How One Viral Facebook Post Is Changing the Bikini Body Conversation

Summer Fridays have arrived, inviting you to take the plunge into the season’s best pools, lakes, rivers, and oceans, leaving one question remaining: Are you beach body–ready? If 2016 is any indication, of course you are. From London tubes to Facebook feeds, the world is swiftly taking back the reins on what defines beauty. Just this morning, a photograph that a 21-year-old college student shared of herself in a bathing suit on Facebook went viral, not because of what she looked like, but because of what she had to say about the hurdles it took to slip into what was revealed as her very first bikini.

“I kept my body covered up and hidden away. I told myself that one day I would finally let myself be seen; I would finally do all of the things I dreamed of when I was enough. Thin enough, happy enough, confident enough. When my body looked the way that it was ‘supposed’ to,” wrote Houston-based Lesley Miller. And 38,000 likes, 2,100 shares, and 3,400 overwhelmingly positive comments later, the world corroborated what it took Miller two decades to discover about herself. “I want to learn to love all of myself, not just the parts I’ve been told are ‘acceptable.’ Because the secret is, I was always enough. And you are too.”

Miller isn’t alone. In fact, she represents a growing number of private citizens who are finally being met with a public voice around the issue, including, as of Monday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan. In reaction to several hundred complaints surrounding an ad in the London subway system—which featured a young woman in a bikini with a Victoria’s Secret–worthy waistline to promote a weight loss pill called Protein World—Khan has pledged to ban advertisements promoting “unhealthy or unrealistic” body images. “As a father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising, which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. It is high time it came to an end.”

Closer to home, Hollywood is taking a stand of its own, with a new generation of women, from Amy Schumer to Daisy Ridley, tackling the subject in candid interviews and Instagram responses. And it’s not just the conversation that’s changing. The bodies representing ideals are shifting, too. Beth Ditto walked in one of the season’s most sought-after Spring 2016 runways, Marc Jacobs. Beyoncé accepted the CFDA Icon award at the beginning of the month by reminding the fashion community and designers, “We have the opportunity to contribute to a society where any girl can look at a billboard or magazine cover and see her own reflection. Soul has no color, no shape, no form. Just like all of your work, it goes far beyond what the eye can see. You have the power to change perception, to inspire and empower, and to show people how to embrace their complications, and see the flaws, and the true beauty and strength that’s inside all of us.” Not even Barbie is willing to conform to a single definition of beauty anymore, arriving in a range of body types from petite to tall.

So this season, if you’re wondering if you’re bikini body–ready, heed the words of this year’s boundary-breaking Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model, Ashley Graham: “Every body is beach body–ready!” Who wants to go swimming?

 

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