The Good Body
Eve Ensler
Language: English
Pages: 114
ISBN: 0812974735
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Botox, bulimia, breast implants: Eve Ensler, author of the international sensation The Vagina Monologues, is back, this time to rock our view of what it means to have a “good body.” “In the 1950s,” Eve writes, girls were “pretty, perky. They had a blond Clairol wave in their hair. They wore girdles and waist-pinchers. . . . In recent years good girls join the army. They climb the corporate ladder. They go to the gym. . . . They wear painful pointy shoes. They don’t eat too much. They . . . don’t eat at all. They stay perfect. They stay thin. I could never be good.”
The Good Body starts with Eve’s tortured relationship with her own “post-forties” stomach and her skirmishes with everything from Ab Rollers to fad diets and fascistic trainers in an attempt get the “flabby badness” out. As Eve hungrily seeks self-acceptance, she is joined by the voices of women from L.A. to Kabul, whose obsessions are also laid bare: A young Latina candidly critiques her humiliating “spread,” a stubborn layer of fat that she calls “a second pair of thighs.” The wife of a plastic surgeon recounts being systematically reconstructed–inch by inch–by her “perfectionist” husband. An aging magazine executive, still haunted by her mother’s long-ago criticism, describes her desperate pursuit of youth as she relentlessly does sit-ups.
Along the way, Eve also introduces us to women who have found a hard-won peace with their bodies: an African mother who celebrates each individual body as signs of nature’s diversity; an Indian woman who transcends “treadmill mania” and delights in her plump cheeks and curves; and a veiled Afghani woman who is willing to risk imprisonment for a taste of ice cream. These are just a few of the inspiring stories woven through Eve’s global journey from obsession to enlightenment. Ultimately, these monologues become a personal wake-up call from Eve to love the “good bodies” we inhabit.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Rossellini, the Seattle Repertory Theatre, Rade Serbedzija, Barry Silver, David Stone, Susan Swan, Lenka Udovicki, Ulysses Theatre Company, David Van Tieghem, Laura Wagner, Katherine Wessling, Marion Woodman. I would like to thank the women whose bodies I love and whose stories I hold, from Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Bosnia, 94 SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Croatia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Kenya, the Bahamas, South Africa,
blond Clairol wave in their hair. They wore girdles and waist cinchers and pumps. They got married. They looked married. They waited to be given permission. They kept their legs together, even during sex. In recent years, good girls join the Army. They climb the corporate ladder. They go to the gym. They accessorize. They wear pointy, painful shoes. They wear lipstick if they’re lesbians; they wear lipstick if they’re not. They don’t eat too much. They don’t eat at all. They stay perfect. They
Just ’cause I’m fat doesn’t mean I’m 20 EVE ENSLER blind. “Excuse me, are you going to eat that? ’Cause if not, can you give it to me? Oh . . . She’s saving it for later.” Skinny bitches never have to beg, they never have to work at anything. They’re skinny. Fat girls do everything double. We have to be funny. Fat girls give the best head. Don’t we, Eve? We work harder to keep our men. Fat girls always swallow. You know, Eve, last night, after the counselors went to sleep, some of us fat
really know him. There were corrective red marks all over my body like the kind you got on your spelling mistakes in seventh grade. I was still groggy, but Ham’s enthusiasm got through. “Your body is a map,” he said. “These red marks are designated beauty capi- 36 EVE ENSLER tals that need renovation and work.” That was six years ago and today I am a Ham creation. I’ve had lipo on my stomach, butt, and thighs. He’s gone back in with each at least three times to get it right, well, four, he
45 If America is the nuclear reactor pumping out the perfected standardized female image, Hollywood’s the core. I crave a meltdown. In my rental car, I punch in the address for the laser rejuvenation center in my handy Never Lost system and I end up in a vulva support group by mistake. Try as I might, I cannot get away from vaginas. I performed The Vagina Monologues for six years. I said the word “vagina” “vagina” “vagina” “vagina” nearly a million times, I 46 thought I was home free. I had