss: Then we have beauty is pain as the slogan that goes through our heads while we're doing it.
Lexie: Right. Exactly. Yeah. And when you really quantify what that looks like and on a population level, when you quantify the amount of time, the amount of money, that women are asked to put into making some parts of their bodies bigger and some parts of their body smaller to erase signs of life. That is the kind of thing that, that radicalizes people, that's where a lot of us get our first feminist awakening, where we start to realize, who am I performing for?
And what do I get at the end of the day? Because one thing that Lindsay [00:19:00] and I talk a lot about is the fact that as you seek after these objectifying ideals, as you spend your life swimming toward these mirages thinking, because we've been told that once you get there, that's when you'll be successful, you'll be loved, you'll be happy, you'll be healthy. Whatever the thing is, we're constantly swimming toward these mirages. And then even when you do lose the weight, even when you do get the boobs you want, even when your hair looks great that day, if your confidence is wrapped up in how you appear, it is as fleeting as it could ever be, because it is not intrinsic.
It is all about performing. Performing for that invisible eye in your own brain, looking at you and for everybody else that doesn't even actually care what you look like. You know, we think they care a lot more than they do. And so what we want people to know is that body image, body image is an inside job. Positive body image isn't believing your body looks good. It's knowing your body is good, regardless of how it looks, even regardless of how it works. That's the kind of thing that when more of [00:20:00] us can embrace this idea that we have got to prioritize our own first person perspective, even just a little bit more when we get there, when we invite ourselves like back inside our bodies, when we're feeling ourselves splitting and prioritizing this outside perspective, that's where the revolution happens. That's when we get a little bit more time back a little bit more anger back for the things we should be angry about, you know, that's, it's the revolution we all need. 
Floss: Yes. Found that for myself when I was the same age as you, and you had your like awakening, I remember yeah feeling that rage and feeling like I was coming into my body. And like you were saying earlier, Lindsay, that people expect you to be nice and stuff. I really played that role for my whole life. Not even just with men, but with women. I wanted women to like me. I needed women to like me. I needed to not be the threat. And so I was a fucking doormat. Let everyone walk all over me. Um, and I needed to maintain this image of niceness. And then I discovered feminism and I was like, Oh, my God, this is a trap! I'm being trapped. There's no prize at the end of self-sacrifice. What's [00:21:00] Chile waiting for me at the end of all of this stuff. And I love your quote. If you only love your body, when you love how you look, that is not love, that is objectification. I just love that because there are so many times where I get into that. Oh, I love myself. And it is literally when I have good skin days. 
Lindsay: Yeah, thank you for bringing up the whole prize thing. Like there's not a prize at the end when you're a doormat. Um, there's not a prize at the end of this fake beauty pageant. We're all living in either even the most traditionally stereotypically beautiful women that you'd look at and think, oh, she could have anything, anyone she's really got it all figured out those women still have eating disorders. Get cancer. Get cheated on. Don't have satisfying relationships. Um, they, you know, experience depression at the same rates as everyone else.
They self objectify sometimes even more often than people who aren't as close to the ideal, because they've been held to that standard, their whole [00:22:00] lives. And that's where their value tends to come from, so you've got to uphold that and keep working for it. It's there is not a prize for being as beautiful, as thin as you could feasibly be with the right amount of money and energy and self control and whatever we've been taught, it's really a losing game.
Like this is, it's all kind of a myth that we have collectively bought into where we see kind of a clear path toward our happiness and our, our best relationships and our confidence. And we think that that comes with getting your body under control. And it really is like Lexi said a Mirage. False promise that you can control your life and have the life that you want by controlling your body and your appearance.
It does not add up. 
Floss: And it all comes down to control with women. Doesn't it? Um, I think Naomi Wolf said something about a culture fixated on thinness is actually just about dominating and controlling women. I'm paraphrasing it right now. Um, but yeah, it was all about control and I had an eating disorder growing up and then [00:23:00] it kind of switched into something else and then perfectionism and then all of this other stuff and it was just about feeling like I had some semblance of control over how I was perceived and that I had all of this. I had that on lock. And it's. Yeah, th there's always a trade-off. 
Lexie: Yeah. Yeah. It was just you trying to cope with this world. Like there's a lot of people listening that are dealing with disordered eating that starved themselves and then binge or that do you know any number of things that is super disordered and not actually serving them. There are so many people listening that are engaging in self harm to feel some sort of control, to feel some physical pain, to get rid of the angst they feel inside of the shame they feel inside. Lindsay and I in our research what we wanted to do was not just like shine a light on the pain people. But to give them a name for it so that you can fight against it. Like this, this idea, this revolution, we feel like people need this idea of body image resilience is the ability that the ability to see your pain, to name it, to call it what it is and to [00:24:00] get mad about it. And every time it rises back up, like every time you try on a pair of jeans, that's too tight, or you get that nasty zit that, that you weren't planning on, or somebody makes a comment about your body, whatever the trigger is, we want people to be able to name that trigger, to feel it as it comes up and to say, okay, instead of coping in the ways I used to, instead of planning my next crash diet, instead of whatever procedure you need to do to get your skin under control and spending more money on products that don't work, whatever the thing is, instead, I am not going to cope in the ways that fix the outsides, but don't actually fix the problem internally, but just allow me to maybe perform a little bit better for an audience that doesn't even actually care what I look like at the end of the day.
Floss: Can you tell me more about body image resilience and why not body positivity? 
Lexie: We never saw anybody that looked like us growing up in media. And so [00:25:00] being able to see more bodies and more diverse bodies is always a good thing. And yet what we're seeing is that when you stop there, when you stop at just seeing more bodies and seeing more bodies as beautiful, you're still keeping women at bodies. At just bodies. We're still reinforcing the objectification of women as just beautiful. We worry that if you stop there, we're exacerbating the problem. We're just expanding the definition of who gets to be seen as sexually attractive and beautiful. When what we want for you is to know that you are more and that's where body image resilience comes into play.
Lindsay: We feel like body image resilienceis a good next step. It is. And it's not even a step. It's not like a plateau you get to, I think sometimes there's this, this idea that with body positivity, it's like, you decide that you're beautiful. You finally feel like you're not that gross and abnormal and you're good. The problem with that is though, and it ends up being this really temporary fix, and it keeps us actually in this same cycle, in the body image resilience model that we created during our PhD research, we [00:26:00] talk about the body image comfort zone that we all have. And unfortunately for most girls and women. It is a state of normative discontent. It is perfectly normal for us to feel crappy about our bodies most of the time. And it shouldn't be. 
Floss: Damn. That's the base level. 
Lindsay: It is yes! And we feel like that's normal. We bond with each other over it. And yeah, it's, it's ridiculous. And what Lexi and I want is for people to feel uncomfortable with their self objectification, with their body shame, instead of blaming themselves for it, it's actually a product of our environments.
It's not a natural state of being. And so when we try to cope with that shame that comes up when we're reminded about how much we fall short, it could be comments from people. It could be physical changes, illnesses, injuries, a breakup, whatever. We blame our bodies for everything in this culture. And we try to cope with those disappointments and disruptions by hiding or fixing our bodies.
Like that's generally what we do. We engage in self-harm and we make that shame even worse afterward, but [00:27:00] we also just hide and fix. And when we get to body positivity and stop there, that kind of ends up in the same category of just putting a temporary solution to the problem, this feeling of, okay, I am beautiful.
Somebody thinks I'm attractive or I've decided this for myself, but eventually we'll be triggered. And when you're triggered again, body positivity may not do it for you. It may be too much to realize that like, beauty is everything in this culture. And so what am I going to do? It gets you back to this state of normative discontent. With body image resilience we take those disruptions that come up where every time that we're triggered by self comparison, something we're seeing online, really anything that happens to us, we can first take a look around and say why is this triggering me? Is this a product of my environment and not like a deficit or a default in myself?
Is this something that, um, that somebody else wants me to feel so that I'll spend money, so that I'll, you know, buy a product or service or, or like, or follow or whatever it is and how could I respond differently? And [00:28:00] then. All about the strategies to be able to respond differently, to get back inside your body, instead of watching it and fixing it from the outside.
Floss: So, lindsay, you were saying the word normative discontent. It's like women almost view our bodies as these constant projects. That's the state, isn't it? It's like there's, you're never going to be enough. There's always something to fix. And you know, earlier, when I asked you about the different kind of states that women feel most vulnerable in, I think it's sex and summer isn't it, as well?.
Lindsay: That was good. Yeah. Sex and summer, both of those things, sex and summer are things that have been co-opted by capitalism to be things. Like, instead of them think of this. If you are prioritizing your own body as an instrument for your use and your experience and not an ornament to be admired, then sex and summer those are two of my favourite damn things in the whole world, they are two of the happiest and most fun things in life. Right. 
Floss: And yet they are the two things that make me the most anxious about my body and myself. So again, [00:29:00] talking about that, the splitting thing, that's where you split yourself. You're not really present, you're not really enjoying it.
You just kind of hovering over your body, wondering about how to sit and art to yourself so that, uh, everything hangs in the quote unquote correct way. 
Lindsay: And men don't do that.
Floss: No, no. 
I realized, uh, I was on a photo shoot couple of years ago and this attractive man walked in instantly. I sucked in my stomach and I remember I went, fuck.
I literally watched. Watching myself watching myself. I was like, I'm not even in my body right now. I, it, it was almost like, um, oh, I have this analogy that I use to talk about it. It's almost like, you know, in toy story where all the dolls that alive and they're full of life. And then when Andy walks in the room, they go stiff. 
Lindsay: Oh, yeah. 
Floss: And they don't move. That is what women become like with the male gaze.
It's like, you have to be still and lifeless and not enjoy yourself. And that is exactly how I felt in that moment. When that man stared at my body, it was like, I [00:30:00] was just drained. It's like, I'm, I'm the most joyful person. And that it was like all of a sudden back to being a doll. And it was like, whoa, 
Lexie: oh my gosh. Like what you're saying? And even going back to the sex and summer concept, which is so good and should be like a whole book chapter.
Floss: thank you. 
Lexie: It's so good. It's this idea. Think about how much has been taken from us. Like what Lindsay and I are trying to hit home with is this idea that when we live in this objectifying world and we swallow it and we make self objectification, our way of being; our lives, our happiness, our joy, our flow state, our sex, everything is taken from us so that we perform it.
So that summer to you looks like you standing or lounging or in a photo or with people looking at you summer is not splashing in the water. It's not sun, it's not all of those things. Sex for you is looking at yourself, having sex, hoping things are in the right spot. Hoping you're making the right sounds, in the right positions.
It is not for you. And when [00:31:00] we can reclaim our lives as our own by rebelling against the shit. Can have actual pleasure. We orgasm more often, we get excited for sex. We have fun with sex. We are able to have fun in the summer by not thinking about how we appear, even if it's still scary. And for me, it is like, I'm thinking about going on vacation.
I'm thinking about going to Hawaii and I'm thinking, do I need to lose some weight? Like that is an automatic, automatic thing that comes up for me. And then I sit with that for a second. And I say, nah, that never served me. Even if I do lose weight and I've lost a ton of weight. I still hated myself. I probably hated myself worse than ever, because I was thinking about my body instead of living in it, 
you know, 
Floss: when you're talking about the orgasm thing and, and you're, you're like less performative, it's so interesting to me. So I'm bisexual and I can always tell when I'm having sex with a girl, if either I'm her first or she's been with mostly men based on the performance of her when I'm going down on her, because you can tell when they're performing and [00:32:00] they're not in their bodies and then not even like writhing how they want to.
I can tell.
Lexie: What a gift for you. 
Lindsay: It's this imitation of what. I think it should sound like or whatever porn they've seen, what they think that it needs to be for the person that they're with. You know, there are these templates that exist in our culture that teach us what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it should seem like to be confident to be having a good time to be, you know, worthy of love and, and success and all of those things.
And we end up just not questioning them because they are so pervasive. And porn is one of those things that it's created, uh, you know, generations of people who think that sex looks and feels and sounds one way, and it takes away some of our creativity and it takes away some of your ability to actually stay in the moment because you're questioning whether this is what it should look like or sound like.
And I think that's really heartbreaking. Yeah. 
Lexie: I feel like it's such a gift that you can give to these women, [00:33:00] like in moments when you can yeah. To encourage them to get back in, like in a way that men who do not understand self objectification, are less prone to be able- which leads to this question we get from so many men, which is how do I help my partner feel better about her body? We answer that in a way that usually surprises them. And it's we talk about the fact that there's not enough nice stuff you can say about her body to make her feel better about her body. Like yes in intimate moments, like tell her she's beautiful tell her she's sexy. But when men focus on trying to help fix women's body image, by talking more about the parts they love. They're reinforcing the self objectification that women do.
And it doesn't work. So the best thing you can do for men is to value your partner for more. 
Floss: Do you have, I have a different list of [00:34:00] compliments or what would it be? Complimenting women when, when they're living, when the laughing and loving live laugh love!
Lindsay: Live laugh love!
Oh my gosh. That's you put it in a plaque above the bed. You're good to go. Gross. Yeah, it's complimenting women on the little things that don't change over time. If you compliment a woman on your tight little body, whatever that thing might be. And then her body changes, which it inevitably will, then you're thinking the whole time he doesn't like me because that's what he valued.
Floss: Its going to give you a complex about the part.
Lindsay: And so when you can like really value and compliment them on who they are on whatever the thing is, they do that you like anything that, isn't just those things that change that are so fleeting. When beauty makes you, it can also break you. And so what happens when she's dealing with illness, when she's super pregnant, when whatever she's on the sidelines of her life in one way or another, she's not going [00:35:00] to feel sexy because to her sexy is totally built on this idea of beauty from the outside.
Floss: I love complimenting girls, and this is also something I wanted to bring up is that I feel that acknowledge each other with compliments constantly. It's how I let women know that I'm not a threat that I don't hate them in the bathroom, in, in the club, wherever it is. My go-to is to always compliment women's choices.
Is that something that you would recommend doing or is that in the same category as their appearance. 
Lexie: No. No, no. We're, we're all about that because especially if it's somebody that you don't know. Is is the perfect ice breaker to talk about something that they've chosen to wear or a hairstyle or whatever that is.
That's like, it's a pretty non-threatening thing. Like you said, we were all about it. One thing we've been recommending for a really long time is that people, uh, try to break outside the mold of appearance compliments. And so when we're conscious of that, it allows us to be able to. It's particularly for people we already know.
It allows us to approach people thinking more about them instead of just what we're seeing on the surface in that [00:36:00] moment. And so I've become more conscious of like, what are my friends up to? What are like, what's going on at work with their families I approach with questions more often, but I'm always complementing people's, outfits in their hair. And like, if you've got a cool lipstick color or whatever, happy to put that out there.. 
Floss: Oh, God. No, that's so true. I feel so complimented when someone remembers something that I'm doing, or like, how are you excited for that podcast record? And it's just like that, that little it's like, yes, because I do things. I don't just look like things
I have some questions from my listeners that I would love to get your help on. If you could help me answer them. They're all advice, style questions. 
So I have one here that says, is it just okay to accept that I just do like male attention or is there something I need to unpack? 
Lindsay: I think when we are so hungry for other people's validation, that sometimes there's something missing in our own picture of ourselves. So this listener might be listening now and thinking, oh yeah, I've got a little bit of [00:37:00] you know, feeling defined by my body. I'm a body first and a person second. And if she does recognize that in herself, that may be one of the roots of needing that male attention. Cause like being dependent on it for your own self-worth if you're uncomfortable without it, I think that's where the issue is.
Floss: The dependency, right? Because male validation is like a drug and I quite literally had to wean myself off of it. And that requires. Uh, again, watching myself and, and like, I would take a different route home just so that this cute guy could like look at me. And then I was like, oh yeah, absolutely. And then I was like, Floss, you need to go cold Turkey babes. Like you need to need to like wean yourself off male validation and not date men for a little bit and have this like starve yourself of it to really just get into your body. As you're saying, I personally believe today. To feel desired and that that's okay. And there's nothing, sometimes there's nothing more electric than feeling desired and feeling fancied and feeling hot.
Um, but like you said, Lindsey, it's the dependency. That's where the line is, isn't it? [00:38:00] Oh yeah. Okay. Next question. Misogyny and fatphobia colon. How can I get over the idea that women shouldn't be bigger than men? 
Lindsay: I mean, maybe by enacting it in your own life. I have big thighs and a big butt. I always have. It is how I am built. I can not start myself enough to not have big thighs and a big butt. And so I was never going to find a man unless he was a full on linebacker that had bigger thighs than me? Even then that was not going to happen. Even then no! And so for me, I'm in a, an awesome relationship with my husband. He's definitely thinner than me. And you're talking about looking at your life and your body instead of living inside it. And if you are going to disregard a loving, fulfilling relationship, because you're bigger than he is, oh, you're missing out on so much. You're prioritizing an outsider's perspective on your life. Nobody [00:39:00] else is prioritizing their perspective on your life, but you. You have to do that for you. You have to look out for you. And I promise that in the living, in the doing that's where you find that you can push back on these sexist ideals. One thing Lindsay and I talk a lot about is that the only way to break yourself free from body shame and self objectification is to do the thing you're scared to do. And prove yourself wrong.
Floss: Yeah. Okay. Another question. Every time I go to clubs, I always end up thinking about which men won't me I'm being. So self-conscious that I simply can't focus on having a good time. How do I get over this? I'll just say, go to clubs to have fun. Go to clubs to dance. Um, and then usually, cause, cause you look else, you look like you're, there- 
You look thirsty 
For- like- standing around the room, like, and it's so much more attractive to go and have fun. And then people are more attracted to that. I feel, I guess, being in your body dancing. 
Lindsay: Right? I would say like, [00:40:00] what's your goal for going there? If your subconscious goal is to meet men? Of course, that's what you're going to focus. That's going to be your goal. And so you're going to measure whether or not you're having a good time by whether or not men are coming up to you. But like you said, if your goal is to have a fun time, if your goal is to, you know, dance and have a few drinks and hang out with your friends, then you can succeed at that. You can't really, you can't really succeed if you're trying to control what other people do in your life. 
Floss: Changing the expectations.
Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. 
Floss: Okay. Another question. It's nothing your body, as a feminist, different to loving your body in general? 
Lexie: It kind of goes back to our mantra. We share all the time, your body is an instrument, not an ornament. I fucking love that it is a paradigm shift and it is hard. It sounds simple. And it's really hard for people. I think that when you can love your body, not just for how it looks, not for the fleeting day to day, like you finally got to the weight you want to be, or your tan is on point or whatever the thing is. [00:41:00] If you're talking about loving your body, because you are holistically understanding that your body is the only one you get, this is little you all grown up. It is amazing what you've been through. Like if you were in loving your body for the experiences you've had for who you are for the instrument, that it is regardless of how well it works, regardless of what it looks like. I mean, that's the kind of feminist love we want for everybody. That's the kind of love that opens up your opportunities and possibilities in amazing ways.
Lindsay: The difference between like a feminist version of love. Um, the opposite of that is the commodified version where it's like, you know, companies or individuals saying love your body. And if you love your body, you'll buy this thing. You'll, you know, undergo this procedure, get this service or whatever. That's not feminism. That's capitalism and it sounds so similar that it's hard for people to kind of tease the two apart. But I think when you recognize like the motivations behind it and what it's asking you to do, then you can kind of see what what's really at the [00:42:00] root of it. Is it for you or is it for someone else?
Floss: If you've follow me on Instagram for a while, you'll know that I'm absolutely obsessed with the beauty myth. I was that girl in a smoking area, telling everyone to fucking read it, um, it absolutely changed my life. And I have been so honored to have this conversation with Lexie and Lindsay. A lot of the work that they talk about is about body image and the male gaze and encouraging women to be back in their bodies.
And this was just one of the most enriching conversations for me, just, even on a personal level, because I love talking about this stuff. I find it so fascinating how women have learned to see themselves through the eyes of another person in a way that men will never understand. And my main takeaway from this was all the language that were talking about resilience and how that term is way more empowering than to feel defeated by the things that we feel self-conscious about in our bodies. I'm definitely going to be skipping home. I feel, I feel [00:43:00] so light and energized by this conversation. Thank you so much to Lexie and Lindsay for being incredible guests today, you can follow them on Instagram @beauty_redefined, and check out their book. More Than A Body. And I want to give a massive thank you to the incredible black honey who composed the original theme music for my podcast. You can find them on Instagram @blackhoneyuk, and check out their latest album written and directed. My producer is Milly Chowles. My assistant producer is Ella McLeod. Executive producer is Carly Maille, production coordinator is Lily Hambly. And additional production from Chris Skinner and Teddy Riley. And I want to give a special thanks to all engineers, Jay Beale, Josh Gibbs, and mixing engineer, gulli Lawrence Tickell.